TOPEKA — The guy who sits about 10 rows up and five seats in is a world champion.
He has no throne. He has no V.I.P. section or suite to retreat to whenever he so pleases. And no, he has no cup holder.
Seriously, the guy is a world champion and he’s got to put his drink on the filthy floor of the Landon Arena in the Kansas Expocentre. You know, just like the rest of us average folks.
Actually, to be more precise, the guy is a 19-time world champion. Had this been Derek Jeter — simply a five-time world champion, mind you — there would have been an intern whose sole purpose would have been to fan him with a palm leaf and chew his food as to not exhaust his fragile jaw with such frivolous activity.
But alas, it was just Alan Francis: The horseshoe pitcher.
This may be difficult to believe, but there’s not a lot of fame that accompanies tossing a piece metal 40 feet to another piece of metal — even when you’re so ridiculously good that you win the World Horseshoe Tournament 19 times in 34 tries.
Yeah, he’s been on Sportscenter (once) and he’s even been featured in The New York Times (also once), but for the majority of his life, Alan Francis is just that guy that sits 10 rows up and five seats in.
A face in the crowd. A body in the seats.
And if that’s true about one of the most dominant competitors in the game, then it’s certainly true about the rest of the 1,403 pitchers in Topeka. They’re not vying for fame or fortune.
The grand prize for the tournament is only a few thousand dollars.
Everyone at the competition is employed, retired or still in school. No one, not even Alan Francis, can afford to toss horseshoes for a living.
So instead, they play for pride. Well, the money isn’t a bad incentive either if you want to be perfectly honest. But, you know, it’s the pride mostly.
Kids have the chance to be crowned best in the world before they reach the second grade. Adults bring home their first trophies to put on the mantle since they were children themselves. And the elderly, who make up the vast majority of the event’s attendees, can write their names along the likes of Frank Jackson.
The name doesn’t mean much to those outside of the sport, and even those in the community know he’s real old school.
Jackson became the first World Horseshoe Tournament champion when he won the event in Bronson, Kansas, back in 1909. His reward was a whole $2.50.
After 106 years, it would make sense for the name Frank Jackson to fade away. But it hasn’t.
Dave Mathewson has made sure of it.
“I was able to locate seven of his living relatives,” said Mathewson, the Iola representative on the 2015 World Horseshoe Tournament steering committee.
The 78-year-old has competed in five of the world tournaments, but it’s this fact that makes him proud. He tracked down the Jackson family line and helped keep horseshoe’s history alive for that much longer.
He and Bob Dunn, the historian of the National Horseshoe Pitching Association, have worked over the years to gather information about the sport’s origin.
A wall just inside the Expocentre’s entrance is littered with horseshoes of yesteryear. There was at least a hundred, but Dunn has 1,500 more at home.
“Well, some are in my daughter’s garage,” Dunn said. “Most are stacked to the ceiling in my own garage.”
Mathewson takes me on a tour of the wall, explaining why a specific Frank Crum model was so rare and why hookless shoes are referred to as “picnic shoes.”
He’s read all of Dunn’s books (there are multiple) on horseshoe pitching’s history and gets a gleam in his eye when that information becomes valuable. Whether it was expanding his self-proclaimed “minor” collection of 177 pairs of horseshoes or making friends with horseshoe fans from across the country, Mathewson loved utilizing his friendship with Dunn to grow his own knowledge of the game.
He still does, but the meetups aren’t as often as they used to be.
“At one time, Bob had it organized to where we would exchange correspondents and exchange horseshoes,” Mathewson said. “Like he would have ‘shoe A’ and I don’t have a ‘shoe A.’ And then those guys either become disinterested or, in most cases, pass away.
“That’s what is the heartbreaker, you know? You lose your friends.”
You don’t see that problem in basketball. You don’t see it in football either, or baseball for that matter. Or hockey, or soccer, or tennis.
The average age of world competitors in each of those sports lie around the 20-30 range. For horseshoe pitching, it’s more like 60-70.
So when Mathewson has the chance to spread his knowledge of the game to the younger generations, he doesn’t miss it.
“What really makes me feel good is I’ll be doing something and a kid will hang out of his car window and say, ‘Mr. Dave! Hi!’” Mathewson said.
“That’s what is great.”
Winning isn’t bad either. And in his Elder’s G2 class, Mathewson dominated, finishing the tournament 14-1.
In the slow-paced, relaxed game that is horseshoe pitching, he’s able to give his wife, Beth, a look after each round of tosses. Sometimes he’ll shrug his shoulders when the shoe bounces off the stake. Or sometimes he’ll give a crooked smile and flash a quick thumbs up when he’s got the lead.
Beth does the same from her electric scooter on the sideline.
It’s been about 70 years since Mathewson was introduced to the game by his father, a former track layer for the railroad company in central New York.
“They’d put stakes in the ground and pitch horseshoes during the idle time when there was nothing to do,” Mathewson said. “Then he would come home and one of the things I’d really liked the most about it was he would take the time to pitch horseshoes with me. And that’s special.”
So 13 years ago when he and Beth went to the Riverside Fair, and idea which was not his on the fact that he hates fairs, he was all too familiar with the sound that rang throughout the park.
Clink.
Clank.
Mathewson walked toward the pits and remembered when he’d bury his father’s horseshoes in the backyard, driving him crazy after a long day at the tracks.
He remembered when he competed in the “Beat the First Sergeant” horseshoe tournament while he was in the Air Force. He was the First Sergeant.
He remembered when he’d take his wife and his faithful dog of 10 years, Casper, to competition after competition.
Clink.
Clank.
Another year, ringing in the memories.
Horseshoe heaven
