The Intentional Disc Golfer
Unleash your disc golf potential with The Intentional Disc Golfer podcast! Join us as we dive deep into the physical and mental aspects of this incredible sport, helping you become the player you've always dreamed of being. We're here to elevate your game, share expert insights, and inspire intentional growth on and off the course. Support our mission by becoming a part of our avid listener community. Together, let's take your disc golf journey to new heights! Email us at theintentionaldiscgolfer@gmail.com to support or be featured on our show. Let's tee off towards greatness!
The Intentional Disc Golfer
Connecting Cultures: The Heart of Disc Golf in Tanzania
In this engaging episode of the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, we hear from Ryan Skaife, who shares an inspiring journey from Wisconsin to Tanzania, where he is using disc golf to create social change. As he discusses his mission to introduce the sport to Tanzania, Ryan details the deep connections he has developed with the community and how disc golf can serve not only as a recreational activity but also as an economic driver for sustainable agriculture and community building.
Through heartfelt anecdotes, Ryan illustrates the power of sport in fostering relationships, promoting inclusivity, and addressing pressing issues, particularly food security. He discusses plans for establishing disc golf courses in several regions, emphasizing the cultural significance of these efforts in uniting people from different backgrounds and facilitating learning opportunities.
Listeners will gain insight into how they can support this initiative, whether by participating in training programs, engaging in cultural exchanges, or simply spreading the word about this transformative journey. Disc golf has consistently proven to be more than just a game; it is a vehicle for connection, empowerment, and healing. Dive into this uplifting conversation, and discover how you can be part of a global movement that spans continents, inspires communities, and transforms lives. Join us in taking the first steps toward a brighter future for disc golf in Tanzania and beyond. Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help amplify this important message!
Disc Golf Changes Lives <3
To support this podcast or arrange for an interview please contact us at theintentionaldiscgolfer@gmail.com
Welcome to the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, the show dedicated to helping you elevate your disc golf game with purpose and strategy. Whether you're stepping up to the tee for the first time or you're a seasoned pro chasing that perfect round, this podcast is your guide to playing smarter, training better and building confidence on the course. We are, brandon and Jenny Saprinsky, passionate disc golfers, here to explore everything from technique, course management, mental focus and gear selection. Grab your favorite disc, settle in and let's take your game to the next level. Intentionally.
Speaker 3:Intentionally. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you for tuning in to this episode, this very special episode Of the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast. I am one of your intentional disc golfers. My name is Brandon.
Speaker 1:And I'm Jenny Alright. We would like to thank our fans who have been sticking by our side, listening to our podcast, joining our groups and watching us on social media. So you can find us on facebook and instagram at saprinsky disc golf. You can find us on x we now have a tiktok which I said I would never have a tiktok and I'm doing it because of the podcast and a YouTube. At the IDG Podcast you can join our Facebook group, the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, where you will get exclusive insight to some of the things that we're doing here behind the scenes of the podcast.
Speaker 3:And you can chat directly with us and also with other members of the group. So that's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1:You can text us from our website. Send us some fan mail. We've gotten some nice fan mail over the years. Our email address is theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom. We have a Patreon that currently has a couple of articles on it that you could join. It's patreoncom backslash theintentionaldiscgolfer. We have a couple of articles up there.
Speaker 1:We're working on a book so you can get early access to some of the articles we're working on, and Brandon tells me that we have a blooper reel at the end of the episode. You can stick around for it. I still haven't listened to it. I'm not sure if that's a good thing for me or not, but that's where we are, and I would also like to take a moment and thank our sponsors. So Brandon and I are both sponsored by Treasures of the Forest. They make absolutely beautiful minis. You can find them at treasuresoftheforestcom. You can find them at treasuresoftheforestcom, you can also find them on Facebook and I also believe they are on Instagram as well, and I am also sponsored by Salty Unicorns Apparel. So check them out and grab some really cool gear for this year.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I like Salty Unicorns stuff. My only regret is that I didn't fill out the application. I don't know if they're still open, but yes, two great new sponsors to Saprinsky Disc Golf and the IDG podcast. Oh, the Intentional Disc Golfer podcast. She doesn't like the IDG.
Speaker 1:I grew up in education where there's alphabet soup. I don't like things being initialized. I don't even know what that's called initialized.
Speaker 3:Yeah, down to the initial I'd like to give a real quick shout out to uh scott stokely for joining us on our last episode. That man is just an absolute sweetheart. We had a great time with him and he was super gracious and nice to us. We had a little bit of technical difficulty, uh, getting getting a good signal with him and he was super gracious and nice to us. We had a little bit of technical difficulty getting a good signal with him and he stuck with us through it. And you know he, jenny, he's the kind of nice that makes me feel guilty, because he's way nicer than I am.
Speaker 1:So community calendar.
Speaker 3:Community calendar. Jenny, take it away.
Speaker 1:Let's recap. We just went and did the evacuation route over at Quit it Over at Riverside in Sumner. We played it Friday, since I happened to not have work. That was our first time playing it, first time having a tournament there. I think we both did all right. I was only one of two women playing. The other was Christineine houstis always a pleasure to see you out on the course and uh, I, there was a ctp throw off for a basket. What brand is it? It's yellow, it's a innova disc catcher. Yeah, so I wasn't gonna throw and and Brennan's like, come throw, come throw, throw your F9. And I almost aced it and I won the basket. Yay, yay for me. Yay, those chains sound cheesy, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:They sound chintzy. They're not my favorite. Ok Well, how about this? Yes, my squirrel. Not my favorite. Okay Well, how about this? Yes, my squirrels. Yes. And a quick shout out to Josh Larson, playing the evacuation route with us, and he's our team captain for Team Grit City. Still undefeated, correct? Yeah, but we're number two. We're number two just because of points. But we're still undefeated, so that's still an accomplishment, I think.
Speaker 1:I don't know All right. So what do we have coming up? We have Team Golf at White River on the 23rd and then I was forced to sign up for Shiver at the River on the 2nd of March, also at White River, mm-hmm. So Washington Team Golf event six will be at Delphi on March 8th and 9th. There is the first of the evergreen women's series tournaments fierce flight showdown. You can still sign up. We're trying to get over 40. You can sign up until March 13th. We have 36 women currently signed up. If you haven't been to one of the events and you're thinking about it, this is one to go to. It's a very beginner-friendly course and it should be a lot of fun. Brandon will be doing the West Sound Invitational at Fairgrounds.
Speaker 3:NAD Park. Is it at Fairgrounds? Fairgrounds, it is at Fairgrounds.
Speaker 1:Fairgrounds on march 15th kitsap county fairgrounds I got my tag. Happy to get my tag before you. And then we have a team golf again on march 16th over in shelton we are signed up for the fourth annual christopher reeves memorial and fundraiser for autism speaks on march 22nd in South Tacoma.
Speaker 3:So that's Dilly.
Speaker 1:And then we have the Team Golf Championships on March 30th.
Speaker 3:And Jenny. We also have a couple tournaments coming up that we're hosting. They are brought to you by the Intentional Disc Golfer. One is an Evergreen Women's Series and one is just a follow-up tournament, so the guys have a chance to play while they're in town. Uh, why don't we talk about those for a second?
Speaker 1:so we have our third annual sirens of the springs over there at shelton, washington. Um, this is my third year running the tournament. We have some things that are going to be a little different with the way that we're having people register, uh that the series decided to drop registration fees to somewhere into the $25, $30 range in order to get more people to play, and then you have the players pack. Items are optional on top of it, so that's going to be a lot of fun. It's kicking off right before Cascade Challenge starts over there at Shelton.
Speaker 3:The Disc Golf Pro Tour. It's the weekend immediately before, so yeah it is no, it's not. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:It's not. Yes, it is it's two weekends before.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, anyway.
Speaker 1:So it's, the qualifier happens yeah, and then, yeah, it's two weekends away, and then Tritons of the Timbers will be that Sunday begins away, and then, uh, tritons of the timbers will be that sunday. Um, trying something out, trying to increase the evergreen women's series and also honor our men that are out there in the field, give them an opportunity while they're around to play as well, and it also gives the women you know, if they're traveling, you can stay for a second day and play a whole second tournament men, go out there, support your ladies, your girlfriends, your, your wives, your significant others, partners, etc.
Speaker 3:Etc. Go out there and support your ladies for the Sirens of the Springs at Shelton Springs and then come the next day for the Tritons of the Timbers and show your prowess at the Shelton Springs Disc Golf Course, where the Disc golf pro tour will be playing in short order right after the tournament. So exciting things, exciting things, and we are. We are bending our brains to bring you some really awesome players packs and some nifty little goodies for that one. So uh, for both of them actually. So, uh, hope y'all can make it. And, uh, if you're out there somewhere in listener land across the country, maybe, if you're out in the area, sign up, come to our tournament, come meet us. We'd love to have you.
Speaker 1:And if you are a traveling pro and you'd like an opportunity to play some of Shelton Springs before Cascade or before the Monday qualifier, we'd love to have you at the tournaments.
Speaker 3:Absolutely All right. So, Jenny, we have a very special guest.
Speaker 1:You say that every time.
Speaker 3:Well, all our guests are pretty special. I mean, would we have people on here if they weren't special?
Speaker 1:That's our job yeah, but the thing is is that you don't need to say this, one's special oh, that's a very special guest oh yeah, very special.
Speaker 3:So every once in a while we like to do these human interest pieces where disc golfers make a difference so we just recently started our intentional disc golfer podcast group and one of our fans reached out.
Speaker 1:Reached out to us and said hey, I love what you guys are doing, I've got the story for you, and so in talking with him a little bit, we have Ryan, who will be coming on our show, and he was sharing with us that he had just received the certificate of registration for the Tanzania Disc Golf Federation. So I'm excited to hear what he has to say and explain to us. You know what's going on with disc golf in Tanzania, why he loves Tanzania, who he is and where disc golf is going.
Speaker 3:Disc golf changes lives.
Speaker 1:And that's what this episode is all about. All right, let's talk about a brand that's bringing some serious fun and personality to disc golf Salty Unicorns Apparel. That's right, salty Unicorns Apparel. They started because disc golf fashion was seriously lacking in style, especially for women. What began as a simple search for better apparel turned into something bigger, and in just a few weeks they were outfitting own Scoggins, and now they've got Jessica Oleski, lucas Carmichael and Trinity Bryant rocking their gear too. Salty Unicorns is different because they actually prioritize women's apparel, something most brands don't. And they're not stopping there. Pretty soon, they're launching their own Salty Unicorn bag, bringing that same energy and creativity to the gear you carry. So if you want to stand out on the course and support a brand that's shaking things up, check out Salty Unicorns apparel, because disc golf should be fun, and so should what you wear. Find them online, follow them on social media and bring some color to your game. Use the code salty 10 for a 10 discount.
Speaker 1:Big news disc golf fans, treasures of the Forest just dropped something special their Mile Marker 63 Minis. These unique pieces were crafted from materials collected with the help of Simon Lizotte straight from the course he designed. That means you're not just getting a mini. You're holding a piece of Disc Golf history and guess what? They're hitting the road. The Treasures of the Forest tour starts this week. You can find them at a Florida event or the next month at a Texas event. Stop by, say hi, grab your mile marker 63 mini before they're gone. Check them out at treasurersoftheforestcom.
Speaker 3:On this episode of the Intentional Disc Golfer. What does Wisconsin and Tanzania have in common? Well, this next guest will tell you all about it. Sir, do you mind introducing yourself and telling our listeners about who you are?
Speaker 2:Hey Disc Golf World. Thanks for tuning in to the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast. My name is Ryan Scaife and I'm really excited to be here to talk about disc golf and Tanzania and being able to take the sport into a country of 68 million people. I've been working there 22 years doing community development projects and disc golf is going to be one of the most amazing connecting cultural things we can do. I'm from Wisconsin originally.
Speaker 2:I live in Oregon now, but for 18 years I had begun working in Tanzania. I had discovered a huge farm project in the middle of literally the Lion King and I'd been a TV photojournalist for the news and covered so many stories around our country and just got to be so negative. And I was fortunate to sail around the world on a ship and be in Tanzania for six days on safari and the greatest story of my life was right there, presented to me a huge farm project that would feed 200,000 people in the first harvest and it was already built, was already built. So, as a photojournalist, um, I realized right then and there I had something that I couldn't come back to the us and continue to cover the negativity, the murders, all the things you see on the news when I had this story and the difference and opportunity we had to make and I was asked for help.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of how all of the Tanzania helping community building thing began in 2003. And since then being able to do many things from Wisconsin of creating an international sister city relationship to getting a Milwaukee fire engine donated and sent all the way to that sister city, taking college students to go build a school and plant trees that now gives shade to 400 secondary school students Just things that we really need to get back to doing. And by helping and serving others it's the greatest joy there is. And so when you can connect that with disc golf and that idea kind of popped in my head three years ago it was a no-brainer. And now we're poised to bring in the newest national sport into the country of tanzania 68 million people that's amazing.
Speaker 3:So you said that you ended up in tanzania and through going through the background research, it was from this study over the ocean program, or what was that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, it's called semester at sea semester and if anyone's out, yeah, if anyone out there is listening.
Speaker 3:I was what was that called? Yeah, it's called.
Speaker 2:Semester at Sea. Semester at Sea If anyone out there is listening. I was fortunate to do this as a 29, almost 30-year-old and sail the world because I had experience, had only heard about it and had the opportunity to apply for the spring semester, january to May 2003, and at the time the University of Pittsburgh had run the program. Colorado State runs it now. It's been going for 60 years and it is study abroad where students from all over the us 700 students and faculty and staff get on board a ship for one academic semester credit to sail the world twice a year are we?
Speaker 3:are we talking like a sailboat? We talking like a sailboat? Are we talking like a cruise ship? Describe the ship to us.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is a big ship, so what we were on and they retired it. We were the last voyage, amazing the Universe Explorer. That ship had taken like 40,000, 50,000 people around the world. It had been built originally for the korean war, never sailed in it, bought by a chinese educator, partnered with with the institute for shipboard education here and created semester at sea. So it's a program that that takes students, faculty people around the world and we went to 11 countries in 110 days, from Miami to Seattle and in those six days is what changed my life that's just amazing what, what other countries?
Speaker 1:did you go to on that trip?
Speaker 2:so for semester at sea, um, we were lucky that year and it was also just like the experiences. This is a year and a half after 9-11, right and just. We started in Miami and as staff I was fortunate that I was paid to seal the world dream. Right, I just proposed to my wife, my fiance, my fiance and she also got the job. But we didn't just get jobs. Three months later on the ship, I was the media director, she was the it director. They had two positions left on the ship was all when I called, right after I proposed and you can't make this story up.
Speaker 2:As a journalist covering and telling so many stories, I swear I've lived the greatest. And it doesn't come without full loss of everything either. We'll get to that down the road, but this trip it's all part of the story. And so we literally got to live the fairy tale of sailing the world, having a staff, work with us, um and and students, and then every country you get to stop and go explore for four to six days. Everyone gets back on the ship and then classes resume, you sail to the next port. So we began in Miami, we went to my Bahamas, the students all got on there. And then we went to Cuba and I have an hour's worth of Fidel Castro speaking to us on video and I shut the camera off after one hour and he kept talking for two, talking for two Havana amazing, amazing, but he really was crazy, talking Martians and how the US and Cuba are friends.
Speaker 2:I mean it was nuts, but still the experience. And then we got to Havana, stepping into literally the scene of Happy Days.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, oh yeah, because they have all those old cars. I love seeing footage from Cuba, because it's all those old cars that they just don't build anymore, and they're beautiful. You're right, guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're in great shape. They keep them running. It was because of the embargo back in the day and so that's what they had. They had to keep them running. Well, we, those were. We took one of those old happy days cars and I grew up watching that show um, literally out of my state too, and we took that to Fidel Castro where he spoke to 600 of us from the ship and he brought in all the pomp and circumstance and you know all that stuff, but it's still an amazing experience.
Speaker 3:Study travel Uh wow. And you know all that stuff, but it's still an amazing experience. Study travel uh wow. So then you made it over to tanzania, and that that seemed to be what sparked your inspiration right and before we even got there we had, um, you know, we gone from cuba.
Speaker 2:Then we went down to Brazil for five days Amazing. And then across the Atlantic to South Africa. And there's my first experience with Africa, where, you know, media fear things. I didn't know what to expect. And South Africa, just amazing, with Robben Island and getting to go where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner, literally right there from his homeland three-minute boat ride. It's just amazing what that experience does to you. And you know I was desensitized in the news and this brought me right back to real life, for sure.
Speaker 2:And then from there we sailed up to Tanzania. And then from there we sailed up to Tanzania and we got off the ship and met this couple who happened to own a safari camp in a city of 6 million people and we were looking to go on independent safari. And the next day 13 of us from the ship, a few faculty staff students, flew 40 minutes out to the bush. Could be a two-day drive, because there's no roads and in the rainy season it's all clay, so you get stuck. It could be a two-day drive. We flew 40 minutes out to the largest game reserve in the world with the fewest visitors. We landed on a dirt strip visitors. We landed on a dirt strip and we were the only guests at the only five-star non-tented which means its own cabins lodge called Tembo Safari Camp.
Speaker 2:Wow, and the couple who own our camp, eric and Karen Winson he's a Rhodesian, zimbabwe now, and his wife, karen, was from Austin, texas, and they were the most amazing people I'd ever met in the most amazing place.
Speaker 2:I had my camera, like a journalist does. I had my camera like a journalist does and I was rolling because this was the most amazing person with the most amazing story I'd ever met in my life. And then talking about their projects around the country and the jewel, why they were doing what they were doing. They had a huge farm project that was already built, started in the 1950s by the Koreans to grow rice. All peaceful, tanzania was socialist back then and Russia wanted some rice acre farm complex out in the bush, in the breadbasket of the country, where there's really no roads or electricity for a hundred miles, and they built this over the course of time from the 50s and then in the 80s, when the soviet union fell, they quit funding it and it was just basically left out there and forgotten and over 100 pieces of farm equipment. Tractors, backhoes, bulldozers existed and just sat there.
Speaker 2:No one knew how to use them and probably the infrastructure too, like the irrigation and the waterways and the piping and everything else right yeah, what they had done over the course of 50 years on this land, because it's it's mountains that drop down and flatten out like a table and their plan they put in a mini hydropower plant so it gave electricity to there and the villages around and there was no electricity around. So this was going to be the start of something really big and then it just all got abandoned. But they built 30 houses, a wood shop, welding machine shop, a three-story office building and then it just sat there for like 40 years. Wow, parts you know stripped and everything.
Speaker 2:And then Eric and Karen this couple as a journalist right, listen, learn, keep asking. They tell us the story of how they'd come into the country a couple years earlier and Eric, being an African, just his amazing story of being in the Royal Rhodesian Air Force and his whole life story of loss. And when Mugabe came into Rhodesia and sent all the Brits out and he was third generation, they lost everything. He was a story of resiliency, of hope and I just wow, amazing.
Speaker 3:Why don't you say that name again real loud for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Eric Winson. He's the angel pushing this from above, for sure. He, uh he and karen both of them now um. After seven years of working with them, they passed away and I was able to take what I learned from them and see even bigger picture and connections to the whole region and the this region of tanzania. They have 24 regions and tanzania is 10 times the size of oregon. That's just for some perspective. There's 68 million people in the country they've been importing, continuing to 70 of their food, and the one region where this farm project was where I learned it all and what I've put everything on, because I'm from wisconsin, the breadbasket of our country, and if we couldn't feed ourselves we would not be where we were.
Speaker 3:So so you said they're importing.
Speaker 2:They're importing 70 of their food supply yeah that is not sustainable and the one region, the one region I work in and have staked it all. What I saw, what eric and karen saw, what I learned, what I know, is that if you can't feed yourself, you you know that's just not right. So, um, you know, you have the richest, some of the richest top soil and land in the world and the poverty of the people. It'll break your heart. And I couldn't. I couldn't do that, I said not on my watch while I'm here. This is my thing, and so disc golf, even coming back to that is, is going right back to that purpose and we get to do it, and we have now 22 years of trust from farmer to president built, and I'm super excited to now invite the disc golf world to come and experience africa without the fear, without the stereotype, and get to do teach, train and see amazing people things that it's time to time to change that yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:Uh, it sounds like a really amazing opportunity that you had. And you know, my background is as a teacher too, and I remember if I could go on a field trip with kids I would, just because you get to see kids in a completely different light than you would say, you know, in your classroom. So being able to get on a boat and go for a whole semester with a group of kids, I can just imagine how powerful that was.
Speaker 2:It was, and it was at a time where I just I needed to get out of my profession and you know I was. There was nowhere else to go with that, other than you know that things are now getting better for news and any. Then you know you get to go around the world and I found, I discovered that my profession lies to all of us. And now, if that isn't going to change some things in your life? So I mean literally I took a stand on every single thing you could in life with this project. I I saw people starving in one of the richest valleys of the world for growing crops. No way I'm going to learn and know what it takes to change that. So I did and we're doing it.
Speaker 1:You got to change the narrative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and as a journalist I've covered and filmed it all and documented everything I've done.
Speaker 3:It sounds like, through mainstream media, traditional media over here in the States, that you kind of hit this dead end where it's just a lot of fear mongering and things, because that's what sells ads and media is there to serve their stakeholders. And then you're looking and what I'm catching from you is that you are looking for a real way to make a difference and use your skills and your talents to make a difference in the world, rather than just reporting. You know the kidnapper downtown or the? You know Tiger Woods winning another championship.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 3:So you grabbed your camera and found it in Tanzania. Tell us all about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wasn't expecting that there I had already worked for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and been to the islands where you know poverty. You see it everywhere and it hurts and there's so much it's like where do you even start? But Tanzania, it was in my face Like boom, you start here. You start in a country that's full of hope, that is a big garden, like you grew up in your grandma's yard. The love is there, like your grandma, unconditional, and you can communicate, and I mean so many similarities if you get down to it. And I'm just, I said that it was something where I couldn't not think about.
Speaker 3:And boy, I hear what you're saying, that the people of Tanzania, they have the drive and they have the motivation and they have the area and things, but just maybe not have the knowledge to be able to advance. They just need the resources.
Speaker 2:Exactly what it is is. It's been the east and west historically taking out of africa and not leaving anything for the people, um, and this was an opportunity to do something different. So I'm so proud. I mean, my family is tanzania, it's home, um, they're the really in all of this. They're, they've backed me every single step of the way and they sure didn't have to, especially based on history of the white man in africa. So, you know, it's just an opportunity to raise their livelihoods and believe in them and and they believe in me as well, and it's just. We need to get over that fear and someone had to make the difference and take the stand. And I don't know, it just felt right. I mean, that's the rest of my life is being able to take people to see the animals and you know that's kind of the hook is safari. But in the end, what I know, tanzania takes care of itself and that's the smallest thing people bring back. So I just wanted to make it sustainable and with disc golf we can.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of disc golf, so you had this amazing event in Tanzania. You said back in the 90s, right or early 2000s.
Speaker 3:Early 2000s.
Speaker 1:Early 2000s.
Speaker 2:With disc golf.
Speaker 1:Well, no, you had your experience over there in Tanzania. What's happened between then and now. Let's give us a quick synopsis. I know you've done a lot.
Speaker 2:Sure, real quickly is. I didn't have kids. That was also the big, big opportunity there is. I had experience and I was kind of, you know, I'd made my way up from the small TV markets to the big TV markets and kind of wore my way out of that. I didn't want to stay in it.
Speaker 3:And this is circa 2003, 2004? 2003. 2003.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I had already covered the Green Bay Packers 93 to 96 while I was in college, for CBS to the Super Bowl and the Badgers to the Rose Bowl. So again, my timing in all of this and it's a timing thing and realizing it right In hindsight, I'm thankful I had the foresight. So 03, have the experience in TV, I see all the world. I don't have kids. I take on this project and I make it my first child and I get back to Wisconsin immediately, get in touch with this couple and get back to Wisconsin immediately, get in touch with this couple and we develop a relationship every day, talking from Africa or back here in Texas where Karen was from Eric was getting sick.
Speaker 2:I became them and began then going to Tanzania. I took an ethanol company from Wisconsin to look at building an ethanol trip company there, which is energy and power one of the needs there in the country. And then I took college students to go and see and experience and make a difference by just simple things. We began the international sister city relationship to create a formal tie to everything I was doing and the nonprofit I had created Hope in Tanzania Foundation, because the hope is in the country and it needs to be realized. So that's where all that came from. And then, five years into it, and having already met Tanzania's president and all of parliament and really created this real solid connection, I realized, okay, I'm 35 years old and if we're gonna have children, time is now. So had my daughter and I had already gone back and forth to tanzania, so much that now I was able to just host them.
Speaker 2:As my daughter was born, I was was working for ESPN International, as you had said, and covering Tiger Woods and all the majors for ball golf, and that allowed me enough to be able to support and fund my own work for Tanzania. And then, when my daughter came, I became stay-at-home dad, because that's the most important thing, and I was able to continue my tanzania work, uh, but I had to host tanzanians in the us then, and so I was able to host ambassadors and other groups as I raised my kids and and, um, yeah, I, I got to to really involve them and teach them and take, take and show video and other like Tanzania cultural stuff into their classes and and teach. So you know, in the end of raising my kids with this, the greatest thing I've probably ever done is is be able able to my kids have no fear of africa, and I did for 30 years. My kids know it, so in the end, that's probably the greatest thing it's like their second home yeah, they've never been there um.
Speaker 2:They're 16 and 14. No, um 16 and 14. Oh, trust me, it's a long flight. I know my, my kids, I raised them. I was not going to take them that far, unless they were old enough to appreciate it.
Speaker 2:with them maybe a couple years delayed after divorce and you know that's. That's stuff that has recently happened and where disc golf and being able to get that going in tanzania these past three years since the pandemic and divorce and relocating from wisconsin to oregon and really finding the niche and the spot I should be um, it's all come back and now we get to do disc golf not only here in Silverton, Oregon, but Tanzania.
Speaker 1:So share with us how you started doing disc golf, like what's, what's your disc golf story.
Speaker 2:Thanks, jen, cause, that's like the best thing and that's like my favorite question to answer, because I was, you know, I was interviewing tiger woods and all those guys every day, um, doing the majors for golf and every weekend, and I I quit because, well, I wasn't gonna have my kids being raised by someone else where I had to take care of responsibility and um, so when I quit interviewing Tiger Woods and I'm done with ball golf and kind of this attitude, I began, you know, pushing my daughter on stroller walks and we'd go. I picked up disc golf right then and to me there is no better way to raise your kids than pushing the stroller through the woods and nature and teaching them you know life and just changing diapers out there on hole six.
Speaker 1:Best memories yeah, opportunity. I was working over at Chief Kitsap Academy in Suquamish and we had Paul Wright and a couple of other people come over and walk the property before we put our nine-hole course in there from the Paul Macbeth Foundation. One of the things that Paul talked about is how we are able to kind of honor the place, the forest, the trees and how we can really honor that place by putting in a disc golf course. That one of the things that he would do when he was looking for how to design a course is what can I show people about this place that makes it so spectacular, so different, and so I can just imagine how bringing disc golf to tanzania, what that's going to provide for people, what they're going to get to see that they wouldn't have seen otherwise oh, so right on that.
Speaker 2:So right on it. It's such a good feeling to be able to do that, because it's a way you can give and help and really make a difference. I mean the country of Tanzania National Sports Council. They understand what we're doing and Paul, you're talking. Paul, he was the one who the Macbeth Foundation sent to Tanzania with me just this past October. So good segue into all of that and good connection, because Paul is one amazing disc golfer, one amazing designer, one amazing person, and I'm fortunate that he's the person that got to be with me in Tanzania to see what 22 years of my work looks and feels like, by being able to move his agenda forward quickly and with a lot of fun and love in between.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to give you a segue story about Paul Wright. So I, you know, I ran into him at this meeting a couple years ago and later found out that he's my neighbor and I went to school with his daughters. And so 20 something years later it's like well, now we have this different connection than. I was, you know.
Speaker 3:I lived across the lake from him um and like I said I, I went, you're gonna cross the lake. You're like three or four blocks down. Well, there's no blocks. It's a lake kind of yeah, but it was really funny that.
Speaker 1:Oh, now I'm coming over to your house because I'm interested in your disc golf instead of being friends with your daughters.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of Paul Wright, let's take a second for show ID. Okay, and there we go. Hi, this is Paul Wright. With the Paul McBeth Foundation, support the Builders Club and support the intentional disc golfer. All right, and we're back.
Speaker 1:Speaking of that voice speaking of Paul, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, speaking of that man, the other Paul man of the hour. No, it was great. Actually, I could have flown out of Portland, but instead in October I drove to Seattle so he and I could get on the plane together, because I'd never met him in person. You know, and, and so it's key that person-to-person communication in Swahili we say into quam, to people, to people it's important say that, wait, say that again it means mtu M-T-U kwa K-W-A mtu People to people.
Speaker 2:Mtu kwa mtu Kwa mtu. Yeah, benita said mtu kwa mtu Love it. Yeah, swahili's great. Oh well, you guys already know Swahili if you've seen Lion King, that's all Tanzania.
Speaker 1:Rafikis, rafikis, not Rafikis.
Speaker 2:It's Hakuna Matata, don't you know it really is, though it's amazing.
Speaker 3:Where we're from, it's everything the light touches, but you must never go there.
Speaker 1:Simba.
Speaker 2:And the never go there is Bremerton.
Speaker 1:That's going to go in the blooper reel.
Speaker 2:I haven't been there yet.
Speaker 1:I haven't been there.
Speaker 2:I'll invite you down here to Silverton because we're building our new course here as well. So I'm super geek because, literally, my local global is here. The city went for my plan three years ago and they had to annex. So we're physically growing the town of Silverton now because of my disc golf course plan and it's going to be our newest city park and let me tell you, it's going to draw people. I got here and walked into a disc golfer's dream, you guys. So literally, I am going to have Paul come down here and help me design my course here.
Speaker 3:Just like intense paul is a killer course designer. He really is, and we'll have to have you up here as well, ryan. When you, uh, come up to washington way, we have what? Three or four of the best courses in the state within a half hour for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have goosebumps because I know he told me about it, so I'm there. That'll be our foursome, okay, there we go.
Speaker 3:Paul Wright Ryan.
Speaker 2:Skiff. We've already got it.
Speaker 3:Brandon and Jenny, the intentional disc golfer, live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe we can have the kids videotape it for us.
Speaker 2:I will intentionally not do. Well, how about that?
Speaker 1:But that way you get to explore more of the course, like it's the bad shots that allow me to go see parts of the course that I haven't seen before, like. So there is that.
Speaker 2:Disc golf fits my ADD nature, so trust me it's good. You guys in Tanzania that I just just golf and just the excitement of it. We threw, we had discs and, you know, started throwing in the air and all they is like a magnet. So I know what this sport's gonna do.
Speaker 3:It's so cool now, if you don't mind, let's rewind real quick a little bit. I wanted to emphasize and touch a little more on the sister city thing. Can you elaborate on that and what exactly that is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Sister cities international it became part of my strategy in doing research and I've been doing community building projects. You hear about things. It's all about connection. I'm a connector, I always have been. I just had worked in television and was fortunate to have those relationships where the mayor of Milwaukee, folks on the council, city council, just in general, when you're in television you get to know people and I was fortunate to hear about that Milwaukee had just adopted sister cities international guidelines and that's like a international deal where you have to have certain criteria that fits to have a connection, because you know a lot of it is just cultural and so milwaukee had like 15 sister cities they were not doing anything with. So this was a way through sister cities international that they established, brought it in and then I was the first to apply under Sister Cities International and we got the first ever international sister city relationship between Milwaukee and the country in Africa.
Speaker 3:Oh man, that is killer. And then so the sister city program, that's economic ties, political ties agricultural ties? What other type of things?
Speaker 2:um, oh, everything, cultural to economic, mean trade, every, you name it it's, it's a direct connection for the city. Um, however, city politics right, and a lot of hands in the cookie jar, and so we, we got things done. It could have gone a lot better and smoother, but, yeah, it wasn't to be with the right people and in, and they took a lot of what I did. And then that sister city's chairman, yeah, so I did what I could and got a Milwaukee, wisconsin fire engine donated and complete with training of two Tanzanian firefighters from Morogoro, the sister city, coming to Milwaukee, training for two weeks on their own truck by our fire department, and then, three months later, they were back home and picked up the fire truck. They got from Milwaukee to Tanzania and they drove it three hours to Morogoro and trained 22 fire department employees, um, employees, and, uh, that fire truck doubled the fleet.
Speaker 3:For a city of 350 000 people. They had one fire truck. Yeah, so I saw it was one fire truck and 20 some odd firefighters for 200 000 people yeah, 300 000 now.
Speaker 2:That city, morogoro, it's home and now, 20 years later, or however long it's been, that city's at a million people. I'm really proud of how that town has grown. But we made our mark and it's really important, with the fire department and especially with disc golf, to help clear out the brush and we're saving fires by doing that. So disc golf lends itself to the environment on a whole lot of things and I made the connection with the fire department by helping get them what they need. Even though I was working on agriculture, I began the sister city relationship and that's what they asked for of like the first need. So we did it. We were going to retire in milwaukee a fire truck the uh 92 ford darley pumper truck because it had too many miles and the insurance company wouldn't insure it anymore so why not just gonna?
Speaker 3:auction it off I like it, I like it, and so you, just, you just drew. A connection. For me that I never drew before is disc golf as a mechanism for forest management and clearing out, underbrush and down stuff and mitigating some of this fire danger that we've been having around here.
Speaker 2:Oh right, and right here, where I'm at, this 40 acres sits right above the subdivision that the developer bought the land and then donated this 40 acres to be a buffer between the city and rural. And it's exactly what I've been doing in Tanzania is connecting the urban and rural. I'm doing it right here at home, and now we're going to be able to do that. And the fire department. It just so happens this 40 acres that was donated and we'll have our new city course on. That developer specified that 80% of it was supposed to be park and the rest for someday, a future rural fire department. No lie.
Speaker 3:Oh, very cool. Oh, that's wild, that's wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you know developing relationships here the last three years and so we'll have the fire department definitely helping us up out there as we clear the brush and I bring in my work team. Our disc golf club is going to work with the city park department and we'll bring in the fire department and all of that. We'll work together where we're going to do team building and get this course built. I'll try to get Paul down here and he's going to have. I can't wait to bring him down here and see his vision and make it happen.
Speaker 3:Well, heck, yeah, I can work a shovel. Jenny is pretty good with. Bring him down here and see his vision and make it happen. Well, heck, yeah, we can. I can work a shovel.
Speaker 2:Jenny. Jenny is pretty good with a rake. Well, good Gas is better when you have friends that you can share the ride with. So come on down. I have you guys set up here at the best Airbnb and literally it's my own safari camp where I found and I got here, helped a couple open it up on the abaqua, two miles outside of town. We got disc baskets there and uh and uh so you can put around and it's, it's, it's on the the abaqua creek and it's five little cabins, little safari cabins, and then one suite, and so you guys are going to get to stay in a place where I put in a lot of sweat and tears, that place, as I've been kind of healing from life and and getting life back. You're set.
Speaker 3:That sounds amazing.
Speaker 2:If, if you go and after we talk, just go on the Airbnb site and then look up Eagle Nest, Silverton and you'll find it.
Speaker 3:I think I've actually looked at that before at one point in time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were looking at going down there and doing a couple tournaments or something, and we were looking at Airbnbs and I think that's actually one of the ones that came up.
Speaker 2:Okay, hey, I know, looking at airbnbs and I think that's actually one of the ones that came up. Okay, hey, I know, I want to ask you guys, because you guys have been doing this you deal with tournaments and this is for a lot of the folks that here in silverton and and tanzania that are going to be watching um, where you have no disc golf but you have people coming as a tourist destination or even not. You put up a disc golf course. You're gonna get business right. It's an economic force, is that correct?
Speaker 3:one of the things that I were. I'm in general contracting and construction and I work with a lot of people that are remodeling their homes for Airbnb's and when? What I've been told is that when you fill out the application to be on airbnb, one of the biggest questions they ask is is there a disc golf facility nearby and how well is it supported? So it's, it's a major tourism draw wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:That's really good to know. But I do have baskets up now there and it'll make more of a difference when our course is built here. But literally I'm lucky here in Silverton where we are central. We're 15 minutes from Salem, 45 from Portland and you just get to be out here. So once we get our course built here and we get to finally start on that this this spring after I'm back from tanzania, uh, we'll have. Eventually it'll be 27 holes. It's going to be 18 beautiful holes that I'm hoping will be part of the beaver state fling someday and, uh, then we're going to do a little nine hole beginner course, ace run, little obstacle course oh, that'll be cool to make it an obstacle course.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be cool guys. Oh, and we're. Yeah, we're gonna put obstacles because our plan I work with the biking guys too, so the bike club has already done so much of the trails in there over the last 10 years and the land has just been sitting there kind of kids, dirt bikes. I wish I would have grown up next to it, but for the last couple of years I've just made it home and we've brought our group of folks out to work on it and I'm lucky I actually have a person here in Silverton who you guys were going to have on your podcast I just discovered and he's a friend, so I'll give you a tip for colin from the disc raptor oh yeah colin we'd.
Speaker 3:We'd love to have you guys. He sponsored us last year guys.
Speaker 2:I mean, as luck has it, he's right here in this town of 10 000 people with me, so he's my guy and he's sponsoring one of our tanzanian disc golfers to go up to Kenya for the Kenya Open next week Very cool and so we've sent disc Raptors there. He's actually sponsoring a pro and Ezra Robinson is going to be announcing it today or tomorrow, so I'll send you the link and that will be out there as well.
Speaker 3:Very cool, yeah, we would so love to have him on. You the link and that'll be out there as well. Very cool, yeah, we would still love to have him on. Uh, we, we had him lined up and then, uh, we took a break from doing the podcast for a while because jenny went, uh, back to college and got her admin certificate, so, but now we're back up and running. We would love to have him on, if you see him around yeah, he oh no, no, he's, he's always with me.
Speaker 2:In fact, I have to see him later today. After this too, we got to send payment, because the tournament in kenya is soon and our goal is to have four tanzanians going to the kenya open and then there will be five countries represented in the third kenya. That is so pretty amazing. So, yeah, colin, definitely he will. He will get in touch with you after our call.
Speaker 1:So one thought I had is you can also. Something our tech guy wanted to do when we put in our disc golf course was essentially put giant hula hoops on the top of the baskets and then do drone races. So you could also connect with some of the it drone people in the area too and be like here, come do a drone race. So there's something else you can do, oh my gosh I know right, so I have a big creative brain.
Speaker 2:That's one thing. I'm geeked. I love that idea I didn't think of that, you serious. Oh so cool, jenny. All right, yeah, I'm going to have to get my list of drone guys around, get your notebook out. And in fact you know, in Tanzania my guys do, so we could probably make that happen quicker there than here, because that's kind of how I've been doing it Things happen in Africa. I can make happen quicker than right here.
Speaker 3:Well, less red tape and regulation?
Speaker 1:I assume yes.
Speaker 3:What's that Less red tape and regulation, I assume.
Speaker 2:No, not really Really.
Speaker 2:It's just different, different. Oh, trust me, my partner, jeffrey, I couldn't do this without Jeffrey Ruto, my Tanzanian brother partner. I couldn't do this without him. He's just the right person and timing. When you meet someone, so, um, there's a lot of I mean, and I don't, you know it's, it's tanzania. As much as I've been there, it's still. You need that partnership and we both have to trust each of us is doing our job. You know, um, and, and so that's where a lot of it's just all on field trust and doing the right thing. And so, yeah, um, it's all lined up to be able to take this as far as we want to go in africa very, very cool.
Speaker 3:So you were saying earlier that you were changing diapers on the disc golf course and then I caught that your kids are 16 and 14, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're putting that roughly 2006, 2007-ish, when you started disc golfing.
Speaker 2:My daughter was born in 08. Yep, okay, she was at 08. That's close she was born in 08 yep okay, she was at 08. And then, uh, she was born on father's well, the day before father's day. So it's a pretty good father's day gift for you know, having your first kid that, my kid too.
Speaker 3:2008 day before summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay, summer solstice. That's very june 21st yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you started disc golfing way back then.
Speaker 2:When did the bug hit you to be like, hey, they need disc golf in tanzania um, you know we started playing safari rounds at our course in lacrosse and you know I've told all my guys and disc golfers, but that just always stuck with me is going to be the connector right there.
Speaker 3:And this is La Crosse Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, that's where I was with my kids and family, where I'd gone to college and was kind of back full circle, and so you know thinking I've got the world, and then everything you know goes, and so you're left to pick up pieces. So we speaking of that sorry for the interruption, if you can hear. Uh, colin from disc raptor is calling me right now.
Speaker 3:So oh goodness. Well, on that case, I'll tell you what. Let's um hit, pause for a minute and take a break. What's good? Eric Oakley here and you are listening to the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, all right, so you were changing diapers back out there on the course circa 2008,. So you've been playing disc golf for a while. Where did you get the spark and the idea? For Tanzania needs disc golf somehow. Like, where did that come from?
Speaker 2:Tanzania needs disc golf somehow, like, where did that come from? Well, what I had been working on of community development, a lot of things, as far as what my purpose was in Tanzania, I felt the disc golf community, disc golf, could touch on a lot of those and the growth of disc golf, um, and being able to kind of get into the top of the sport right away just with background media and being able to do that I I just thought that this was my, my opportunity here, where I'd just gone through a divorce and my kids had raised um, went to mom and kind of my world was shattered, and that was during the pandemic four years ago it was that back in uh wisconsin yeah, and I was back in wisconsin yet hadn't even hadn't even, you know, given thought to oregon other than seeing the fires and everything on tv.
Speaker 2:And god, I wasn't working in TV news out there like some of my friends covering all of that. And, you know, just beginning a divorce process after raising my kids. They were 12. They was 12. Jake was 10. And disc golf had been you know our thing. Well, now they're old enough, they're into their things and my son loves soccer, all good, but kind of the family side of things and just wasn't a future that was sustainable for us. So I had to leave and make the toughest decision of my life and kind of think of what I was doing before raising kids so that I could have my kids back into my life. I knew that the way the system was wasn't going to allow that and I knew the way mental illness in families not checked and I kind of knew where I was going to be left out of the party. So I better get my thing back.
Speaker 2:And so I got a video job out in the Tri-Cities four years ago during the pandemic and after loss an investor pulled out and I was left out on the West Coast pandemic, away from everything and no way to get back and the video job fell through. So I uh, somehow filtered over a few months, not hearing from my kids, and I filtered down to oregon and former tv friends from vegas who lived in salem and I visited them a few times over the years but had never heard of Silverton. And I get down to Salem disc golf and get to see the ocean and I'm healing but still fearful for my kids. And my friend's wife in Salem says Ryan, I think I saw your last name on a gravestone in a town called Silverton just a couple weeks ago and I just found out my kids had been abducted from Wisconsin and taken to Georgia and I didn't know where they were and lost touch with everything. My world was shattered and I had heard of Silver Falls State Park and the waterfalls and I had a plan just to. The only plan I had was to go in and not come out. And when I heard that my last name on a gravestone in a town called Silverton there was one piece of hope. And then I left their home and I came straight out of Salem to Silverton and I passed Lancaster Avenue, the last main stoplight. I was born in Lancaster, wisconsin.
Speaker 2:So now you have two threads of hope.
Speaker 2:And I drive 15 miles to some of the most beautiful country I'd ever seen, headed towards the mountains, and I come right into town to a cemetery not knowing what cemetery or where my last name may be and I come into a town called Silverton that happens to be the end of the Oregon Trail, to a town called Silverton, that happens to be the end of the Oregon Trail, and I drive in and I pull up to my last name and my ancestors from 166 years ago left to Wisconsin, right where I had just left and did the Oregon Trail, and 50 of my last name came and settled right here and I came on to a history where I found my kindred spirits and all of it came back.
Speaker 2:And instantly disc golf was I don't know how, why, other than I felt my world coming back and this was where I was meant to be Oregon, a hotbed for disc golf. So much more to the Oregon a hotbed for disc golf, so much more to the story. But when you find something like that and as a storyteller you couldn't even make the story up Wow, I found 50 pages of my family here and we founded this town and I haven't left.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Absolutely beautiful, that's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And uh, just to tie it in with disc golf, uh, when I got here, there was no disc golf course, one major problem. So I said, okay, we're gonna do something about that, because that's disc golf is my therapy. Right, I'm never gonna be pa Paul McBeth, but I can do what Paul McBeth does and take his foundation to Africa and make a difference for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:So you're touching on a topic of something I've personally experienced and I think we have too as a couple. I spent a lot of time talking to the women I'm on a card with and they're talking about where they're at and their healing process of whatever they've been through either drug addiction, mental health, trauma, and you know that's. That's one thing I'm focusing on. I'm actually working on creating a separate like sister company called Mindful Flight Stronger you to kind of provide therapy without calling it therapy for disc golf yep, so yes, can you?
Speaker 1:share a bit about your story of healing and how disc golf has, like, helped you oh, without a doubt.
Speaker 2:Because, well, first off, getting to do with your kids and taking them out to nature where you disconnect and unplug from a phone I mean, I grew up, at least luckily without that for the first 20 years of my life, and so it's not needed. You need the connection in nature, you need the connection to each other, and disc golf provides that. And so you know that therapy whether it was with my kids or friends disc golfing because I was going through a heck of a time just in my marriage. I mean, my marriage was over. The second, I had two kids and I stayed and survived in that abuse for 12 years to protect my kids, and then, when I couldn't anymore, it was the decision I had to make. Well, disc golf is therapy.
Speaker 3:I know the feeling firsthand.
Speaker 2:Okay, Okay. So you know, disc golf like with you guys, a lot of that feeling of just being able to breathe, being able to be out there where there's no expectations you can go with your friends or I go solo a lot and nature, just if you breathe. I don't think enough people realize how important that is, how important it is to be alone, and I'm a people person, I love people. But what I also realized through all of this, how important being alone is to me in that I tend to thrive a little more when you can have all of the freedom and the peace of letting your disc fly.
Speaker 3:Wow wow and you really kind of need both is you need people and you need that connection and you also need to take a break once in a while yep, and disc golf provides that for any frame of mind.
Speaker 2:You guys know it's a fun thing just to do as a couple, right?
Speaker 2:and then it's a fun thing to do with other couples, and then it's sometimes not a fun thing to do as a couple, and then it's sometimes not a fun thing to do as a couple and we move past that anyway, and then sometimes somebody's home doing laundry while the other person's out disc golfing with friends, right, but um, it was and and to have my kids just experience it and get to be out of the woods like I used to with a stick banging on the trees, I didn't care if my kids did other things than disc golf. They were out enjoying, they were listening to dad, you know.
Speaker 1:Do your kids still play.
Speaker 2:I don't know, you know it's been four years now, gotcha, but I, you know, I left them in God's hands, not mom's, and so I know that, by doing this with Tanzania and finally being able to get my voice back and bringing this connection on top of all of the other connections, that this is the one that's going to get it all back and my world will be back. So that's what disc golf also offers.
Speaker 2:It's a spirit of family, it's a spirit of all of it. I mean, when I was down and lost friends and everything, I'd go out to the disc course and sometimes I wanted to be alone or I would find somebody else who was throwing by themselves and boom, now you've just made a friend that you didn't know you had yep, friends are uh never in short supply when you're out disc golfing no, no, no.
Speaker 2:And uh, you know you find your group and that's the beauty of it is is that there's enough groups for everybody. And and I just love the sport, the camaraderie, it all fit well with the spirit of Tanzania. I've never made this commercial. I don't plan to. This is my own Peace Corps, this is with a purpose and it doesn't need to get ruined by anything, and especially money. And so I mean that's why I funded my own work 22 years and basically now it's talking my walk because if I can do that, let's go disc golf world, we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love the challenge.
Speaker 1:And that's pretty much what Scott told us a couple of weeks ago and we interviewed him was that you know, if you want to go out there and teach it, just get out there and do it. You don't need the website, you don't need the brand.
Speaker 2:You just need to get out there and do it and go do it, and I have my Tanzanians taking care of us and we hired a social media team and a website team from Tanzania. I mean, it's theirs. We're going to help them and build it up and we learn so much from them. So I'm going to share my world because that's the gift I have to give and, even though my world was taken away, it'll come back.
Speaker 3:Yep was taken away, it'll come back, yep and so. So, revisiting the tanzania thing, how did you, where did you get the inspiration to say, hey, tanzania needs disc golf? Like where did that come?
Speaker 2:well, um, okay, so that's a good segue into trash, panda, disc golf and Uh-huh. Those guys are amazing and it's been an issue that I've seen in Tanzania so long one of the main environmental issues but also one of the connectors to here and being able to get volunteers to help come clean up the plastic there. There are really no recycling companies in Africa. I mean plastic glass that our companies from abroad bring in. Nobody helps.
Speaker 3:So we take plastic over there and just dump it.
Speaker 2:Coca-Cola. I mean our companies, companies from all over the world selling bottled water, sodas, everything, but there's no recycling companies. So you know what happens after years of that? It just gets dumped and put and polluted well, it just. It goes into a pile or a landfill somewhere, and then it goes into the soil and the crops or they're burning plastic right yeah or like where we're building our first pmf course, half of the job is slashing the grass, the other half is cleaning up the plastic.
Speaker 3:And for our listeners out there. The PMF is the Paul Macbeth Foundation.
Speaker 2:Ah, yes, sorry, Paul. Macbeth Foundation is wonderful. They go and help around the world, but what we do, is we get to also teach the importance of the environment? Do is, is we get to also teach the important of importance of environment? Um and again, disc golf lends itself to clean, cleaning up um the forests and and really that's what's needed there. There's no recycling company, so trash panda, and I've always had the plan of disc golf and being able to make discs out of the plastic. I've always been about a service and safari trip and disc golf and being able to make discs out of the plastic. I've always been about a service and safari trip, and disc golf can touch every bit of life in Tanzania. That's needed to make a change for the better for everyone.
Speaker 3:So I remember a little bit a while, a few minutes ago, you were saying well, I was playing safari holes down at my local course, and then you put two and two together safari, Tanzania, and bam, you got disc golf right.
Speaker 2:Boom. I mean it's a dream and it's a dream that's real. Like that's what we do, I get to take the Paul McBeth Foundation and we're going to be bringing two from Zambia, two from Uganda and then two from Uganda and then the two guys from PM Paul McBeth Foundation here in the US, and that's who's going to be on the installation team. So when?
Speaker 3:you got that stroke of brilliance there. What was your next step?
Speaker 2:Next step was well, I had the stroke of brilliance and, but I had to find the partner in tanzania and, and just by chance, when the thought popped in my head, I was on linkedin and and found a guy in tanzania who was tanzania aquaculture association. Aquaculture has been a big connector also with me in milwaukee and tanz, so I'm just like, all right, I'm going to reach out to this guy and I called Jeffrey and in an instant I knew disc golf can happen with him and I taught him. I mean, they're 11 hours ahead of us, so it's phone calls and sending emails and literally educating person to person to where he got it understood. It was excited. We got a hundred discs to him right away and, uh, they were already on the continent and uh, got up to him and then he patiently waited.
Speaker 2:We continued to speak and get to know each other. He's my brother and, uh, he had everything set up and um for us to arrive then with the mcbeth foundation and paul wright in october, to where we could go to the largest university in the country, have permission to walk around at the sports complex, design, layout and design a course and market. So that's uh, that's kind of. In short.
Speaker 1:Oh well, that worked out I can just imagine what that's going to, how that's going to uh provide opportunities for the people there, like, like, even like even college like even the architectural design of, like being a disc golf course designer, like my uncle is a golf course designer in New York. Like I could just imagine that some of these kids you know going to college find a love and a passion of disc golf and then they decide to grow on that Like it's planting these seeds, it's creating opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, that's exactly it. And it goes back to agriculture and why I began it. So this is disc golf, again, the greatest cultural connector I could bring to even a playing field, to where our cultures can see and help each other. And I've known how much tanzania will help us. But we're so fearful over here that I just walked it, made the bridge and now I'm gonna ask everybody to walk up with that's incredible.
Speaker 3:now, when we spoke on the phone last night, you were talking about how your ultimate plan around disc golf not only only to well, build more courses, but now you have a national sanctioned sport from the Athletics Federation of Tanzania, correct? Yeah, what was that process like? How does that all work in Tanzania?
Speaker 2:Well, in Tanzania, when you start something, you have a club or a sport. You start with an association, right, and then Tanzania has 24 regions, like we have states in the US. They have 24 regions, and you have to get the sport going in five regions before you can then become a federation and a national sport.
Speaker 3:And this is like a sanctioned club type of level, not like just oh we're playing some disc golf on the street there.
Speaker 2:No right. And again, as an association you begin and then you grow it. So now we literally just in our trip there, but it's based on the 22 years of work prior right to be able to go in and make something happen on that level. And now it's a national sport and we're a federation. So Facebook has to catch up because our Facebook page we can't change our name for 30 days and now we're a federation. So on Facebook page it's Tanzanian Disc Golf Association, but soon to be federation. And we were able to do that based on the plan Jeffrey and I have to grow the sport in the country with Paul Macbeth Foundation, but not as the only avenue of waiting, because so many ways to grow the sport. So we're just going to share it with everyone in two-week service and safari trips of teaching disc golf, getting to put baskets up or going over our course or or both, and teaching kids at primary schools and then getting to go on safari and the immersion in culture.
Speaker 2:That's what I've been working on 22 years, so I'm not going to make a commercial. It's my own peace corps and I feel like disc golf alone could make happen the purpose I began this all for.
Speaker 3:And then the other part of our conversation I wanted you to emphasize on was you said that you were looking at disc golf as an economic driver to foster stability in the Tanzanian region and the Tanzanian country. Can you elaborate and talk about your plans, on how you plan to accomplish that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, and stability meaning food security. Really, the country has 68 million people. When I began it was 45 million people. They were importing 70% of their food, then they're still were importing 70 of their food, then they're still importing 70 of their food. My plan is still the same. I know until they can feed their own people, they won't get out of the situations that we're in of deep poverty, and but it has to come from within them. It isn't going to be us telling them what to do because it doesn't work there like it works here, and so I I gave myself the time to understand a lot of things there. But what I do understand is that tourism in the southern circuit of national parks is going to grow because we're going to bring disc golf right to it, and that is the economic driver that is going to help build roads out to where all the fertile farmland. That they can grow the crops and get it back to market. That they can grow the crops and get it back to market.
Speaker 3:So literally this is part of an economic plan for the country Gotcha. So the plan is just to bring in more eyeballs, more bodies, and then that's going to foster more stewardship over the country.
Speaker 2:It will, because tourism is like Tanzania's's number one business, and when the pandemic came they lost it.
Speaker 3:And now you're talking a country that's already one of the poorest in the world, and it's poorest only because economics, not poor because of resources, you know well, africa has been the strip mine of western society forever and eastern and eastern and eastern, and it's horrible that's awful.
Speaker 2:So I said I'm not, not on my watch, no, and, and that's why I'm not making a commercial. I get to invite who I want. I'm inviting the disc golf world. This will not be commercial.
Speaker 1:So, in inviting the disc golf world, what can we do to help support you? Where can we reach out to you? How can we help Sure?
Speaker 2:Things that we want to do are create sister disc golf clubs, master disc golf clubs and I match up one club with one club in Tanzania. You do a tournament. $5,000 builds you a whole course in Tanzania and that's giving jobs to the welders and others.
Speaker 3:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:That's one thing. The biggest thing, though, that I want, I want people to travel with me. I want them to know it's not scary, it's not expensive and it's the greatest thing you're ever going to do in your life. I'm down, yeah. So, just to give an idea, if anybody wanted to go for two weeks service and safari trip to, where you get to go on safari for a couple nights and be out of the bush, the itinerary, I have the timing of it. I also know what makes the most difference and the impact. So we get to be teaching and learning and teaching kids doing clinics, getting to be immersed in the culture the first few days, and then, in the middle of the trip, we go out to the bush, take a little break, let things sink in, see the animals Amazing, right. Then you get back, do more service work, and by the time you leave, you're crying because you're going to miss the people you met, not the animals you saw, and that's my gift to what I get to give that's so cool.
Speaker 3:That is so cool. So, sister disc golf clubs is what you're, what you're talking about that's what I would like to you know begin I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm starting that here with silverton right away. Um, and tanzania disc golf federation is basically the pdga of tanzania, right it's. We're learning, we're getting help from the pdga, they're giving the knowledge, all of that, so that that can be the leading organization in a country where everything will funnel down. But we had the plan to get it into primary, secondary schools and make sure that they have a basket on their playground and that's really the greatest man. That's so much fun and I can't wait to take people to go feel the love. That's really what it is all about.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to jump in really quickly about having a disc golf basket at a school. Not only does it give the kids the opportunity to throw into the basket for fun with their friends, like you see the kids on social media like they're doing all these weird trick shots and like kicking the disc into it and creating all these new ways to, I guess, essentially putt. But I have found that you know, if you have a kid who's dysregulated, they're having those big emotions. It is such a great opportunity to take them outside and say here, huck a disc at a basket. It gives them that outlet in a healthy way and gets the kids to regulate in a way that is then productive.
Speaker 2:So kudos to having those baskets there. Yeah, yep, attitude adjustment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. Well, let's do this real quick. I mean, I'm feeling inspired. Are you feeling inspired, Jenny?
Speaker 1:I'm scared when you're inspired.
Speaker 3:So, through the power of the podcast and ListenerLand out there, the Sister Disc Golf Associations love it if anybody out there in ListenerLand has connections, knows a guy that knows a guy, or is that person yourself? Uh, get a hold of ryan here and and work with him and let's let's do this and blow it up. How do we get a hold of you, ryan?
Speaker 2:um, people can uh reach out if they want. Uh, my email is ryskafe r-y-s-K-A-I-F. As in Frank E at Yahoocom, they can call me 608-406-6567, or go onto the Facebook page Tanzania Disc Golf Association, soon to be Federation, or just find me on Facebook or get a hold of you guys, the Intentional Disc Golfer.
Speaker 1:You guys know a lot well, thank you and I'm, I'm actually I'm actually hoping that, if I if I get in with mason county that we might be able to do one of those sister uh sister groups I'm hoping, oh, I think, I think it would be really fun to try.
Speaker 2:And, jenny, so you know too, too, with the women, empowering women. To me, number one. I've been around the world, I've lived 50 years of life. The strongest person in the world, bar none, is an African grandmother, and you would have a hard time dissuading me of that thought.
Speaker 3:Why is that?
Speaker 2:The strongest women, what they've gone through and how they lived, and when you come, you're gonna see it and that's the best part of the education I can give. But I can't make people get on a plane, you know I can only do so much. So, um, I did it. I got on a boat reversing stuff. I went voluntarily to af on a boat, so there's some symbolism for you of what we're doing and reversing some things. Um, but two weeks service and safari trips and being able to just bring people and host you guys at home, wow, it's, it's amazing, it really is. There's nothing better I can do with my life.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just going to say that I can relate with that, with having a we put in the disc golf course at Chief Kitsap, again through the Paul McBeth Foundation.
Speaker 1:And a year later hearing from a council member how much their kiddo blossomed and grew from being, you know, a kid that wasn't necessarily showing up at school, kind of a drifter. He ended up losing his grandfather, which was his father figure, but he found disc golf and the disc golf. He was out there every day practicing, playing and bringing more people with him and just watching how people blossom through this sport. Like being able to go to Africa and meet those people and learn their culture and connect that with a sport that you know we love.
Speaker 2:like that's like a dream come true oh yeah, it really is and and again. Back to just to touch on the um strong women in Tanzania and why really it's important to get the the ladies side going because tanzania has their first female president. Mama samia will be throwing out the first disc when I go next month that is so cool so I, if she's available, she'll be there.
Speaker 2:Regardless, I'm going to have former ambassadors to the US that I've worked with. I've worked with the last 10 ambassadors to the US. They serve two-year terms. Happens to be also when I first got here and world coming back in disc golf that a friend of 18 years was named US ambassador at Tanzania, number 10 that I've worked with. So, um, she has, and and it's again the females, they lead the country yeah, women are the gatekeepers, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:any, any married man out there, any married man out there, knows you don't cross mama, nope.
Speaker 2:Nope, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. That's right. So you know they make mamas happy there and we'll make mama Samia happy. So I'm hoping that, like the first pitch in baseball will begin, and every course we open up, we'll start with the first throw.
Speaker 3:I'm hoping she'll be there and if she can will.
Speaker 2:That's so very otherwise definitely former ambassadors I've had to wisconsin, um, so happens, ambassador major, in 2012 I brought her to wisconsin, um, and uh, she now happens to be the head of all the vice chancellors at the university where my first disc golf course is going, so she will be there and she really understands everything I've been doing as well. So it's it's those kinds of connections, and disc golf really fits in a lot and a lot of things that are needed to be brought out to help today's society here and there yes, well said yeah, yeah I'm, I'm a little blown away and uh well, you got jenny crying over here yes
Speaker 2:uh, guys, it's save the tears. Save the tears for for when you leave Tanzania, I always cry when I leave, man, I don't ever want to come back, but it's things we have to do for now, until we get it going. And it's fine, it's home, we'll get there.
Speaker 3:That is way, way cool.
Speaker 2:Oh, the food is so good, you guys, and we get to go, like before before, around and just pick breakfast off the trees. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:Oh man. So what is for breakfast in Tanzania?
Speaker 2:Well, you're going to have your pick at the hotel because it's a buffet. You have all the fruits you get local, you get the fruits, you get every single thing you want. But my kind of morning is literally getting up, having my coffee and going for a hike and the sister city I began, which is just three hours from dar es salam. It's where the second course hopefully that will bmf that we're going to do, it's where I'm going to lead them anyway, and it's the oldest mountains in the world is the backdrop and I literally have my coffee and I take either passion fruit, mango, banana, sometimes all of them Pick them and go and just hike up a little bit and sit and look over the city.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:You can't beat it. It's Africa. You can't beat the smells, you can't Nothing, and it's what we used to have back here sounds like there's snacks on the course the whole time yep the snacks grow on the trees yep, your bananas are everywhere.
Speaker 3:It's awesome that's so we were. Uh, we were chatting with you in the uh intentional disc golfer podcast chat room on Facebook and you were saying about bringing baskets into Tanzania and that adventure. Tell us about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, when we went, we had, I think, think one portable basket there that jeffrey had and I had already sent him the specs from pdag pdga website on the basket. So welders they, they built one, and so that was what went to the primary school so you had them built there in country yeah, yeah, we um and this was even before pmf agreed to go.
Speaker 2:But I just had gotten jeffrey the specs and he had gotten 100 discs so they needed a basket. So I sent him the specs. His welders just made the basket and you know it works. It works. And it wasn't the right size chains. It was what they could do. But that was the value of just going back with paul right in october is we went shopping. Now, shopping in in africa is way different than going to ace hardware here, right, um, and going to find. You had to go find the pipes for the basket. You have to find the, you know, the wire for the cages. You got to find the chains. So it was an adventure, it was a trip. It is so cool that I wish everybody could go with me on it, and when we build courses everybody does get to do that.
Speaker 3:It's an experience you have to have so you, so you and paul went around to. Now what, what kind of is it like? I, I assume there's no home depots and there's not a home depot over in africa.
Speaker 2:We're in town and we're at these little shops that have tin roofs and all oh yeah there's. I don't even know what's going on. Luckily I have my friends right. I mean, all my partners are tanzanian. So now, now those guys knew all the spots to go, and it took a couple places to find the right chains, the right pipes. We purchased it. They had a basket made within 48 hours of being there.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And it was perfect it was perfect, so we had all the sourcing yeah, sourcing I mean paint, even to paint it red so we were able to source all materials, find the right guys. We know what it takes now and we know we can go build a course for $5,000. That's incredible. And I know that any disc golf club in the country can do a tournament and raise $5,000. So there's part of my plan and raise $5,000.
Speaker 1:So there's part of my plan. Well, I think you're putting a challenge to us, since we're trying to do some back-to-back tournaments here coming up in May, that we may need to add that as part of our goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, so I mean you earn a trip to Africa for it.
Speaker 1:Sounds worth it.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God Wait. I get tod a tournament and get to go to africa like where do I sign up?
Speaker 2:and it'll be a tax write-off. Then the whole way if you're helping oh my gosh transfer of knowledge is the biggest key guys like, if I will give anybody that discount needed a bigger? I will give anyone yep, I will give anyone that discount. Needed a bigger reason? I will give anyone. Yep, I will give anyone that discount. You want to come and spend your time and teach, please, because I have 68 million people and I cannot teach them myself.
Speaker 3:Well, it's going to take a while for us to teach them all disc golf, but it's a daunting task but I feel up to it, yeah.
Speaker 1:We just have to take our kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it. Yeah, we just have to take our kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I know the the disc golf world, you know that's listening can help. So it's there. It's just that we have to get over a lot of of of fear, a lot of unknown um, and just again level the playing field which, with disc golf, we have.
Speaker 3:So yeah, now yeah, it's not expensive so disc golf is ultimately a people thing. It's about people and it's about connection, and you said that the tanzanian people are just lovely. Can you, can you tell us about the people?
Speaker 2:yeah, they're um social people. They're jokesters, they love to dance music, their art and what they create is just beautiful and they take care of it and they take family in. So everyone is together, not put in nursing homes, right yeah so a true example of it.
Speaker 2:Takes a village right, right and no, it's, it's really the thing and it's it's again how we, it's what we lost touch with in this country, and so, um, that's why I've loved it, stuck to it, and and they, you know, they, they love to drink beer, have a good time, they're jokesters, um, and they love american country music I love country music.
Speaker 1:Oh, poor brandon, oh.
Speaker 2:That's me. Oh sorry if you're not a country fan, but that's what you're going to get. My goal is to have the first country concert at Tanzania's National Soccer Stadium, and that's where I'll be going with that.
Speaker 1:That'll be fun.
Speaker 2:That'll be a fundraiser for all of this but Tanzania's National Soccer Stadium.
Speaker 3:Disc Golf Fundraiser Country Concert. For all of this, but tanzania's national soccer stadium disc golf.
Speaker 2:Disc golf fundraiser country concert that I'm doing that out here at our course where I'm building it. I'm building the coolest outdoor amphitheater we've got. We're going to be having disc golf and all of my musicians I've met around here in silverton it's. I mean, I've never been to a place in this small of an area with this much talent, music wise, and I've been, you know, meeting people by going out and filming all. But it's all been part of the plan.
Speaker 3:And the stage is going to be shaped like a basket.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good idea. See, I had to learn yes you have to make a birdie putt in order to perform.
Speaker 1:Like you can't go on stage now you're giving me ideas there you go, that is so cool.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the connection with how I'm also working on growing this in Africa. Their soccer players are the stars right, everybody knows their soccer players, so I've been working on getting my soccer players in Tanzania, showing them disc golf and getting them excited so we can co-promote sports.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, disc golf needs to become an Olympic sport.
Speaker 1:It's in Africa it's in Southeast Asia now.
Speaker 3:Japan, new Zealand, australia. It needs to become an Olympic sport, and soon. I think it's coming, it's just a matter of when.
Speaker 2:You think, in 28 in LA when it comes, that it could be a trial sport and I hope the PDGA is working towards that. However, what we're working towards in Africa is being a medal sport at the East Africa Games.
Speaker 3:Oh, that would be cool too. That would be huge, and it is.
Speaker 2:That's actually going to be happening. And it is that's actually going to be happening. We have another organization called Africa Disc Golf United. That is 13 countries in Africa that have disc golf, and so I represent Tanzania every two weeks. It's like the United Nations, you guys. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:And so these are the things we discuss in that conversation of the continent and how we're going to help lead it as the organization on the whole continent I'm you know what, and if I were in that room I'd be just the guy in the corner like with my mouth on my jaw on the floor, my eyes all wide, and be like oh my gosh, oh my gosh you know what would be so cool.
Speaker 2:I'll send you the link. Actually in two weeks, when we have ours, jump on oh, it's a online thing uh, yeah, we just do a zoom call, so I just gotta send you the link oh, that would be so cool that, oh, you should.
Speaker 3:I would love just to be that experience is amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'll invite anybody. Any disc golf groups or people want to join this stuff, for this is like I'll connect and we're gonna make it work.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I Got chills, I got chills.
Speaker 2:There's just there's a thing with a connection and and it's time because everything has gotten so disconnected that I'm pretty sure that's because everything has gotten so disconnected that I'm pretty sure that's why my energy level is back where it needs to be and I didn't think it could come back to. I was a lot of hope right.
Speaker 3:So this has been all a personal thing, but disc golf has been there to help me through it and and we're gonna have other people having that opportunity as well well and and I can relate to this, I'm I have a light bulb turning on here because I've played sports at all different levels, in all sorts of different sports and there's nothing like disc golf and I'm trying I've been trying for a while now just to put my finger on what that thing is. Uh, it's so many things and what itch does that scratch? And I I think part of it is a big part of it is the inclusivity and the connection, the connection to nature, the connection to yourself, the connection to each other and the connection to a broader community that you have a friend, no matter where you go, no matter what yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:And, and you know, talk about circle of life. Well, what is a disc right?
Speaker 1:I just had the lion king. What is it? I know I had a lion king thing going.
Speaker 3:She, she started, she leaned back and started waving her hands and I'm like yeah, it is a wing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's uh that's.
Speaker 2:It's all of that, you guys. It's all of that. And I, by the way to a precursor to all of this is that the tokens that originally sang the lion sleeps tonight. They were my guests. When I worked on royal caribbean. I got to hang out with all of them and film that song every night.
Speaker 2:They signed my poster and then, five years later, there we are in africa, wow, wow.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's like that in my life and, uh, I'm just glad I've had my eyes open and I want more people to be able to do that and see that and feel that. And I know that by by working in and getting to go to africa, it, um, it does it. It happens to like change your, your, your funk that you're in and you make it makes you feel alive again and become more sensitized, but more also like, okay, I can do something to make a difference, because a lot of times back here it's negative and it's like, no matter what I do, I'm not making a difference. But if you're feeling the need, um, this golf can do that in every way, whether it's local or global, and I just have the way to do both on a daily basis and I'm blessed and, um, I'm really hopeful that that folks will um, listen and want to travel and contact, because it is, it's the greatest experience of, of, of a lifetime if you haven't done it, and then it just opens the door for the rest of the great experiences.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm really hoping that after we post this podcast, that you are at least pleasantly overwhelmed with people reaching out to you, so that's my hope.
Speaker 3:I have to say, Ryan, do you realize what you've done here? Do you realize? This Is that you've come onto this podcast and you've birthed the Sister Disc Golf Club program. You just gave birth to it. You're a proud papa.
Speaker 2:Well, asante sana, as we say in Tanzania. Thank you very much, rafiki, and you know that already, so I'm ready to take you up close and personal to Pumba and Simba.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we're big zoo people. We go to the zoo at least twice a year, every year, and if we were to travel, we always hit a zoo. Um, we haven't been able to travel much because of kids and pets, but, and because we're always going to disc golf courses instead of zoos. It would be on our list, but to to now, I had experience. I had an experience once not to get sidetracked, but, uh, to get sidetracked.
Speaker 3:I had experience once when I was a teenager, I had the privilege of being able to go to walt disney world's animal park right when it opened yeah and the way they have the enclosures for the animals designed is. You don't see any of the walls or the fences or anything.
Speaker 3:It's like you're right out there in the savannah and it is pretty cool and to go and experience that for real, in real life it out in the actual african savannah, that is a pipe dream of mine that I've had ever since I've been a little boy yeah, I think, um, that's what did it for me.
Speaker 2:I had that, that too, and uh, then getting to be there and do it is just, it wasn't lost on me. I'm like I want this the rest of my life. So, um, I mean, you gotta love the bush Like I love the bush, but it's, it's an amazing place where there are no fences and the people people live with the animals and, um, amazing, you don't see that anywhere. So that's, you know, that's what I can offer is just a lot of hard work, of making it work, and something that you'll be happy, proud you did, and want to come back. And that's the beauty of what I have done is not made it about money. I've made it so that people can keep coming back, and that's what we want.
Speaker 1:So I was just thinking that. I hope that I'm sure you already have this thought out, but with the course that you're making down there in Silverton, that you share, like you know. So here's hole one here, but here's what hole one looks like at this other course that we're at and you share some of your story as you're going around through the course, that would be amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it's a sister course. Yeah, it is a little bit, and what we're doing here, though, so you know, is, um, we're tying it to history, because I'm bringing in the mural society and the historic society, and, uh, we're going to name every hole, every bike trail, every hiking trail after a founder or explorer from here.
Speaker 2:So that way the funding is there for yep, and that's going to be part of the obstacle course is we're going to get things used back in the day not being used, but they're going to literally be out there as obstacles for our nine hole course.
Speaker 2:Ace run, but it's going to tell the history very, and that's what I want our t-pads are all going to be green turf, so that you know we don't leave a footprint, yet we will. We'll leave our mark. That course is going to be one. I know it's going to be one of the best around.
Speaker 3:That is so incredibly cool. It's elevation.
Speaker 2:It's just beauty. It was made for this.
Speaker 3:That is so incredibly cool.
Speaker 2:All right, ryan. I love the idea, jen, though, of being able to show what each hole convers know. Conversely, on the other side of the world looks like when you have your club, so that's another nugget for thought, thank you, yeah, One of the schools here out on Bainbridge, when I was talking with their athletic director.
Speaker 1:PE teacher yeah, bainbridge Island, okay. Yep. Teacher yeah, bambridge island, okay. Um, yep, what they do on their course is like they'll put questions or stuff out on the different uh signs so that the kids have to do that work, and then they throw the hole and then they go to the next one and do whatever the work is. So it's it's they've tied it into their learning to education.
Speaker 2:Dang. Such a good idea, cool. Oh. I love it because that's going right. That idea right there is going to go right to Jeffrey in Tanzania and we'll be instituting that. So good call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like a good plan.
Speaker 2:Yep, I can say that right away. That's part of our plan over there now.
Speaker 1:Good job, see, now you have to come gotta, I will.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I tell you just, you have to just having this conversation.
Speaker 2:I feel like my life has changed. I can say that honest, um, well, well, thank you I, honestly it's, it's, you know, it hasn't been for nothing. I I haven't done this to keep to myself, yet. I had to do it myself for self to know that I could have the confidence now and go do it and have a country completely behind me, and they are. So that's the biggest thing of when you, you know, start bringing people in the safety of everything. And and then you have to get over stereotypes, of that as well. It's, it's a lot to go through. I gave myself a lot of time to do it. I had a big plan and you know, I mean that's just a testament to the hope and inspiration in the country of Tanzania, the hope in Tanzania.
Speaker 1:The hope in.
Speaker 3:Tanzania. I love it.
Speaker 2:That's the beginning and what it'll always be. So I appreciate you guys and your time, because it gives me hope to be able to talk about it again and, quite honestly, my kids need it and our world needs it right now. It touches on a lot more than just disc golf oh, yeah, it does it does for sure. Thank you for the conversation and, um, maybe, uh, you know, we'll get to do a podcast live from Tanzania and we'll have Jeffrey come on in and get to talk about it all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be amazing. I would love to do that that would be cool. I'd be blown away.
Speaker 2:We'll work on that. We'll work on that next time here. March 11 is when I leave, so we'll uh, we'll, talk before then.
Speaker 3:Super cool, all right, so, ryan, we're coming up here on time. Uh, do you have any other? Uh, any other, any things that you want to talk about before we go into our wrap-ups?
Speaker 2:I would just say, um, no matter how big disc golf gets, because it's going to keep growing, um, always remember that where we came from, with the sport, and keep that spirit alive with the sport, because that's what's going to really continue to make the difference. And I'm happy for paul mcbeth and his foundation and I'm hoping other players eventually will get to do that. Um, when you get to be big like that, things, um, you know, sometimes don't go as quickly as you would like them to, but that's where other organizations and you just feed off of each other and and I want that spirit to stay there because I know that you know that's his spirit. No matter what happens with the foundation and, and how many courses he builds and how long he keeps playing, uh, the spirit of what he wanted to do should always remain, and that's transferring knowledge and giving opportunities to folks who don't have it.
Speaker 3:That's an incredible representation of the work of the Paul Macbeth Foundation, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just wanted to chime in and say that, you know, it's going to be very probably inspirational to watch him as he grows now that he's a father too. Very probably inspirational to watch him as he grows now that he's a father too, and leaving this legacy for his children and then his children's children. It's going to be fun to watch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly is. It's definitely self-satisfying and good for the heart and all the feels. So let's keep it going. Disc Golf World.
Speaker 3:All right, some different questions now. Ryan, you ready for this? Yes what do you got in the bag?
Speaker 2:man, I'm an old school destroyer, thrower, backhand, um, you know my bag, honestly, because I've taught so many people and given my discs away that I don't buy a lot. Stuff just comes to my bag. I teach, I give, I throw and I learn what's in my bag. So it's the craziest mix you will ever see, but I will tell you the discs I have. I try to learn until I lose them. So, in short, my discs are all over the place, but they're definitely centered with the right spirit.
Speaker 3:So if you had to give me a top five, what would you say they are? You said Destroyer.
Speaker 2:So my Destroyer definitely I forehand an old Valkyrie that I love the old school plastic.
Speaker 3:Ooh, the old Valkyries.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, it's beat up and it just flies. Beautiful on the forehand. Man, I'm going to tell you, I have two putters. It's tough. Of course I have the Rhino, but now I've got a judge and the judge has actually a sister, the warden, and so now I've kind of like putting. I've grown my game a little bit because they can do different things with putting. So that's cool and that's the value of just having one basket things with putting. So that's cool and that's the value of just having one basket um.
Speaker 2:So disc golf doesn't have to be 18 holes to be a disc golfer that's what's beautiful about the sport, um what? About your mids let's uh my middies, man. The buzz is the best, you can't go wrong everybody throws the buzz it's a it's. It's a money money disc. It's one that I'll make sure is in every Tanzanian's bag, should they make the deal with us.
Speaker 3:If you're from, Discraft and you're listening. I have 68 million customers here, if you happen to be from Discraft.
Speaker 2:Yes, if you happen to be listening. We love the buzz. That is the buzz in tanzania and I am a marketer, so let's go how about?
Speaker 3:how about a buzz with a a hope in tanzania stamp? Oh they, probably we gotta do that man, we need that stamp.
Speaker 2:So if somebody wants to do that man, that's royalty in africa. So, um, that's really probably the biggest thing I'm proud of is just being able to do some things where we literally are reversing some steps that shouldn't have been taken in the first place, healing the trauma, taking the steps to address what has happened and how we move forward from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and disc golf as well as life. So it's you know, you learn from all of that and you move forward and just hope you have the right people listening when you finally do get to have a voice, and I'm glad you guys have a voice. Thanks for giving me a voice, because I've been the journalist and that has been my career, but I've lived a story now and done a thing that, um, it's time to start talking about it and and really talk the walk that I did. So thank you.
Speaker 1:We're honored to be able to speak to you and and put your story. Uh, listen to your story and put your story out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I want to challenge the other disc golfers out there. If you're listening to the show or you know somebody, or you share it with your friends, I want to challenge you guys. Who's going to be the next one? Who's going to be the one to step up? Who's going to be the one to take those steps? Who's going to be the one to do the courses, to do the good work and to reach these?
Speaker 2:underserved populations and move this ball forward. Wow, thank you. It really is something needed from our community back here to help it grow and hopefully by what these organizations Macbeth Foundation and just others who've been working in Africa have made it seem not so scary because it really is nothing to be afraid of. The biggest thing we have to be afraid of is is not going to experience it when we have the opportunity. So I'm throwing the opportunity out there. Disc golf world. Come on into Tanzania with us Two week service and safari trip and it'll change your world. You will be connected to the motherland and by coming to Tanzania you are connected to the other countries with disc golf, so that you can continue to come back and experience all the wonders of Africa. That man we just don't know.
Speaker 3:Thank you, so that does it for this episode of the intentional disc golfer. Remember you can like, subscribe, share if you want to be a part of the cause. Uh, and also now the hope in uh Tanzania cause with uh Ryan Scaife. Thank you so much for being with us, ryan.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys for having me. It was a pleasure and I love what you're doing. Continue and keep it up and look forward to talking with you from Africa.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. If you love what we do here, you Can't Live Without Us. Please like, share, subscribe, follow, tell all of your friends. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at SoprinskiDiscGolf. We have X TikTok and YouTube all at the IDG podcast. That is the symbol at the IDG podcast. You can also go onto our podcast website and send us a text or a fan mail right through there. There's a little button at the top of the page there and you just click that and you can send us a message directly.
Speaker 1:And if you have a story that you'd like to share with us and share with the rest of the world, reach out and we'll get you on the podcast absolutely, and we have uh one way.
Speaker 3:One way to do that is through the facebook group that we have. Just go on to facebookcom and search the intentional disc golfer. You can join our general chat and have a direct line to us and build a community of other disc golfers uh around the podcast, um, and if you want to support the show directly, you can get get uh with us on patreon. We have some exclusive content and we're quickly building more and more on there. So it's patreoncom backslash the intentional disc golfer, and you can email us at the intentional disc golfer at gmailcom. That is the intentional disc golfer at gmailcom, and please stay tuned. After the outro music we will have some bloopers and whatnot, some funny little hahas and outtakes, and we'd like to thank all of our fans and supporters over the years. You guys are the reason that we can keep doing this and why we can do what we do. So thank you out there for being a fan. We love you. I am one of your intentional disc golfers. My name is Brandon.
Speaker 1:And I'm Jenny.
Speaker 3:And hope for Tanzania. The truth is is that disc golf, disc golfers make a difference in this world and disc golf can truly change lives. And and first of all, we'd like to thank all of our fans and supporters for hanging with us throughout the years. We love you, appreciate you and if you would like to become a fan or a supporter of the show, you can get a hold. If you would like to become a fan or a supporter of the show, you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Soprinski Disc Golf. That is C-Z-U-P-R-Y Disc Golf. I screwed that up.
Speaker 1:You misspelled your name, I know. I know that was funny. Let's try it again. Let's not spell it Like they can go back to an old episode and figure it out.
Speaker 3:We don't want to sell that one as much as the other ones okay, yeah because I think we're gonna get rid of that one yeah, so first of all, we'd like to thank our fans. We love you and appreciate you for sticking with us, with us, throughout the god damn it uh-oh, he's sore my turn hey disc golf world.
Speaker 2:this is ryan scaife from the tanzania disc golf federation and you are listening to the International Pod. Let's start over Dang it.
Speaker 1:Hey.
Speaker 2:I knew what I wanted to say. This one is a thank you Is this one.
Speaker 3:Thank you. This one is please listen.
Speaker 1:I do want to say, though I think it's discraft Don't send a roach disc with a roach smoking a roach to a school that was a poorach smoking a roach to a school that was a poor choice on on your behalf by the way, oops, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe that wasn't you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, we all love to have fun, but maybe that's something that should be thought about yeah, the principal at the time made sure that he got those discs and he kept them. Yes, yes, I mean, there's 22 years of why I know what I'm doing in africa and you know that's not to mess up. So we the what that you know. Hey, disc golf world. This is ryan scape from the tanzania disc golf federation. Please get on your ears and turn on to the International Disc Golfer Podcast.
Speaker 3:Intentional Disc Golfer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know I've got international on the mind.
Speaker 3:Well, it's hard not to.
Speaker 2:Oh, I had it, though. Here we go. This is a Please Listen Okay.
