I remember when I earned my 81 coin. It was during the Fall 2022 league, and I was throwing against Bill. I nailed the first round and thought nothing of it. Then I got the second round. And then the meadery went realllllllyyy quiet as I managed to land my final clutch and earn the coin. It felt amazing. The cheering, the back-pats, the horrible picture of me holding my new coin...magic.
But that was that. I achieved the one...I don't know...extra-curricular thing in axe throwing not tied to winning a league or a tourney. I didn't have that to look forward to, anymore, and it was kinda anticlimactic.
This past league night, I was chit-chatting with local throwing legend Scott, who brought up something that Two Clutch Anna said to him: we should be celebrating more achievements, especially for newer throwers. The 81 is, of course, the penultimate achievement in IATF (as far as singular, milestone achievements go), but that's it. You get your 81 coin a la Joe, get a few free drinks (or pay for a few drinks), and call it a day.
The achievement of the 81 is important. It's special. But it's a big hill to climb for most newer throwers, and leaves a big gap in celebrating advancement in the sport. I'm curious if there's opportunity to spread around some of that sweet, sweet achievement magic. Things like:
Boosting your average from one league to the next
Hitting your FIRST clutch
Winning your first match
X leagues in a row
Getting to top X% in your thrower ratings (at least the ol' Collins Rating would have a point in existing).
Or whatever else. Something that the league, as a whole, could celebrate with newer throwers that isn't achieving the perfect match. And it's not something that is necessarily organized outside of the people who are in the league, or the axe house as a whole: it's community driven achievement recognition.
Whether it's just taking a pause in matches to clap for someone, or it's a little token of achievement passed around between throwers, or whatever - it's more a mindset than anything: celebrate people's achievements so they feel like they are achieving something when they throw - so getting that 81 is still important, but not the only thing you can achieve.
Listen - ritual is important, celebration is important. It builds community and excitement. It also helps new throwers (or even throwers with a few seasons under their axe belt) feel like they are moving in a positive direction and part of something. It might only take a little token to really move new throwers from mildly engaged to fully committed to the sport. And that's good for everyone.
This is a good train of thought...it occurred to me while reading this that other sports have Personal Best benchmarks built into it. With running there are different distances, fastest speed at those distances, specific trail sections or location based races, etc. But the cool thing is you're not necessarily measuring yourself against other's performances, it's more about bettering your own performance, so there's some crossover here.
How would one track these achievements and have them communicated/quantified? Strava is an app many runners use to do this, and it works brilliantly! Maybe this could be something baked into Axe Scores (for the IATF throwers)?