Cal was kind enough to take a bit of time with me after one of his father's IATC matches. This was my second interview of the day and I was starting to feel my groove a little bit (and by groove, I mean my ability to ignore how overwhelmed I was by all the peoples. So many peoples, you guys).
How long have you thrown?
I've been throwing since about...2021? So a few years now. Out of Vermont and out of Rage in Montreal.
Are you competing in today's events?
Not in today's tourney, no. I missed out on today but I did compete in Close but No Cigar, Under 65 and Doubles.
Obviously everyone wants to win a bit, but what are the other goals that you had in coming to Toronto?
I had a few achievable, realistic goals in mind, I tried to not overestimate. Last year really showed me the things that I was lacking, so this year I came in pretty low-level on my goals and I didn't know it was pool-play originally so I just wanted to get seven matches because I was doing three events.
I wanted to get a third in something, so I ended up playing a lot more than I thought I would. My real goal was to try to get some Premier clutches here, and I ended up doing really well with that. It went well.
How do you think you change as a thrower after a competition like this? Previously you suggested you realigned your goals a bit based on your experience--how do you think this experiences changes your perception of growth or achievement.
I think that it really helps me to see all of these throwers that are really high level and see how small differences are, how small those changes are.
So when you start out and you go to your first tournament, you have really big changes to make. As you go through those levels (of competition) and come to things like this, those changes get smaller and smaller, but they get harder and harder to make. So coming here really helped me figure out what I needed to do to make those small changes.
Honestly, it's also just the mental game. I have really bad, shakey hands. And it's all mental. I beat myself more often than other people beat me. Or at least, I beat myself a little bit worse.
So this year I noticed during my first game that my hands really didn't shake that much. So it was really just getting in there and feeling at home in that arena.
Anything you wanna add or anyone you wanna say hi to back home (I don't know why I started doing this in interviews. It's like I'm a war correspondent).
You know, I would love to just tell all my family back home in Vermont, all my axe family, that they should come out here and do this stuff with us a bit more. It's an amazing time and an amazing array of people. It's an awesome opportunity to come out here and represent.
And to all of my family at Rage - you are all so supportive and are amazing, amazing people. Travel as much as you can. Make new friends.
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