Flying Disc Museum

Complete Spin-the Flying Disc Museum blog

The Complete Spin… is a blog that offers FDM patrons a platform to share their personal and expanded views on all things flying disc.

In Memoriam: A Conversation with Stancil Johnson

April 24, 2021 • 1 Comment

I am sure you all know that we recently lost flying disc legend and pioneer Dr. Stancil Johnson. Stan, as his friends knew him, has been described as the poet laureate of Frisbee who may have very well altered the course of flying disc history with his delightfully penned FRISBEE: A practitioner's manual and definitive treatise. In fact, a number o...

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Inception of the CHING® Full Color Process

March 24, 2021 • 3 Comments

—By Holgate— "Was it really that easy?…did I just PRINT on a GOLF DISC with a transfer sheet used for mouse pads? NO. No-No-No; you did not. Because dyes bleed,” and I should’ve known that from my own food & cloth dye testing. I would have one last option to try again with pigments. But first let me backup in time to setup how it came to be… 1992...

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Have Disc Will Travel: Strange Tales of Plastic Teleportation

March 02, 2021 • 4 Comments

—By Davis Johnson— How do you feel about plastic? As a disc golfer, no doubt intimately connected. In its various manifestations under the catch-all term, “flying disc,” plastic has soared to arguably its highest art form. “When a ball dreams, it dreams it’s a Frisbee” was a popular bumper stickered slogan for disc pioneers back in the '70s. Both...

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Setting the Hook

February 08, 2021 • 5 Comments

—By Marvin P. Paul— I remember as a kid having a key chain collection. The one that sticks in my mind was a rabbit’s foot. Not very lucky for the hare! I was a fiend for Wacky Packages and still think it would be cool to have some of that original art. My father and I had a cheap pocket knife collection that never did seem to have a sharp blade in...

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Reflections on Collections

January 13, 2021 • 7 Comments

—By Phil Kennedy— The FDM's primary founding objective is to cover all topics relating to flying discs. As new information continues to flow in, and the Museum's scope and database continue to grow, it's interesting to see who's visiting the Museum and how the information is being used. Perhaps the most visible signs of usage so far are the posts...

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Playing in the Wham-O $50,000 Disc Golf Tournament

December 22, 2020 • 2 Comments

—By Scott Zimmerman— Even though the DC metro area was hit with 18” of snow during the winter of early 1979, I was practicing several hours a day to prepare for the coming North American Series (NAS) and the World Frisbee Championships (WFC) in the Rose Bowl. At age 16, I had placed 22nd overall at the 1978 WFC and now I had set an audacious goal...

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Rude at Heart

December 09, 2020 • 5 Comments

—By Steve Mooney— Our run started at five in the morning as the noise of our rented Ford Econoline’s arrival knocks an opposing player off the back of the parked car he’d been sleeping on. Memories of my first trip to Mars, the town not the planet, now blending into my rude awakening. What defined our team on that weekend wasn’t our play, but our...

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A Far-Out History of Throwing Far

November 18, 2020 • 16 Comments

—by Davis Johnson— Throwing is in my DNA—my first distance discs of choice according to my mother were Gerber baby food lids. It proceeded on to rocks, apples, crab shells, shingles, baseballs, any projectile my wrist could snap… So, when a Wham-O Pro appeared in the neighborhood in the spring of 1965 I was well primed to begin a life of plastic-p...

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Midnight Flyers: Collect Ones, Collect All

October 28, 2020 • 1 Comment

—By Kevin Fuller— So, the subject of collecting Midnight Flyers interests you, at least enough to have clicked on this article. What does it mean to be a Midnight Flyer collector? It can mean a lot of different things to different people. Before you jump into the deep end of the glowing phosphorescent pool, with no idea where the bottom might be,...

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Midnight Flyers in All Their Glowry

October 14, 2020 • 8 Comments

—By Kevin Fuller— Throwing discs at targets is as old as throwing flying discs. As golf became a competitive part of Frisbee, players used whatever discs, mostly Frisbees of various models and molds, flew best for them. As the sport advanced, the need for more advanced discs pushed manufacturers to improve their offerings, which is still true toda...

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Minnesota Frisbee Association: Celebrating 45 Years as a Promotional Force in Disc Sports

September 30, 2020 • 3 Comments

—By Billie Ashton— It was the summer of 1975 and I remember Elton John was tearing up the American Top 40 in the peak of his career, as the "Rocketman." It was also during this time, that bigger visions of greater things to come grew from a very small group of loyal Frisbee aficionados by the names of Gus Otto, John Greig, Paul Thompson, Lyle Jens...

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XD is my Favorite Disc

September 24, 2020 • 4 Comments

—By Steve Lee— Hi, my name is Steve Lee. I live in the Pacific Northwest and have been playing Disc Sports since the 1970s. Back then, Frisbees were the thing to fly, and after discovering the world of disc golf, I was hooked! My Frisbee of choice was the 70-mold Midnight Flyer. I loved its grip, and immediately began looking for heavier 70 molds...

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Gotta Collect 'em All!

September 18, 2020 • 5 Comments

—by Dan "Stork" Roddick— It wasn’t always so. When flying discs first hit the markets and blew our minds in the ’50s, they were “just” an extraordinary toy. And, they were truly mind blowing. There are lots of stories of how folks reacted upon first seeing one fly. Maybe you’re lucky enough to remember your own experience. I can’t specifically r...

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