Have you cornholed lately? I know a few people who have.
That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I thought so, which is why I had to read the story that accompanies the headline Windy City Cornhole Classic lets everyone compete. The Daily Southtown reports:
One hundred courts, 800 cloth sacks of corn, 200 target boxes and 1,000 expected competitors will transform Chicago’s Soldier Field Saturday into a battlefield for the Midwest’s largest organized cornhole event.
Or if you prefer — largest organized bean bags or bags event.
"It’ll be like World War II, with bags dropping all around," said Aaron Del Mar, organizer of the first Windy City Cornhole Classic, which is open to all ages and skill levels.
That’s right, the game I have heard called bags or bag toss by various drunks is apparently more widely known as cornhole. The name comes from the object of the game: toss a bag filled with corn into a hole in your opponent’s box. Did I just type that?
The Windy City Cornhole Classic had online registration available at www.chicagocornhole.com until Thursday. If you go to Soldier Field Saturday, you can register in person from 10 am to noon for the competitive singles or doubles divisions, the social singles or doubles divisions, or the singles or doubles first-time throwers divisions. There are more than $5,000 in prizes.
If you don’t want to compete, admission is free, but they do ask for a small donation to a non-profit.
Yeah, I first heard that it was called cornhole when I started looking into how to build my own set. There is even an American Cornhole Association. I think that the first thing on their agenda should be to find a new name for their game. I’ve decided to just call it “bags”.
I just learned this a few months ago myself.
What about “washers”? Does “washers” have a formal name, ya think? For some reason I always hated washers. I always associated it with drunk asses.
What is Washers?
Basically the same premise as cornholing only with a much smaller target or some such. Maybe it was just around ISU.
They had that at UIUC as well, but it never really gained that much popularity. I only saw it being played a few times. I think bags lends itself to the college atmosphere much better because if somebody hits you with a 1 lb. bag of corn, it’s no big deal…but if someone nails you in the temple with a washer, that’s going to sting a bit even with the 10 beers you just drank.