My Name’s Stuart and I Play Segway Polo
January 13th, 2007Yep, I do.
Whatever you may think about Segway Polo - and me for playing it - I don’t really care. I enjoy it. When we started playing Segway Polo it was just for fun. Just another thing to do with a very cool piece of technology. Then Woz came out and started playing. It was cool to have Steve Wozniak, arguably the creator of the modern personal computer, come out a couple of times a month and play polo with us but even better was that he was just one of the guys - someone who loved playing polo. With Woz playing, people started to pay attention. A video we shot got loose on the internet and before we knew it we were on all sorts of blogs and video sites. Sure, most people were making fun of us but that didn’t bother us much. We didn’t take the whole thing too seriously. Since then we’ve been on T.V., radio and newspapers around the world and despite the matches getting a lot more competitive and traveling to New Zealand to play in the first “Woz Challenge Cup” we still try not to take it too seriously.
The thing that I think is so cool and strange is that I was part of a small group of people who popularized something that has become a part of pop culture. People may think it’s great or stupid but it’s well-known enough that it gets mentioned in the likes of Time Magazine and on the Colbert Report with no explanation necessary. Not many people can say that and while I’m not trying to say that it’s an important accomplishment I think it’s pretty cool.
Here’s a picture of me playing polo with Jamie Hyneman and Grant Imahara of the MythBusters. That was a big thrill.
