The Second Annual  

USQA World Quoit Championship

Sunday, October 3, 2004

The sun is shining brightly on the USQA Quoit Grounds near Amityville, PA. This view was taken looking down

the middle of a long row of 20 pairs of pits.  Another 10 pair of pits are setup at right, just behind the yellow tent.

_____________________________ 2004 WQC Photo Pages  _____________________________

Links to SIX pages of Expanded Photo Coverage from the 2004 USQA World Quoit Championship! 

Photo Page 1   12 photos   Hurricane Ivan Postponement - Saturday, September 18th

Photo Page 2   23 photos   October 3rd Pre-Tournament Activities - Quoit Grounds, Preparing the pits, Registration

Photo Page 3   21 photos   Pool Play - Players in Action Part 1 - Pitching on the pits

Photo Page 4   20 photos   Pool Play - Players in Action Part 2 - Pitching on the pits

Photo Page 5   28 Photos   On the Sidelines - Crowd shots, Spectators, T-shirts, Food, Other Off-Court Activities

Photo Page 6   18 Photos   End of Day - Playoffs, Finals, and Champions - Interview with the Conrad Family 

Thank you to the following people for providing photos from the 2004 WQC: 

 Bob Alig        Ben Bernard        Joe Cisick        George Satko        Gary Walters        Rick Walters

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The tournament began on a cool but sunny Sunday morning at 9:00 am.  86 teams competed on 30 sets of dirt pits for the status of being known as "The 2004 World Champions!"  All teams pitched 10 round-robin games during Pool Play, against others in one of six divisions, and the teams with the best overall scores and point spreads moved on to a 64-team Playoff.   Each round of playoffs was determined by a best-of-three-games match.  The sun set around 7:30 pm during the quarterfinals, and lights were used on the pits for the rest of the tournament.  The final round between the Rookies and Fine-ally Big Time was finished at 9:45 pm, with brothers Jason and Billy Conrad of Fleetwood, PA defeating Bob Fine and Ken Kaas in two fairly close games.  This closed out a very long but enjoyable 13 hour day of exciting quoits action.  We all can't wait for next year - Bigger and Better! - Hope to see you all back then!

The USQA would like to thank the following people who volunteered many hours of service to make this event happen: Harry & Big Dog Mosera, who provided the perfect property for the tournament; Willie Wandress; Jerry Reitmeyer;  Dennis Shaw; Larry Farman; Jamie Hanley; Jeff Bidell; Brad Sperow; Bowlhead; Karl and Matt Smith; Kerry Mesner; Brady Tech; the Pit Bosses; and Pam Kaas.

We also want to thank Troy Frey of Quoits.info, for putting all of our endeavors out on the internet for all to see; Ivan Jeffery, owner of Crescent Brass Manufacturing in Reading, for donating a custom set of brass USQA quoits as a championship trophy; and Miller Graphics, for the great T-shirts.

Our hats go off to the Conrad Family of Fleetwood PA - They really "cleaned house" in this year's WQC!  Brother's Jason and Billy of The Rookies took the $700 first prize as the new reigning World Quoit Champions, and their brother Keith and father William of Team Conrad finished tied for third place, winning another $200.  Between them, they took home almost half the winnings of the day!  What WILL they do with all that money?  Perhaps they'll install some Major-League lighting and artificial turf around their Quoit pits at home!  Ah, the neighbors will just love it, won't they?!

This Year's Champions not only received the $700 top prize to split between them, but each also received a nice tan Champion brand jacket with "2004 World Quoit Champions" embroidered on the front.  Crescent Brass Manufacturing of Reading also donated a very nice set of solid brass quoits with USQA lettering to the winners, so they can practice for next year's challenge!  Nice prizes, Guys! 

We should all applause the effort and dedication of our 3rd place finishers, the Midwest Ringmasters, who flew-in from Missouri and Wisconsin - not just once for the original September wash-out, but also a second time just two weeks later to make the rescheduled date!  It's good they won some prize money to help offset TWO round-trip airfares!  Way to go Rick and Gary!

The 2005 WQC will be held sometime after Labor Day weekend, in Early to Mid-September as usual, but will now include a pre-scheduled Rain Date to help avoid all the confusion and scrambling we had to do this year because of Hurricane Ivan.  This way everyone can plan for contingencies well in advance if the tournament needs to be postponed.  As we become more experienced in hosting these large events, we will definitely adapt and improve our procedures to help make things go easier not only for us, the organizers, but for all of our participants as well.  Yes, we are learning! 

Don Walters of Tuscon, Arizona, brother of 3rd-place finishers Rick and Gary Walters, emailed me an interesting magazine article he found, published way back in 1914, entitled "The Friendly Game of Quoits."  The first paragraph of this article reads:  "The modern game of quoits, played with the sharp-edged, concave iron rings, is peculiarly adapted to wider use in country and town.  It is a friendly game, free from too intense strivings and the ill feeling of doubtful decisions, yet affording attractive test of muscle and nerve. This inherent friendliness can­not well be appreciated by one who has never taken memorable part, or been much in the groups of onlookers. It is told that men who play together at quoits cannot long hold grudges or un­settled disputes. It seems to breed fairness and social equality, comradeship and laughter, and a strain of clean and wholesome thought and talk. Many a neighborhood dates a distinct betterment from the time of its introduction."  A 90-year-old observation that is still a very good rule to pitch by today! 

 -The Quoit Master

Top 16 Playoff Finishers for the 2nd Annual World Quoit Championships
Teams that finished in the brackets are non-ranked within their bracket, so are listed in Alphabetical Order for fairness

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1st Place $700 - The Rookies - Jason & Billy Conrad - Fleetwood, PA
2nd Place $500 - Fine-ally Big Time - Bob Fine and Ken Kaas - Pottstown, PA / Boyertown, PA 
3rd-4th Bracket $200 - Midwest Ringmasters - Rick & Gary Walters - St. Louis, Missouri  / Milwaukee, Wisconsin
3rd-4th Bracket $200 - Team Conrad - William & Keith Conrad - Fleetwood, PA

5th-8th Bracket $100 - E-ville Boyz - Big Dog and Scott Wade - Earlville, PA

5th-8th Bracket $100 - Hardcore - Brian Schutt and Jason Moyer - Boyertown, PA / Bally, PA

5th-8th Bracket $100 - Pin Pounders - Randy Bodman and Skip Hoffman - Catawissa, PA

5th-8th Bracket $100 - Yoder & Price - Bill Yoder and Chick Price - Perkasie, PA

9th-16th Bracket - Brady Tech - Bill Golumbfskie and George Gredzinski - Shamokin, PA / Ranshaw PA

9th-16th Bracket - Bull Gods - Paul & Jim Nace - Perkasie, PA

9th-16th Bracket - Camp Kelly - Randy and Michelle Kelly - Pottstown, PA

9th-16th Bracket - Hangover - Greg Herbst and Brian Gebhard - Boyertown, PA

9th-16th Bracket - High & Brice - Jeff High and Danny Brice - Ephrata, PA

9th-16th Bracket - Team Rage - Frank Stehman and Mike Pollock - Pottstown, PA

9th-16th Bracket - The Stapletons - John & Chris Stapleton - Coatesville, PA / Cochranville, PA

9th-16th Bracket - Vic & Jim - Victor Edwards and Jim ??? - Pottstown, PA

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2004 USQA WQC 'FINAL 40' WORLD RANKINGS

In order to devise a fair ranking system which takes in consideration ALL aspects of a team's tournament performance,

The USQA has adopted a point-assignment system determined by a simple mathematical formula.  The annual USQA World Rankings includes Pool Play performance, the number of rounds won in the playoffs, and final finish positions in its overall Ranking formula.  All teams that compete in the Playoffs are awarded a total point value based on the following criteria:

1. The total number of teams participating in the current WQC is divided in half, then rounded to the nearest multiple of ten, to determine that year's size of the Ranking Pool.  This year there were 87 teams; 87 / 2 = 43.5, which rounds to 40.  Last year there were 60 teams; 60 / 2 = 30, which rounds to 30. 

2. Each of the teams in this year's Playoffs (64) is awarded an initial point value that is the Inverse of the Ranking Pool number determined above (40).  This initial value is based on each team's seed position after Pool Play:

#1 seed = 40 points, #2 seed = 39 points, ....... #39 seed = 2 points, #40 seed = 1 point, #41-64 seed = 0 points

3. Then, for each round of playoffs a team wins, they are awarded an additional 10 points.

4. Finally, after the Playoffs are complete, an additional 20 bonus points is awarded to the second-place finishing team, and an additional 30 bonus points is awarded to the Championship team.  This is done to assure that the final playoff round is a valid Champions / Runners-up match-up "for all the marbles" in the final World Rankings.

Division     Rank  Team                                    Player Names                                         Points

Kenny says:  "We want to see YOU at next year's Championship!