Dan The Road Trip Guy
Join Dan the Road Trip Guy as he explores the adventures, memories, and life lessons of diverse guests from all walks of life. This podcast goes beyond the road to celebrate the journey of life by uncovering stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or simply love a good story, Dan the Road Trip Guy will leave you inspired and ready to embrace your own adventures. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
I hope you enjoy the episodes. You can find me at https://www.dannyneal.com.
Dan The Road Trip Guy
From Backyard Game to National Sport: The ACO Story
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From a road trip sleeping in the trunk of a car during a Florida road trip to the helm of a 20-year cornhole business, Frank Geers shares the remarkable journey that transformed a simple backyard game into an international competitive sport. As founder of the American Cornhole Organization (ACO), Frank's entrepreneurial spirit and creative vision have literally changed how millions play and experience cornhole.
Frank's story begins with a marketing insight while working at his company Harris Hawk—seeing cornhole boards as potential billboards for brand promotion. What started as a business concept evolved into a passionate mission to legitimize and standardize the game. With refreshing candor, he recounts the early days when he had to explain what cornhole even was, and how his wife cried when he announced his plans to build a business around it.
The conversation reveals fascinating innovations that revolutionized the sport, including Frank's creation of the now-standard two-sided bag with "stick" and "slide" surfaces, adding strategic complexity to gameplay. We journey through ACO's growth from local competitions to major tournaments annually spanning from California to Florida and even expanding internationally.
Most compelling is Frank's insight into the dedicated cornhole community. His "Road Dog" award—honoring players who attend 13+ tournaments yearly—has grown from 9 recipients to 69 in just four years, with enthusiasts traveling thousands of miles and rearranging their lives around competition schedules. Frank estimates he's personally driven over a million miles promoting the sport he loves.
Whether you're curious about entrepreneurship, sports development, or simply want to understand how a backyard pastime landed on ESPN, this conversation offers a unique window into what happens when you follow an unlikely dream with unwavering persistence. Ready to learn more about competitive cornhole? Visit AmericanCornhole.com or contact Frank directly for tournament information.
You can find ACO at https://americancornhole.com
Welcome to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I'm your host, dan, and each week we'll embark on a new adventure, discovering memories and life lessons of our incredible guests, from everyday travelers to thrill seekers and everyone in between. This podcast is your front row seat to inspiring stories of passion, resilience and the pursuit of happiness. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. Well, I'm excited for my drive today. It's a beautiful morning here in Cincinnati and I'm actually in the car. It's been a while since I've had a guest in the car. My guest today is Frank Gears.
Speaker 1:Frank is the founder of American Cornhole Organization. Yep, you heard that right, we're going to talk about cornhole today. Favorite pastime game slash sport of many. Frank spent a number of years working with his dad in the family business. He then ventured off and started a marketing company and then, 20 years ago, again formed American Cornhole Organization. I hope you enjoy this episode as we head out on our little short drive this morning. Welcome to the show, frank. Well, frank, I thought we might just take a drive around the neighborhood and then venture up to the headquarters of American Cornhole Organization. I believe you call that ACO for short. We go by ACO, yeah.
Speaker 2:The acronym stands for American Cornhole Organization. It is funny. Anytime Dan and I get together to talk with a reporter or somebody like that, I always have to make sure that they understand that we are the organization ACO American Cornhole Organization because there are other groups out there. I've been around for like 20 years but there are other groups that jumped on board too. I could not trademark the name American Cornhole, so there are other groups that jumped on board. I could not trademark the name American Cornhole, so there are other groups that came on. There's American Cornhole League, american Cornhole Association, but we're recognized as the governing body and have been around the longest out of anybody. I've got a car story maybe. I don't know. I'll think about it. It'll come to me in a second maybe epic road trips.
Speaker 1:Epic road trips man, I love it. Okay, cool, and then we'll talk about Cornhole. Absolutely, and I'm going to ask you for just two or three minutes because my listeners, you know, maybe some of them don't even know what Cornhole is. Okay, give me the history of it in three minutes, can you do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we that yeah we're gonna do that cool.
Speaker 2:Then we'll talk about aco and how you. What took you down that path. Okay, firework for your dad for a long time. I worked for my pops for a while. We um, my dad uh had a really good business. I was called f james gears and company um and he was a basically a print broker fulfillment type of uh service and I came out of uh school.
Speaker 2:I went to xavier university and came out of school and went straight into work for dad because I'd worked for him as a kid, growing up and through high school and college days and it just parlayed that into wanting to go be with my dad. I enjoyed being with my dad and started that and was with him for I don't know, maybe 20, not quite 20 years, 15 years, probably out of school. And you know, I went to dad one day and I said, know, maybe 20, not quite 20 years, 15 years, probably out of school. And you know, I went to dad one day and I said, dad, I need to move on and ended up leaving. I cried the day. I told him I had to leave but moved on and started a marketing firm called Harris Hawk Okay, with a buddy by the name of Frank Batchy at the time and Frank and I came together.
Speaker 2:I used to run a golf outing. For like 35 years I did this family golf outing so I've always been into entertaining people and putting on activities and stuff, and this golf outing that I put on was called the Bologna Open. It was the Gears Bologna Open and I grew it, dan, to the point that we had over like 100 people. The biggest year I had 100 people. A buddy came in from Boston, some friends came in from the Dallas market and buddies from college and high school came back to play. So those were great days with the Bologna Open and that's how I came to know Frank Bacci, and Frank Bacci and I started a company called Harris Hawk which was a marketing company and that was really a cool little venture for about two and a half three years when a year or two into that business, we ended up winning an award locally here for the fastest growing little company.
Speaker 2:But I was always looking for while working for that company, I was always looking for a creative way to market a company. Okay, and uh, I came across this game called cornhole and uh, I looked at it and I said, man, that's a billboard waiting to happen. You know logo, the logo, the board logo, the bags, um, you know, promote companies like you know Coca-Cola and Budweiser and you know Domino's pizza, whatever it is, you know it is. You know just all sorts of opportunities to showcase those brands at either festivals or trade shows. Or you know bars, restaurants, you know that type of stuff.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of how I initially got into this world of cornhole, and at the time that I got into cornhole, dan, the only thing people knew cornhole for was a sex act, a dirty sex act, and that's about it, but it's it's. It's crazy, though, to see, you know, and in the beginning too, it was really hard for us to, um, you know, sell the concept of cornhole to people. I did not invent cornhole. All I did was make cornhole better. Um, is what I did yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And uh, speaking of that, give me, give us the three minute elevator pitch on the history of the. Is it a game or is it a sport?
Speaker 2:so. So cornhole. Cornhole is a we. It started as a game, and it was me that said, hey, why can't this be a sport? You know, how did basketball become a sport? How did golf become a sport? You know, somebody just said, hey, let's take this game and let's put more official rules and regulations to it and let's become a governing body and push this thing forward to. And that's what I did. I took a backyard game that I did not create and I created it into a sport.
Speaker 1:Any idea? Where did cornhole, the game, come from?
Speaker 2:That's the number one question that everybody always asks and there is no set answer on that. I can just tell you that one of the most interesting stories, I think and there's some validity to this is that it was a game that was derived originally through the Indians, where they would actually and it was a kid out of Indian Hill, that kind of did the research paper on this thing. But the game was where Indians would dig a little hole in the earth and they would fill a satchel with corn or beans or whatever, sure, and they'd tie it and they would stand back from that hole and they would just chuck this bag towards this hole in the ground and that's literally basically the concept of Cornwall. But where it originated, nobody really knows. Now I will say that there's also a lot of traces that go back to a game in Germany.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you know, cincinnati has a lot of heritage for Germans, sure, our German heritage. It is kind of believed that that could, that could be also the the forefront of it. Yeah, chicago and cincinnati, uh, were the two places that really laid claim to really pushing this thing forward, this game of cornhole. Now chicago, you know, 20 plus years ago, really referred to this game as bags. They called it bags.
Speaker 2:Okay, uh and in bag, bag-o or something like that Bag-O is a little plastic board game. That's like a brand. Yeah, those are a little.
Speaker 1:I don't know if cheesy is a good word to use but they're a little like that's a child's toy, child's toy.
Speaker 2:There you go, that's what I'm looking for, but no, it's. Chicago battled with bags, we battled with Cornhole. When I with cornhole, when I started in this thing, cornhole was already known as the name cornhole. Within three, four million people within this region, or in Kentucky, cincinnati, ohio, southern Indiana, they all recognize this, this game, this backyard game, as cornhole. So I always thought you know why do we need to change the name? Let's just keep it cornhole. Tongue-in-cheek it was and I 20 years later.
Speaker 2:Now people really have come to know. I mean, shoot, it's on ESPN.
Speaker 2:Well, everywhere you go, there's like a cornhole for it right, you can't get away from it anymore, man, I'll tell you in the day. It was funny because you know I live in a very nice community. I feel very blessed that I live where I live, in Terrace Park and stuff like that, and I've got a lot of good friends in the area. But you know my wife in the early days she cried when I told her I was going to go start this. Here's what I'm going to do. Yeah, what, what are you doing? And in the community we live in or I live in Dan it's got doctors and lawyers and people with jobs that you know, manufacturing people. And here I am a guy, that's just you know doing a college game of cornhole and going out and partying with people on a weekly basis. So she was like how are you going to support a family of three with this? And I'm like you've got to believe in me. You've got to believe in me, man, I've got a vision here. I've got a dream.
Speaker 1:I've got a dream, that's cool. Hey, we'll back up a little bit. Best I remember, your dad and I was friends with your mom and dad and that's how I met you. But your dad was kind of a car guy. Best I remember or liked cars, he drove a Lexus for about 400,000 miles, I think.
Speaker 2:Drove that Lexus to the ground. That was a beauty man. It was blue. Yeah, it was probably in the early days of Lexus. I don't know how long the brand of Lexus has been around, but he was an earlier follower of Lexus.
Speaker 1:He was pretty early. Yeah, what was your first?
Speaker 2:car. My first car was a Cavalier, a Chevy Cavalier. My parents helped me get it. It was a little over 16 years old when I got it and it was a fabulous little creature. Sure it was, but I'll tell you, my most memorable. Actually I have two memorable cars. Yeah, let's you know, over my life I've I've rarely had a brand new car. I the next car after my Cavalier I got was a diesel station wagon. Okay, so that thing man would fire up, but I don't know if you're familiar with diesel cars.
Speaker 1:That was pretty early days of diesel, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:The diesel cars. And then another car I ended up with was my father-in-law. I ended up buying his and I got it for really cheap. I got it for like a thousand bucks or something like that, but it was this. There was this Cadillac that he had. He loved this Cadillac. It was a boat dude. This thing was like from tip to end it was probably 18 feet.
Speaker 2:It felt like it was ginormous and you would take a turn. And when you took a turn with this thing, the front end was done making the turn while the back end was still coming around. And I mean it was just a boat. And here I am, you know whatever 27 years old, married, just married, and stuff like that, and I'm this young kid driving this old man's. You know Cadillac, but that was a memorable little car that.
Speaker 1:I had there too the Cavalier. Was that automatic a stick, or?
Speaker 2:It was automatic, Automatic, Automatic. I've not. I've never. I've always wanted to drive sticks, but I've never been efficient at driving a stick and never had a stick vehicle myself. So I got to get one of those one of these days.
Speaker 1:You need to get one. So you travel a lot, obviously now, but any epic road trips in your life, either with your parents or with your own family or just out on the road yeah, there's the shop. Hey, that's actually corporate headquarters, right, corporate headquarters, right there, buddy. Corporate headquarters of ACO.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually I've gone on a couple of cool trips. I won't bother telling you about the one to Florida. Two of my epic trips came in Florida. One was in high school during spring break with a bunch of friends that I went down there with, and the other one to Florida was with some buddies from college. I ended up getting down there and I had to sleep in the trunk of the car and all I remember was kind of holding the trunk sort of open so I could still breathe, and all I remember is Mosquito, because we found a subdivision that was being developed and stuff like that and parked our car back there because all the hotels were booked up. And so I'm back in the trunk of this car sleeping and all I remember was the mosquitoes coming in my ear. But no, my max most epic, uh road trip that I can really think of off the top of my head here was, um, my son max.
Speaker 2:I have three sons, okay, my youngest son is charlie, my middle son is max and my oldest son is bailey likes to go by john these days, yeah, sure, but call him bailey. But my middle son, he's been an aspiring singer and stuff like that and he's kind of adventuresome. Sure, he ended up doing a road trip with me in the box truck. Box truck is the truck that for the aco, that carries all the boards and equipment and stuff across the country. And you know, I'm on, I'm on road excursions all the time, but this one particular trip we had, our world championships was going to be taking place out in las vegas, nevada. Okay, I had him drive with me in the truck, all the equipment, to Las Vegas. But on that road trip we stopped by, you know, some friends in Kansas had just an amazing steak dinner in Kansas, okay, and then from there we went to Colorado, ended up taking the box truck over to a place called Estes Park.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's a beautiful place, absolutely gorgeous place. He and I climbed the mountains, ended up spending a couple minutes, you know, looking out at this lake that was tucked up in top of the mountains. But then from there we ended up over through Utah, ended up meeting a friend of mine I forget the city that we stopped at in Utah, but it was just a really great trip to Vegas. Got to Vegas, ran the cornhole tournament for the week and then came back on the southern route, because going to Vegas we went kind of the northern route. Coming back from Vegas, we went the southern route, went through Albuquerque. That's where we spent the evening in Albuquerque.
Speaker 2:Then I went to Branson Missouri. If you ever get to Branson Missouri, that's a really special place. Lots of caving in that community, super golf courses. But they have a place that, if you didn't know where Branson is, that's near Springfield Missouri as well, and out in that area there's a guy by the name of Johnny Morris. Johnny Morris owns and operates Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's and stuff. He's the originator of all that. But there's a place called Top of the Rock out there, okay, and Top of the Rock again, if anybody's listening to the show, if you ever get out there, 100% tell you you've got to go there and check it out. It is a special place. But yeah, that was probably one of my most memorable overall road trips and it was neat to share it with one of my sons.
Speaker 1:Over all, road trips and it was neat to share it with one of my sons. Yeah, that's always fun to share it with uh, with a, you know, spouse or or a child, but uh, I don't think I've ever had anybody tell me about a road trip in a box truck. So that's the first um. You talked a little bit about how you got into uh cornhole and how this has become. You know, you're in your 20th year, I think this is our 20th season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 20th season. Talked yes, yeah, 20th season.
Speaker 1:Talked about how you got into that. Take us through how that's grown and how it's changed over the years.
Speaker 2:So much and so much behind it over the years. But you know, one of the things is when I first got involved with Cornhole, nobody really knew what it was. I mean, there was people out there that played it in their backyards a little bit and stuff like that. But more often than not I'm going to these trade shows to introduce this sport to communities and things like that and I had to explain. Every time I started talking about cornhole. I would have to explain to somebody how you play the game and what it is and then they'd ask you know, where did the name cornhole come from? And really the name cornhole come from and really the name cornhole came from?
Speaker 2:A simple thing it's a board with a hole in it that you have bags that are filled with corn that you throw towards it. Now the bags are no longer filled with corn, they're filled with a resin fill. One of our early clients was Carnival Cruise. I did product for the boats. That's actually how the game really got spread internationally. The two biggest factors that I take away from the game being spread internationally was Carnival Cruise kind of getting it started and the US military, so a lot of people in the military play Cornhole for fun In the early days, educating people on what the game was.
Speaker 2:Now, as you progress, 20 years later, after the ACO invented the two-sided bag, we invented the concept of what is that?
Speaker 1:I read that on your website. I'm like what is a two-sided bag? I thought it had two sides.
Speaker 2:So there actually is a really kind of little cool story behind that Cornhole. This was in the early, early days. This was probably 18, 19 years ago. One of my uncles, my uncle Scott. He had an upholstery company.
Speaker 1:You know what upholstery is right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in there, and I found him to be the one to start sewing my bags initially, so he made my bags for me One day, in there with Scott, as he's making a batch of bags for me that I was getting ready to take to deliver to a client. While I'm waiting, I'm sitting there looking at a swatch book of all these fabrics. Oh, sure, okay. And as I'm looking at this swatch book of all these fabrics, it just dawned on me I'm like Scott man, because I found a couple fabrics I like. One was like this synthetic suede, and I was like Scott is there any way that I could take two different fabrics and marry them together to make a bag?
Speaker 2:You know, dan, the concept came to me to create a strategy and more complexity to the game, because at that point in time, every bag had been made out of canvas Okay, traditional canvas and every bag was filled with, you know, corn.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, for me, thinking of this idea of two different fabrics was each fabric would react differently on the board. So the idea was to create one of the fabrics would have more of a stick, feel Okay, and the other fabric would have more of a slide, so you'd have a slick and stick or a slide and slip and slide type of thing. Yeah, that's how it kind of got started. It really from here, the rest is history. I did look to you know patent and that at the time and talking to the attorneys they said you know, that's a design patent, you can do it if you want to do it, but it's going to be relatively easy for somebody to get around that pattern. Instead of wasting my money and my energy on it, I just went forward creating the concept of the two-sided bag, which which now now the industry is filled with two-sided bags.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, yeah, Okay, so it's really basically become the standard. Now is it the player's choice. I'm going to throw with the yeah, so that's funny.
Speaker 2:We actually called it the player's choice.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, so it was called the player's choice. So the player had a choice of throwing a stick or a slick side, and the stick side. The concept with the stick side was you would use that to possibly throw a blocker shot to keep you from sliding to the hole. So, okay, so that was, uh, that was a theory with that. There's a strategy to that. Yeah, I mean people think about it as it's as simple as throwing the, the um, the bag into the hole. I'm sure you can.
Speaker 2:You can take every sport. I mean hockey is as simple as putting a puck in the net, you know, basketball is as simple as shooting the ball into the hoop. I mean cornhole is as simple as putting the bag into the hole. People liken it to shuffleboard and horseshoes and darts and billiards. You know kind of along those lines of sports, of bowling. The one thing that's different about like cornhole than bowling, for instance, is you can't play defense in bowling, it's just you against the pins up there. In cornhole there is strategies that you can take by muddying up the board, using that stick side of the bag to kind of lay it low, to force the competitor to to go, you know, through your bag or up over top or cut around it, you know. So there is strategies to defense, um, you know, in the sport of of cornhole. So it isn't just you know, you against the whole type of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah what's a um, what's a tournament weekend like, because I was looking at the standings and I'm like, oh my gosh, there's hundreds of people on here.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, now we've got some big tournaments. Matter of fact, locally in Cincinnati, every September we run one out in Hamilton, ohio, at a place called the Spooky Nook. It's a big sports complex. Yeah, this past year we had 600 plus players come out from like 19 states. That's a big one. If any listeners are interested, we will be back there in September.
Speaker 1:Yeah, late September.
Speaker 2:What's their date? This year's is the first weekend of October.
Speaker 2:The first weekend of October. Perfect, the first weekend of October. But no, that is great, but what's it like on a weekend? You know these things we do across the country, dan. They're called and talking about road trips and stuff like that. You know, these players of mine. We have an award for players of ours that's called the road dog. Okay, and this past year I had 43 majors across the country, from fresno, california, to duluth, minnesota, to fort walton, florida, to hamilton, ohio, so they're all over the country buffalo, new york, atlantic city, so they're all over the country. We even went international this past couple seasons where we've been running one out in the UK, yeah, and then this coming season we've actually added one in Canada, one in September and one in May in a place called Prince Edward Island. Oh sure, but I was going to tell you about, like, talk about road trips, and we have an award that we created called the Road Dog.
Speaker 2:The Road Dog is for anybody that travels to 13 of our majors in the course of a season. These majors are the big tournaments that take place over a weekend. Usually we're doing a welcome bash on a Thursday night, we play cornhole all Friday and all Saturday, and then everybody goes home. We're listening to music, we're eating food, we're enjoying the people and the environment and the competition. I'm not going to kid you, the competition is at the highest of all levels, but these people have it's like almost a family reunion when you go to these events. But the road dog is for somebody that goes to 13 of these events. Now I told you how many different cities and the places that we go for these things. These people have to take off several days of work just to go to one event, right, sure, and it costs them money for entry, it costs them money for hotel rooms, it costs them money for travel expenses and they're doing this 13 weekends of the year. This is a commitment. It is a commitment man. And we had a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine.
Speaker 2:Mike Schaefer Sr passed away. Prior to him passing away, one of the coolest things that I did, I think, in my entire cornhole career was come up with the concept that we were going to create this award in honor of him, and the award was called the Road Dog. Okay, yeah, a lot of people have to die before they get recognized. I wanted to recognize him before he died. Sure, sure, I actually worked with Mike told him about this award that we were doing and what it was all about. When he was in the hospital, I actually took logos to him and had him help pick out his logo that was going to be for his award. Anyway, he did pass away, but the good news is is he was alive for the first season of the Road Dog, so he got to see the first nine people that ever won this award. Yeah, all right. Well, I never thought.
Speaker 2:What we do for this Road Dog is we give away a bourbon barrel with an etched logo in it and the person's name right, never conceived that we would ever have more than maybe 10 of these people doing this on an annual basis, because that award cost us a little bit of money too. Well, the second year, dude, we ended up with 23. The next year, we ended up with 53. So we're in year four of this road dog award. We have 69 people now that have traveled this past season to 13 or more events. Some people have done 20, 21 of these things. It's really kind of a cool thing and a passionate thing, but again, um well, stop Sorry, oh not a good thing in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew better to do that. I got so enthralled in your story.
Speaker 2:I'll probably get pulled over by the Terrace Park police because as you've noticed, I've stopped and I've counted to five or six. You've got to do that every time. I'm going to stop at this one. There's not even one here. I love it. That's great, but no Cornwall has been. It's been a lot of fun over the years and again I've calculated out that I've driven over a million miles already in my life just for the growth of this game and this sport.
Speaker 1:Great man. That is so cool. Thanks for sharing all that. Here's a question for you. Imagine today you could go on a road trip with anybody, living or deceased. Who would it be? Where might you go?
Speaker 2:There's a couple different paths. I could go with that If it's going to be like a and you might load up that box truck with everybody right there you go. If it's going to be somebody that I want to go really kind of like partying with or something like that, I probably would grab somebody that's more comedic in nature, like a will ferrell or sure a chris farley or somebody like that.
Speaker 2:Go on a little trip with, I think that could be a lot, a lot of fun. But if I was going to go on a little trip with, I think that could be a lot, a lot of fun. But if I was going to go with somebody that I'd like to just learn more about, tap their brain a little bit you know who they were it probably would be Walt Disney, and the reason I say that is I don't know a lot about the man, but what I do know about is that you know he created an amazing brand. He created something that's it's entertainment for people. I started by telling you, uh, early on, that you know I ran a bologna open for my right here, for my family. I do this. You know I feel like I'm an entertainer or somebody that not an entertainer in himself, but I'm looking for ways to give people something to do in life and give them some joy in life.
Speaker 1:I guess is what I'm saying, and I've got some cartoon characters that I've developed in my mind that I've always wanted to release and I just haven't had the money or the time to do it because I've gotten wrapped up in Cornell.
Speaker 2:But I just like to learn more about where his brain was, because he was a dreamer and I feel like I'm a dreamer and I feel like he was the ultimate dreamer and I would just like to tap into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's on your bucket list. Got any big things on your bucket list and like this is a?
Speaker 2:a huge bucket not a huge bucket list, but a far-fetched bucket list. But I've always thought that it would be amazing to be able to somehow get up there, go into space for a little bit and look back at the earth. I would love. What? Is it SpaceX or something?
Speaker 1:like that.
Speaker 2:Get in one of those ships and go up. Go up there. I mean another kind of a crazy you know dream or bucket list dream for me. I told you my son, max um, is a singer, aspiring singer. Yeah, absolutely, and I'd love nothing more than to actually see him succeed where he was a very successful uh, and and and, going on tours and I would just be the road, I would be the roadie for him.
Speaker 2:I would set up the stages and work behind the scenes, and just that, to me, would be an ultimate bucket list. Dream is just to chill. Being part of the road crew, yeah. I drive the, the semi or whatever with the other people and just be there to see him do his thing.
Speaker 1:Cool, cool. Well, you've been in. You know you were in the family business. You started another business, then you started ACO. What advice might you give to? You know, maybe it's somebody starting a business, maybe it's just a young person. What kind of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:I don't know, there's nothing easy in life, but keep pushing. I mean, be persistent. Perseverance goes a long ways. Um, I, I feel like I've been beat down numerous times and uh, people have no idea how I've stayed around as long as I have, but it's just being persistent, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Great advice. Well, Frank, this has been, this has been a pleasure for me. Uh, it's a beautiful morning here in our in our town, and uh, just to drive around with you and learn a little bit more about cornhole.
Speaker 2:Well, dan, I do appreciate you picking me up and uh taking me on this little road trip.
Speaker 1:I don't usually get to ride around with people because most of my guests are scattered about. Let's leave our listeners with if they're interested in cornhole, or just leave them with how to find you, how to find ACO. If there's a charity you love, you know whatever it is.
Speaker 2:I'd love to get people more interested in American Cornhole and specifically me and the ACO. Our website is AmericanCornholecom, our YouTube channel is just YouTube forward slash, american Cornhole, and you can find us on both of those and my name is Frank Gears, and if anybody's really interested, you can even give me a personal email, frank, at American Cornholecom. I have no one charity that we specifically support, but I will tell you if there's big charities out there listening and stuff like that. Cornhole is a wonderful way to promote your brand and your business. Carson Palmer was one that we did a couple of big charities for downtown with the sport of Cornhole for Easter Seals, oh wow. But anyway, if anybody's interested, you can reach me at Frank F-R-A-N-K at AmericanCornholecom. Well, thank you, frank, and if I have one more piece of advice, yeah, yeah, of course I always have to end with this yeah, keep on pitching.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you, Mine is keep on driving.
Speaker 2:There you go baby.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was fun. Thanks, dan. Oh man, that was fun. Thank you for tuning in to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I hope you enjoyed our journey today and the stories that were shared. If you have any thoughts or questions or stories of your own, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. Don't forget to share this podcast with your friends and family and help us to spread the joy of road trips and great conversations. Until next time, keep driving, keep exploring and keep having those amazing conversations. Safe travels and remember you can find me on the internet at dantheroadtripguycom.
