Disc Golf Daily

Disc Golf Sunday: Wes Shinevar of Discraft

summary Wes Shinnevar is a personal assistant to Bob Julio at Discraft and also the team Discraft manager. He helps out with various tasks related to disc golf operations, tournaments, sponsorships, and the team. Wes has been involved in disc golf since 2016 and has experience running tournaments and working with Discraft on the Underground team. The Underground team was created to recognize and give back to Discraft fans who are doing great things in the disc golf community. Wes shares that the team looks for consistent and creative social media presence when considering new members. He also mentions his favorite releases from Discraft, including the Captain's Thrasher and the five claw Buzz. Wes enjoys being a part of the disc golf industry and being involved in the behind-the-scenes work.

keywords Discraft, Wes Shinnevar, personal assistant, Bob Julio, disc golf operations, tournaments, sponsorships, team Discraft manager, Underground team, disc golf community, social media, favorite releases, Captain's Thrasher, five claw Buzz, disc golf industry takeaways Wes Shinnevar is a personal assistant to Bob Julio at Discraft and also the team Discraft manager. The Underground team was created to recognize and give back to Discraft fans who are doing great things in the disc golf community. When considering new members for the Underground team, Discraft looks for consistent and creative social media presence. Wes's favorite releases from Discraft include the Captain's Thrasher and the five claw Buzz. Wes enjoys being a part of the disc golf industry and being involved in the behind-the-scenes work.

Duration:: 19m
Broadcast on:: 03 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Wes Shinnevar is a personal assistant to Bob Julio at Discraft and also the team Discraft manager.
The Underground team was created to recognize and give back to Discraft fans who are doing great things in the disc golf community.
When considering new members for the Underground team, Discraft looks for consistent and creative social media presence.
Wes's favorite releases from Discraft include the Captain's Thrasher and the five claw Buzz.
Wes enjoys being a part of the disc golf industry and being involved in the behind-the-scenes work.

All right, welcome back everyone to Disc Golf Daily. I am here with Wes Shinovar. So Wes, how are you doing today? Doing good. Doing good. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Of course. I know you're the personal assistant to Bob Julio. That was one of the many hats you wear at Disc Golf. You could probably tell it better about exactly what you do for Discraft. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You kind of set an assistant to Bob Julio. He runs all of the Disc Golf operations at Discraft. So overseas production, tournaments, sponsorships, obviously the team side as well as the team and Discraft manager, so just helping him out with anywhere he needs help basically. Obviously, Disc Golf has grown a lot over the last four years coming out of the COVID boom. And so yeah, his job kind of turned from one job into more than one job. And so he brought me in to kind of help out in some different areas. Oh, that's interesting. So what were you doing before he kind of brought you in to help him out? Yeah. Well, so I was working in title insurance. It was kind of my day job outside of Disc Golf and I've worked for oil and gas companies doing leasing and also title work, which is not very exciting. But Disc Golf background that kind of helped me to get there, started playing in 2016, started running tournaments. I think I ran my first tournament in 2018. I want to say I can't remember if it was the end of '17. I think it was '18, started taking over CCR open, which is our local eight year, sort of in 2019 and then fully in 2020 and started working with Bob and with Discraft on the underground team, middle of 2018 as well. So just a lot of different facets in Disc Golf, there's so many ways these days to get involved with Disc Golf. And so I kind of got involved with all of them sort of to start out. Yeah, that seems like it's the way to go in Disc Golf. You just say yes to everything and then you randomly end up in a place. That's what happened to me, I guess, with the kind of, with the expos and the podcast on them on. Just I said, yes, yes, yes. And lo and behold, they worked out. So you mentioned the underground team. Tell us more about that and what it is and why it's important. Yeah, so the underground kind of stemmed from the Discraft ambassador team and other manufacturers kind of had similar teams to this around the time that we formed the underground if not before. And so Bob saw a need for this kind of team because there are just so many good people doing good things in Disc Golf. Especially Discraft fans, people that love Discraft, and we kind of needed a way to give back to those people and to also recognize those people and for them to feel recognized because there's a lot of people in Disc Golf that are doing great things from running tournaments to building themselves up on the tournament side as players to people that are just doing huge community efforts, people that are working on courses and growing the game from sort of a grassroots perspective. And those people are, at this point, international. So back in 2018 had a sit down with Bob, he gave me a call and said, hey, we've been kicking around this idea and we think you might be a good fit for helping us lead this project up. So we had a sit down in May of 2018 to kind of talk about the underground and sort of what that meant and what that looked like. And then I believe it was June of 2018, we sort of kicked things off with 10, 11 people, I think, sort of to start things and have grown from there. I think we're around 150 with the international players that we have now. So we have players from West Coast to East Coast in the US. We have players in Canada, European players, and then overseas in New Zealand, Australia. We've got players all over these days. Yeah, yeah, it's an awesome team, definitely very, I don't know the word for it, but special, I guess, you know, the thing you've got going on. And if I was, like, say wanting to be a part of that team, how would I be able to join and why should I join the team? What would benefit me? Sure, yeah, I usually tell people the first step is to put an application in. So if you go to www.discraft.com/underground, you can find the application form there. Nowadays, it's so competitive. I think we're getting close to like 6,000 applications lifetime so that, you know, 150 might seem like a reasonable number, but you know, it's really competitive with how many applications we've had over the course of the underground since 2018. So it's really good for people to work on social media, that's something that we definitely look at, consistent and creative social media with, you know, some sort of a growing interest, I think is one of the common things that I say to people. And there's a lot of different ways in Disc Golf to grow your social media. Some people think that, you know, all they need to do is post tournament results, but there's so much more going on in Disc Golf. I mean, just posting, you know, a cool hole at your local course, posting, you know, your friends or other community projects you have. I think one of my favorite ones I see people do is kind of these urban Disc Golf holes where, you know, you're just out at a park or you're downtown or something and you're like, man, it would be so cool if there's a basket just like sitting over there on the Capitol lawn or something, you know. And so just having this photo where you kind of frame up what a Disc Golf hole sort of out in the wild might look like is kind of a fun imagination as well in something different in Disc Golf other than just posting, you know, tournament results or T shots or putts or something like that. So yeah, just a consistent creative social media. We love to see some Disc Craft direction, throwing some Disc Craft or DJ stuff already so that you're kind of fluent with the lineups. Yeah, I think that about covers a lot of it. Yeah, I like what you said, kind of not just posting tournament results, but kind of what I got from that is like, you know, building a brand around yourself, building, saying or posting other things that show you as a person and kind of bring out your personality more. And I think that's, you know, that's a crucial step and that's kind of where Disc Golf has been heading the past few years, kind of, you know, we see all the even professionals. They're still making videos of them playing and it's, it's a very important and imperative step that if you're listening to this and you want to get on a team or anything, start looking into the socials. So what have your, what has been your favorite part of working with Disc Craft so far? Oh, man, that's tough. I've enjoyed a lot of it, but it doesn't feel like work every day that I go to work just because I love Disc Golf and just how many different things are going on in Disc Golf, how many different facets there are within Disc Golf. I think from me, it's probably fun to know kind of the what's coming down the pipeline. I think when you're the average Disc Golfer, you know, you kind of see the news when it's released, but there's so many things going on behind the scenes, you know, stuff that will be announced, whether it's tomorrow or stuff that is maybe a year down the line that are kind of some longer projects that just take more time and effort. And so just getting to be a part of kind of the ins and outs of Disc Golf, a lot of the things that, you know, we as Disc Golf fans and as players get excited about when we see the news of a, you know, a new Paul McBeth release or the Missy Captains thrasher that, you know, like our team players have and I kind of got to work with that Disc a little bit in some variations before the final variation came out and that was, you know, super cool. But there's just, you know, every day is fun, every day is different, there's so much going on in Disc Golf and so much, you know, still planned for the coming years. It's just, it's fun in a different way to be a part of each of those different facets of Disc Golf. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of similarly, it's definitely like fun and cool to like know who's going where kind of before it drops and it's exciting to kind of find out about all of that before it drops to the public because, you know, you get to talk about it with the people that already know about it. For me, it's like the guys at Staggard Stance, the podcast I'm on and it's just a cool little thing to be like, ah, this is awesome. I know what's going on. In this talent, let's just say since last, since July 9th last year, till now, what has been your favorite release? And then to follow up on that, what has been your favorite release of all time? For Disc Golf. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are great questions. But the Captain's Thrasher that we got to test out as team players first is an incredible disc. For me, it's really similar to a Zeus, except I just felt like I never quite had the right arm speed for the Zeus. It just didn't quite fit very good in my hand, but the Captain's Thrasher just fits a lot better in my hand. And for me is a little bit more glighty Zeus. I'm able to kind of get it to flip up and really get a good, like, full, stable flight and continue to kind of push forward where the Zeus, I wasn't really able to quite get it to flip up. It kind of dumps a little bit at the end and the Captain's Thrasher has a little bit more before it finished, so I think my favorite release in the last year is, although it's not quite out yet, is the Captain's Thrasher. Favorite release of all time, you know, I think this one was underrated with the five claw Macbeth stuff. I'll just specifically the buzz. I think the five claw buzz was really unique in terms of like a disc design to sort of bring the focal point of the style out to the rim. I know on the production side, that was really difficult for them to do. It's probably something that, you know, I don't know if we'll see that sort of style of focal point for a foil again, so I actually feel like the five claw stuff, particularly the buzz, is something really unique that's come out in something that we might not see again, which for me makes it probably one of my favorite releases of all time, I would say. Yeah, that's really cool. I honestly didn't even think about the production side of the five claw buzz and how it's kind of definitely unique. I never realized, yeah, it's not really as centered as how every disc is per stamps. So to go off of that, what is something like unique or kind of not hidden, but what is something that add discrafter or something you've been a part of through working that discrafter that is a misconception or something that people don't really know that has happened or that you guys do that you think is really cool. Some sort of misconception, that one is tricky. I feel like, we're not even misconceptions, it could be just like, you know, you guys don't know that we stamp 2,000 Wonderbird foils only and then that's it or something cool like that. If you have any, obviously, I know it's a random off the cuff question, but yeah, yeah, we can go in the vein of foil. So foils actually are somewhat community named. So the actual names for foils are just like some random letters and numbers. It's our person that orders the foils when we say, you know, Wonderbird foil or Hidden Stars or those type of names which are generally kind of community given as a new foil comes out, you know, they have no idea what we're talking about. So I feel like that's kind of a funny one where, you know, the foil names are not manufacturer given but generally community given which, you know, people just assume that it looks like Wonderbird, it must be called Wonderbird foil, but you know, it's actually like BC10173 or something. Yeah, there you go. That's exactly what I was looking for. Just kind of like a, like a inside the visit's mind that no one really realizes. I just have one more question before we let you go. Is there any, any exciting things up down the pipeline that you can talk about it? Like I know there's worlds coming to Lynchburg, Paul McBeth design course. That's amazing. But anything that you can talk about, that's kind of you can expect to see from Discraft in the future. Yeah, we, you know, we had a lot of releases this year that we were already that we were kind of working on over the off season with a couple, a couple of different molds with the swarm and the captain's thrasher. I feel like a lot of the kind of exciting things that were coming down the pipeline have kind of come to fruition here in the first half of the year. It's been really busy as I'm sure fans have obviously seen. We're putting in a big effort on the, the Discraft factory store. We're going to have more individually listed misprints. We've had really good feedback. I know on those from people, you know, we just have a lot of, I don't know, just, just misprints. At the factory, they, they happen. Sometimes things get overran or, you know, just don't stamp right. So I know that that's been a big focus for us this year. So people can continue to look on there for cool stuff. But yeah, I don't know that we have any, you know, super exciting molds or anything that I can share anyway on the, the schedule right now, obviously, you know, we got worlds coming up. We have releases for worlds, I think, Ledgestone has kind of teased some of those out. And then D-glow, I'm sure we'll do some really cool stuff for D-glow, an amazing tournament. I know that there are people that drive from, you know, eight to ten hours away, usually just to come check out the fly mark, because we're always doing cool stuff there. And, and especially the, the, I don't want to call them flippers, but the flippers, the buyers and sellers usually, usually come out and, you know, find some good stuff out there that can make it worth their time for coming to the tournament. Yeah. No, for sure. And like, like, I'm super appreciative that you guys dropped the Kratos at, at the Expo this past year, which was like an unreal dream to me just to like have it my event be the drop of a new disc and, and it was kind of the same thing, just people like just went straight to that line, run into the line to get the Kratos. So it was kind of a very surreal thing to see happened, which was, so I, I don't know I know I've said. Thank you. But thank you. Once again. Yeah. Yeah. Special, you know, special circumstances. Sometimes the timing works out. Of course, everybody would love to have like a special release at their, their tournament or the event. And sometimes the timing works out. Most of times it doesn't, but yeah, you kind of get to see firsthand what one of those, the bigger drops looks like with people lining up, you know, at the wee hours in the morning or the night before, just to be first in line and kind of get to be, be able to, you know, get, go through the line first and pick out whatever the coolest one is that they can. Yeah. Exactly. And, and I actually thought it was really cool with the factory store. I mean, I mostly throw in of it, but it's solely because their factory store is just plentiful and it's only like eight to 10 bucks per disc. So like it's, it'd be nice to kind of switch up the variety like, okay, I can get some discs from discraft that aren't as like the $25 to 20 range. I can get them. So that's awesome. We're going to really enjoy that. Yeah. It's been a really good response so far. It's a project that I've really been focusing on kind of last month or so here, just working on the photos, making sure we're grabbing cool stuff from the Miss Prince and getting it up on there for people. So it's fun. There's a lot of really cool Miss Prince. I know me personally, I'm a big fan of Miss Prince just because they're a little bit more unique. Kind of when I first started playing, there wasn't all the swirls that you see today. These swirls were a little bit more of a rarity and so Miss Prince were like the kind of the cool thing because it was a way for your disc to be different than the other stock discs. And of course, now we have swirls and almost every single disc is a little bit different in color, at least from the other ones. But yeah, I'm a huge fan of Miss Prince. Me too. We're doing some cool stuff kind of overstamping. Some of the Miss Prince, if it's a more generic run of things, so you might see some more, just kind of the fun, smaller stamps on the Miss Prince too, that you don't see too much. Yeah, I'll definitely be checking that out after we get off. But I don't want to hold you up any longer. Any last shout outs do you want to give before we go? No, thanks for having me. Obviously, thanks to Discraft. They're an amazing company. I was a Discraft fan early on in 2016. Nate Dawes kind of just resonated with me. Discraft is a smaller company I think than a lot of people would expect. It still has a lot of just family values and a lot of really amazing people. So it's just a great group to be a part of as a player, somebody involved with the team, but also as an employee now. I think it's a company that everybody can get behind and I think that's a lot of the reason they've had so much success over the lifetime of the company. So yeah, thanks to you, thanks to Discraft. Signing out. Yeah. That's about it. This has been Discraft Daily. Thanks so much, Wes. We'll see you next Sunday, y'all. Adios. Thank you so much for watching. Please like, subscribe, comment, and share. It really does help us grow. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING]