JDC America: A Flag Has Been Planted
By Dax Munna
Imagine for a moment, you (not living in North America) really enjoyed baseball or American football. Perhaps (and I am guessing) there is a place to congregate in your community to take in the professional game on TV or, if not, an internet stream of it.
Perhaps the great feats of the games make the highlights of your sports coverage. For the most part, though, there is little fanfare or acknowledgement in your day-to-day lives. Now, imagine trying to start a little league baseball or American football team and league for the youth in your community. There would be historical, logistical and cultural hurdles to overcome.
Such is the challenge to an American who teaches darts. It took me time to figure out the best way to impart the knowledge to the youth in my country. You see, as an American I didn’t grow up playing darts as a kid. Most don’t. There was no structure. Sure, we may have had a board in the basement or garage, but it likely went unused most of the year until family came over for the holidays.
We grew up with little league baseball, and (American) football. For generations most fathers passed down these American games to their sons. Having a catch with a baseball and glove with your dad or a (American) football game with the family on Thanksgiving is just what we do. We grew up with access to watching these games professionally on TV. Darts is not an American pastime, but it can be.
It is a primal instinct to mimic what we see. We see the fittest of our clans succeed (earn/thrive) and we want to emulate it. We buy the hats and jerseys in reverence to our favourite players and teams, and if we are lucky enough, we get to see our sporting idols live on their field of play. In America, those players, teams and sports are different, and we don’t qualify our football as “American”, we qualify yours as soccer. :)
I wanted to paint the picture so that you could see that bringing darts to America’s youth is not as easy as bringing bangers and mash to a local diner. Nevertheless, I have gone forward undaunted. Here is the story that I hope gets a footnote in the annals of American darting history.
Dating back to before lockdown, I had engaged Darren Barson, the CEO of the Junior Darts Corporation in discussions of wanting to get JDC-accredited to run my own academy in New York City. I wasn’t sure what was to come of the conversation. All I knew was that I wanted to further my learning to make my teaching in the United States more prominent. I had already worked with kids, but I wasn’t sure if I was on the right path. Not only that, there weren’t kids in the States with dreams of becoming Michael van Gerwen or Luke Humphries because, quite frankly, no one in America (outside of serious darts players) knows those names. They did however hear of Luke Littler not too long ago.
Littler’s run in the PDC World Championship at the end of 2023 was a UK sporting anomaly that made sports headlines in America; it also made local and national news. It made lifestyle news and special interest news. Now I was getting LOTS of enquiries from parents hoping to get their children darts lessons to make them the next Cinderella story. That Cinderella story started with the JDC.
As Darren and I reengaged a year ago, we spoke of our experiences in spreading the game, and how to disseminate the JDC’s programming into the US, I suggested that the JDC make the trip to New York City for US Darts Masters at Madison Square Garden. What better way to cross-promote the youth game with the professional game, than to join the PDC players which included its biggest crossover youth star, Littler? The wheels were in motion!
We set up a clinic at a primary school for 4th and 5th grade boys and girls, attended by Michael Smith. There was only one young girl who knew who he was, and that he was a world champion (she might have been related to me), but that almost made it more special. They weren't starstruck clamouring for a picture. They were caught up in the activity itself.
Later, I joined Darren at Madison Square Garden to help out with Garden of Dreams, a charity, to introduce darts to teens. Rob Cross joined us. Again, no recognition of being alongside a world champ. Just joy, in something they had never done before. As part of the week, a few of us signed up to go through the JDC’s accreditation process with Darren. He put us through their session that gets recorded on GoDartsPro so that scores can be compared globally with all accredited academies. We then got put through the wringer against the Canadian Youth Team to see just how the scores of the sessions break down to a handicapped system using the GreenZone dartboard, allowing players of all skill levels to more fairly compete against each other.
Going through this accreditation in the UK may not seem like a big thing because of accessibility, but for us it was. Darren and I had been planning all of this for months with the PDC. We wanted to make sure that each of these mini events was well attended and well received because of what it could mean for the future.
In New York City everything is quite expensive. There are not many benevolent landlords who want to hear, “…but it’s for the kids”. We needed to find usable space at the right price (READ: free). Manhattan is not the type of place that has your average FC clubhouse for fans. But what we did have in The Bronx (a county of New York City) was a beach club with an event space that was seldom used. Nick Beach, a friend and league team-mate, who also got JDC-accredited, is affiliated with the club and thus was founded: The Throggs Neck Youth Darts Academy.
Together, with caring parents who play in their local league, we hosted an Open House to field interest. With some great grassroots effort, we had 15 boys and girls, between 10-17 years of age show up with that youthful exuberance of trying something new. Seeing their smiles was awesome. It may serve as an after-school activity, it may serve as a fun way to engage a child with math, it may serve as a valuable community of kids who may never have met, except for their love of the game. No matter the reason, I know we have started something good. It is the first step on a journey of one thousand miles, but those journeys don’t happen, without taking that first step.
Culture is something that can be built, but it takes time; it takes a level of care. Those that build it must act selflessly with the notion that the fruits of their labor may not be seen for generations to come. It is too easy to stop without being able to see what the future might look like. When it comes to our children though, we must never stop. Darren and I continue our conversations. There is more work to be done. The JDC mothership can’t fly across the pond every time a new American community wants to get accredited. ;)
My hope is to pioneer JDC America for them, not knowing where it will go, or what it will look like. I want to play my part in spreading the gospel of darts farther into American communities. There are already people reaching out, and I look forward to hearing from more. I look forward to helping others like Nick, shepherd their youth darts forward.
I can envision, past the bend in the road of time, that cannot be seen around; an American World Champion who started as a kid in a JDC America youth academy. While some may scoff at such a thought, the flag of youth darts has been planted in America for the first time, and we’re not going back.
For questions and coaching inquiries please reach out at
DaxMunna@gmail.com
Respectfully,
Dax
Dr Manhattan