Do you think you'll ever be in B.A.P?

[C-Fan]

Couple stray thoughts here:

1. Is the goal to get voted into BAP, or to play at the level of the best players of the World? Usually if you do the latter, the former will happen. But I think it's important not to confuse the two goals. There are people who have made it into BAP but were not at the level of the best players. Conversely, there are players who achieved that level but never made it into BAP. Which camp would you rather be in?

2. What does BAP status confer? In my mind, getting into BAP is recognition from your peers that you achieved a world class level of play. But again, if you've achieved a world class level of play, does it really matter whether or not BAP acknowledges this? Why should it?

3. If you get invited to BAP, that means BAP thought you were at their level IN THAT GIVEN YEAR. But there's no BAP recertification or anything. So just because somebody is BAP, doesn't mean they're still amongst the sport's best players. It just means they (probably) were at one time.

4. On a related note, it'd be interesting if every year there were some kind of ranking of who the best players in the World actually were, but there isn't (Worlds results are affected by who attends, much less actually competes). Vasek was BAP in 2002, and clearly remained at a top level since then. But what about a player who makes BAP one year and disappears, or plateaus or declines? They're still technically BAP, even though they are no longer amongst the best in the World. Similarly, what about players who made BAP in the early 2000s and still play, but aren't at their peak anymore?

5. My final takeaway is that I think it's a good and healthy goal to push yourself to be the best player you can be. Aspire to be amongst the best in the world, and really work towards it. Just keep in mind that making BAP is only one indicator that you've achieved that goal (and not even a fully accurate one), and not the goal itself.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Ken, I agree with your thoughts. I am just aiming for BAP because it's a solid goal. I know I'm probably not going to be hitting Nemesis b2b midstring or Whirlwind Swirl and stuff, but I know I have a habit of hitting things that others think is hard but comes easily to me, so I plan on taking that and running as far as I can with it. One goal is certainly to be invited into BAP, but another goal is to just play with my own techy style at a high techy level. And maybe I'll get inducted because of that. I don't know. I don't really care that much. I just love playing and getting better at this sport.

[Asmus]

I will never be in BAP I accepted that a long time ago.

I like that we have something like BAP to give recognition to players who at a certain time was some of the best. We can't give them all world champ titles and we certainly can't pay them for their hard work.

But I also think it would benefit the sport more if people focused on getting into the Hall of Fame than into BAP.

[C-Fan]

But I also think it would benefit the sport more if people focused on getting into the Hall of Fame than into BAP.

Good point, and I agree.

BAP has at least one advantage over the HOF though:

Well-informed voters. At a BAP vote, voting members tend to be current on what's going on in the scene. At most BAP votes, 80+% of voters are active BAP, and therefore clearly understand how technical/difficult somebody's game is. If you got BAP members from 1993 to vote on who should have made BAP at this year's Worlds, many wouldn't know the difference in difficulty between some of the top candidates. But active BAP members can. In the HOF on the other hand, only members of the HOF can vote...and that by definition means that they've been in the game at least 15 years (used to be 18 years). A vast majority of these people no longer actively play footbag, much less follow whats going on in the community. Even if a footbagger did something truly significant in the sport, there's no guarantee that the voting members of the HOF would ever hear about it.