Andy Linder

Andy Linder is considered one of the greatest if not the greatest Consecutive Kicks footbag player of all time.

Andy received his first footbag in the fall of 1981 from his Geneva (Illinois) High School biology teacher, who introduced him to the sport. He picked it up quickly thanks to his history playing soccer and juggling soccer balls. In his heyday, Andy broke footbag World records for Speed Consecutive Kicks and Marathon Kicks.

In 1982, Andy was the first person from Illinois to attend a Footbag World Championships. There, he was surprised to discover he was the only player who used toe kicks as primary kicks. Following this event, he organized Illinois' and the Midwest's earliest tournaments. He was also a member of the Midwest Footbag Club. He promoted, taught, and performed footbag around the world.

Linder served as staff at many tournaments and events during his years in the sport. He professionally toured for Hacky Sack, World Footbag, Balywik, and Brine. He was the first player to have a signature line of footbags.

Andy was featured in many television, radio, magazine and newspaper segments. He appeared in two national television commercials for Milk. Linder broke the Singles Consecutive Kicks World Record five times during his career. He is currently ranked third all-time in the event with 36,230 kicks.

He was considered a freestyle pioneer thanks to his early involvement and dedication in the sport, and is a former Freestyle World Champion. He competed in singles freestyle at the World Championships four times, taking 1st once and 2nd three times. In his time in freestyle, Andy won every regional Freestyle Championships he competed in, including Midwest, Mid-South, East Coast, Funtastik, Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City, and Michigan tournaments. He retired from freestyle competition after taking 2nd at the 1991 World Championships. Andy was a difficult competitor to beat, and pushed early freestyle to new heights.

Linder broke the Singles Five Minute Timed Consecutive Kicks World Record eight times and holds the current World Record at 1019 kicks. He was the only player ever to reach 1000 in this event.

With Ted Martin, he held the Doubles One Pass World Record with 27,956 kicks. Together, they also held World Records in Doubles Distance One Pass and the Doubles One-Up-Five-Down competition. In 1994, they set the Doubles World Record at 100,001 kicks, stopping at that number because the recreation center they were in closed, with the staff informing them that they were going to turn off the lights. Andy retired from Marathon Consecutive Kicks Events after that record.

Andy retired from competition completely after taking 1st in both of the events he entered at the 1997 World Championships (Five Minute Timed Consecutive Kicks and Doubles Distance One Pass with Bruce Guettich).

To date, Linder is the only player who holds every different Open Consecutive Kicks World Record.

In 2001, he organized the Guinness World Record for the Largest Footbag Circle, which included a whopping 946 players.

He has stated he is thankful for the many wonderful friendships that he made in the sport throughout the years.

For his many, many accomplishments, Andy Linder was inducted into the Footbag Hall of Fame in 2001.

Andy Linder Interview

Andy Linder