Maxell Smith

Maxell Smith is one of the great early players and promoters of footbag, starting his career in the sport in 1979 in Archbold Ohio. As was the custom at the time, he played multiple footbag disciplines, including footbag net (singles and doubles) and freestyle footbag.

Max’s original footbag club was the NW Ohio club and the Footbag Pioneers, a group that contained many of the sport’s earliest legends. He credits his inspirations in the sport to John Stalberger, Walt Mason, Mag Hughes, and Greg Cortopassi, all Footbag Hall of Famers as well.

Smith had a long career in footbag competition and promotion, including the following achievements;

-Winning the doubles net title in 1980.

-Winning a freestyle footbag title in the New Jersey team tour, which lasted for four years and included over 300 schools across many states including Alaska, California, Oregon, and thirteen East Coast states.

-Touring Japan for a month and introducing footbag to the country in August of 1983.

-Performed in Holland and Belgium with Mag Hughes at the ECC in the early 80s.

-Worked and performed at the New York City Toy Fair in 1984.

-Performed several NSGA (National Sporting Goods Association) shows in Chicago.

-Appeared on the Regis Philbin Show with John Stalberger in 1981.

-Performed at the 1983 Frisbee and Hacky Sack Festival in California.

-Was a member of team Hacky Sack in the early 1980s, performing at a number of shows and events.

-Owns the largest collection of original ‘Carded Haitian’ footbags from the 1970s as well as the original Oregon footbags, all collector’s items now.

For Max’s early involvement and legendary promotion of the sport, he was rightly inducted into the Footbag Hall of Fame in 2002.