I first saw a "hacky sack" at the Oregon State University Campus in in 1977. Yup, that's when I started. The only freestyle tricks I even knew of were flying inside kick, flying outside kick, and flying clipper. There was the occaisional toe stall too... Nets were 8 feet tall and we got 5 kicks per side.
Hung out with John Stalberger and crew (including Ted Huff and Garwin Bruce) when I could hitchhike from Eastern Oregon out to Portland. Learned some solid basics and had fun demo'ing at schools, stores, even the Pendleton Round Up!
Was Kenny Shults' whipping boy for five years - we worked together, so kicked several days a week at lunch. At the time, Tricia George lived 5 minutes from where we worked, so we got to kick with her often. Kenny, of course, was a target for any young gun (net or freestyle) that came to town, so I consider myself extremely privileged to have witnessed firsthand the evolution of my main sport. Okay - my only sport, unless you consider homebrewing a sport.
I still have the luxury of freestyling with Tricia when our schedules work out. I'm currently only tilt-less, so mostly two and three-ad tricks, with an occaisional four.
I'm a staff member at the Beaver Open, which is simply the kookiest footbag gathering on the planet - see Previous Events