Confessions of A Teenage Yo-Yo Champion

There was a story in the Los Angeles Times about a 15 year old California kid who not only won the national championship of yo-yoing, but he also has a sponsor and his own line of yo-yos.

Not many people know this, but I'm a yo-yo champion myself, albeit on a less grand scale; and it was close to 40 years ago. The two Duncan yo-yo champion patches I won are still in my parents' house, to the best of my knowledge. I was never really clear on exactly what you were supposed to do with them. Sew them on something? Nail them to the wall? who knew? The dirty little secret of my victory is that I won my championship in a parking lot in an impromptu contest in which only three other people competed. The other three people were really really bad. The man in charge was a Duncan sales rep; he lifted the hatchback of his Chevette and it was filled with yo-yos and patches for the winners. So, I never rose to the level of the teenager in California, but I'll always have my patches.