NJ man leveling the cornhole playing field (Opinion)

It felt like a brush with fame I tell ya. When Michael Caprio called in to the show the other afternoon one may have thought he didn’t "understand the assignment" as the kids are saying.

We were doing a topic on invention ideas you thought of first but someone else wound up making years later. The patent application process is long and expensive. Even if you get a patent, building a prototype to market your idea can run tens of thousands of dollars. So many people have great ideas they couldn’t do anything with years before that idea makes someone else rich.

Even though Caprio’s call was slightly off-topic, he knew exactly what the assignment was. He fulfilled his own assignment of promoting an invention he thought of but DID turn into a reality. Patent, prototype and all.

And I’m so glad he called because I think this is such a clever device. He invented the cornhole level.

It’s a cool little device that you clip onto any cornhole board to make sure it’s properly level. He’s a Jersey guy who made his idea a reality and is now selling them. He bet on himself and won. I love that.

Here’s how it works.

Couldn’t be simpler to use.

And there’s a lot of cornholing going on in New Jersey. I see it all the time being played at beach houses in Seaside Park and I’m sure it’s the same in most shore towns. Not to mention backyards statewide.

Did you know cornhole tournaments have been broadcast on ESPN? And the popularity increases every time one is aired. Did you know there’s been talk of cornhole as an Olympic event? Truth.

Not everyone has called this game cornhole. According to Wikipedia, it goes by many other names, including bean bag toss, dummy boards, doghouse, dadhole, sacks, beans, beanbag, bean in the hole, ramps, bean bags, ball bags.

Dadhole? Ball bags? Really?

Like a game named cornhole wasn’t already awkward enough?

Michael got the idea when playing with friends and noticing their bags, which should have been points, were always sliding off to one side of the board. Clearly, it needed to be leveled. But a traditional level couldn’t do the trick. That’s when his mind went to work.

The result is one of those head-slapping why-didn’t-I-think-of-that things.

If you want to bring your backyard cornholing up to a more professional level, you can check out the product and order it here. This is a great idea thought of by a shrewd Jersey guy!

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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