'You can't really go wrong': Max Benedict navigating Adrian College cornhole's start

ADRIAN – It’s just past noon on a Tuesday and Max Benedict needs boards.

Not just any old boards from your neighbor’s backyard, either. He needs competition-grade boards, the stuff the pros you sometimes see on ESPN2 use.

More bags wouldn’t hurt either. Not the weather-worn, grain-filled bags that get lugged to every tailgate and every barbeque. He’s looking for something different.

The type that slide a precise two inches down the board or stop within a half-inch of contact.

He also needs more recruits. A schedule, for a season poised to start in September and end in January. Jerseys. A way for his teams to travel to and from tournaments.

It’s complicated – maybe more than anybody would’ve anticipated. Sitting in a conference room tucked away in the Merillat Center at Adrian College, Benedict lays his arms over fundraising forms and loose notes sprawled out in front of him.

He takes a breath and collects himself.

“Nobody’s doing it so you can’t really go wrong,” Benedict said. “We’re kind of setting the stage. We’re seeing what works, what doesn’t.”

As it stands, Benedict is the coach of the only varsity collegiate cornhole program in the Midwest. Not the only Division III program. Or Division I or Division II or NAIA. He is standing at the forefront of Adrian College’s most unique athletic venture to this point, navigating the murky waters with virtually zero precedent. 

It’s, well, interesting. Anybody and everybody would have plenty of questions. For starters, how does one explain that job title — cornhole coach — to strangers?

“Every time I’m around people at an event or luncheon, (they) go around the table asking, ‘what do you do?’” he said. “It gets to me and I’m like, ‘well, I’m a cornhole coach.’

“You think, ‘well, what else do you do?’ No, this is what I do.”

Nobody, least of all Benedict, knows where and how this will end.  But since taking the job in January, there’s been a certain determination buoying him throughout what’s been an occasionally chaotic journey.

“You don’t want people to come in here and be like, ‘oh, it’s cornhole, it kind of fizzled out,’” he said.

Of all the questions, it makes sense to start at the top. How exactly does one become a cornhole coach?

‘I’ve never heard of this’ 

A Tecumseh High School graduate, Benedict played basketball, soccer and golf before attending Western Michigan University. After finishing his studies in Kalamazoo, he said he held a variety of jobs before accepting a position as a campground manager in Gaylord.

Working a job with “24/7” demands, Benedict and his father took to playing cornhole in their spare time. A simple way to entertain themselves soon blossomed into a full-blown competition between father and son, playing games outdoors in the summer and in the living room during the winter.

“He was just beating me like crazy and it was making me mad so I started practicing cornhole like crazy,” he said.

Then, an idea: why not host cornhole tournaments at the campground? Before long, Benedict was running events with well over a hundred participants, a handful of which exposing him to another side of the game.

“There’s some people that you’d meet at the campground that’d bring their own bags and I’m like, ‘well, I’ve never heard of this – I just thought we were using corn bags?’” he said.

Curious, Benedict and his father ventured to a tournament hosted at a warehouse behind a bar in Gaylord. The confidence they had going in from hours spent practicing in the living room didn’t leave with them.

“We got beat in probably 10 seconds,” he said. “We got beat so fast.”

But the initial taste was enough for Benedict. He said they went out after the tournament and bought around $200 worth of specialized bags, figuring out a way to completely retool the way they played.

The way they threw, the way they stood, the strategies they had – all of it. It served as an introduction to a competitive community rabid about the game.

“I’ll drive three hours west, I’ll drive three hours south to Columbus, I’ll drive north of Detroit,” Benedict said. “One time, I went back up to Gaylord because there was a tournament back up there. Same people – at all these events.”

Benedict later accepted a remote position working IT for the University of Michigan, constantly looking for other jobs and opportunities with cornhole in the back of his head.

Then, in November 2021, he saw a job listing online from Adrian College and promptly applied.

‘All valid questions’

Around the time Benedict was hosting cornhole tournaments at the campground, Griffin Reynard had an idea of his own.

Griffin’s introduction to the game came from his older brother, Austin Reynard, a professional player and owner of Lenawee County-based manufacturer Killshots Cornhole. Working for Austin and starting to play frequently, he found success playing on a national collegiate circuit.

A student at Adrian College, the more Griffin thought about it, the more it made sense.

A cornhole program. It was inclusive in nature. It fit the “entrepreneurial” vision of Adrian College.

And everybody played it. Excited about the prospect, he took to drumming up interest around campus before taking it to the school.

Without much of a plan. If it didn’t get shot down in 10 seconds, it wasn’t much longer than that.

“It’s not like they hated the idea, there was just no formal steps there,” Griffin said. “After that happened, that’s where the struggles really started setting in.”

COVID-19 hit shortly after, sending everybody home for the rest of the spring. The plan was indefinitely delayed just like everything else.

In the spring of 2021, Griffin realized he was running out of time – a sophomore at that point, he figured two years would barely be enough to get this plan off the ground. He went to his boss in the admissions office, then-director of admissions Joe Van Geisen, and pitched the idea to him.

Van Geisen liked it enough to take it to the higher-ups at the college while making sure a comprehensive plan was in place. From there, the information sat before reaching the desk of school officials, including longtime Adrian College athletic director Mike Duffy.

After mulling the proposal over, Duffy said he started to kick around the idea in a series of conversations with Austin. He estimated there was an eight month to year period researching the viability of starting a program before they decided to go along with it completely.

“It wasn’t just one day we woke up and said, ‘you know what? We need to start cornhole,” he said.

Duffy said he wanted Austin to coach but he declined, citing the demands of his job and own playing career. Griffin even volunteered to coach himself, while also working behind the scenes to persuade his brother.

“It was kind of me begging like, ‘please be the coach,’” Griffin laughed.

But with Reynard’s intention to sponsor the program, if not coach, locked in, Duffy set out to find their coach – with some specific caveats in mind.

“We couldn’t just grab somebody out there (that) could really be a great coach but didn’t know how to navigate the college,” he said. “Or how to recruit and talk financial aid, talk admissions, talk academics.”

Eventually, Benedict’s application came through and the hiring committee liked what they saw. College educated with experience in the sport and local ties. Adrian College set up a series of interviews via Zoom (Benedict had COVID-19 at the time) and dug into the subject.

For instance: How would he create a schedule? What would practices look like? Are there established fundraising opportunities.

Most importantly, how would he sell the school to recruits?

“All valid questions,” Benedict said.

At some point throughout two six-hour interview sessions, Duffy saw something out of Benedict he really liked.

“I think that was my tipping point,” he said. “(Benedict’s) eagerness to learn and (being) passionate about it. You look for that passion in any coach, whether it’s football, baseball, basketball, it doesn’t matter.”

Sometime later, Benedict was at home when he picked up the phone. He got the job.

“(Duffy) called me on Christmas Eve and gave me a good Christmas present,” he said. “That’s how I’m here.”

‘You’d be a trailblazer’ 

If there’s a simple part to this saga, it’s probably the hiring. The next question:

How has it been since?

Busy. Really busy, as Benedict said. Since starting in January, he’s visited high schools, travelled to tournaments, made hundreds of phone calls and sent a similar amount of emails to people around the country to get things in motion.

“I went down to South Carolina for a quick family trip but I ended up talking to a guy and went to a cornhole tournament on the way there,” Benedict said. “My girlfriend hated me for that.”

That madcap seven-month stretch leaves Benedict with approximately 14 kids committed to play this fall on a co-ed roster, including Griffin. With a little more than a month to go, there’s still some kinks to work out.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Benedict said. “I’ve got the amount of freedom I do to kind of craft this into something. But also, I’ve got nothing to base this off. That’s kind of the stress factor.”

An overview of the season: A schedule from September to January, practicing at Adrian College or the Killshots warehouse and sending roughly six to eight kids out of a roster of 15 to 20 kids to tournaments depending on who’s playing the best at the time.

At tournaments, Adrian College would front buy-ins for athletes to compete in a variety of different divisions and events (solo, two-on-two, four-on-four, etc.), with whatever money won going right back to the program in a model similar to the bass fishing program. The cycle would merely repeat itself from tournament to tournament.

Simple enough, right?

“I don’t think it’s as simple as, ‘here’s $100, there’s some boards and bags,’” Benedict said. “It’s definitely not that.”

Cornhole isn’t close to as expensive of a sport like hockey with the litany of equipment needed and time spent maintaining a functioning ice rink. But there’s far more needs surrounding it the average backyard player might not know.

According to Benedict, bags, whatever type and number needed, cost around $60 to $120 for a set of four. Competition-level boards are typically $300 to $400, except nationwide lumber shortages have adversely affected regular manufacturing practices and availability.

“People just aren’t making them because they’re making all the money off bags,” Benedict said.

He paused.

“Which, good for them. But I need boards,” he said.

Scheduling might be the biggest headache. There are two main entities in front of the sport with the American Cornhole League (ACL) and American Cornhole Organization (ACO).

The way Benedict tells it, the ACO was first and as close as they could get to a true governing body in the early 2000s. But the promise of an opportunity to get featured on TV via ESPN splintered the ACO and led to the creation of the ACL.

Some bad blood remains to this day. Caught in between two warring factions, Benedict is tasked with navigating a fractured landscape as he tries to get his own program off the ground.

“When I’m recruiting kids, I have to choose – am I gonna go to an ACO event, who has like a juniors division?” he said. “Or am I gonna go to an ACL event? Or am I gonna go to a (Michigan Cornhole League) event?

“I don’t want to bring a kid in who is on the verge or on the path of going pro in the ACO or vice versa with the ACL and take them out and say, ‘hey, we’re only going to be playing in the ACL (or ACO).”

The concern spills over into where and when Adrian should compete. Should they go to an ACL event? Or an ACO event? Or something else?

“The one big thing about Max is he’s learned a little bit about politics already,” Duffy said. “(You) gotta play both sides. We don’t know who’s going to end up on top, we’re not sure which way we’re gonna go. But we’re gonna work with both of them and try to make a good solid experience for young people to come and play the sport of cornhole.”

Then there’s the million-dollar question Duffy prompted back in December. How does one sell the idea of playing collegiate cornhole, instead of playing at tournaments solo and keeping the money for themselves?

“I think it’s the first conversation me and Max really had,” Griffin said. “Like, ‘hey, how do you plan on going about this thing? I don’t know how you’re gonna recruit. And he goes, ‘I mean, I how would you do it?’

“And we kind of just looked at each other.”

The answer today? First is best.

“What I tell (recruits) is, ‘look, you can keep on that path,’” Benedict said. “’But if you come to Adrian College, you’d be a trailblazer. (You’d) be surrounded by a team, which in cornhole rarely happens.”

The long-term results of a unique pitch have yet to be seen. one member of the team is already sold on it, however.

“(I’m) trying to leave a mark on Adrian College,” Griffin said. “This is my best bet.”

In an unprecedented situation, Benedict’s willingness to embrace the unknown gives him his best odds, too. Boards, bags and schedules can be a hassle, to say the least.

But the desire to do right by his athletes is what sticks through it all.

“My biggest priority is making sure that the kids we’re bringing in that come here to play cornhole are satisfied,” Benedict said.

The ironies of the journey Benedict’s on aren’t lost on him. He said he’s hardly had time to play cornhole since taking the job and still has to figure out a way to work around one of the weirder bylaws the sport has to offer.

“In the written rules of the ACL, you’re not allowed to have someone else’s input mid-match,” he said. “I don’t think anyone would ever get disqualified for that. But I’m a cornhole coach that can’t coach is what I tell people.”

For Benedict, nothing is totally locked in. He admits to feeling some pressure in light of his current situation.

There’s enough passion to balance it out, though. At the end of the day, he’ll gladly tell you how excited he is to embrace this wild, fun journey.

Cornhole coach. Who would’ve thought?

“It doesn’t stop getting weird every time I say it,” he said.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Coach Max Benedict navigating Adrian College cornhole's start