What If The Greatest Kan Jam Players in The World Despised Each Other?
DISCLAIMER: I really didn't want to have to say this and completely step on the entire stupid joke, but for legal reasons I have to say this is a fictional story I do not know John Lyng or Terry Malloy. I'm sure they're fine people with a great relationship. I tweeted a joke, it went kinda viral, then I wanted to make a whole story about it. They most certainly did not do anything I'm about to say that they did. TPlease pretend you didn't read this because it's really going to ruin the first few paragraphs of the blog. Unless you're John or Terry. Then please read this and realize this is not serious. Also, Tim Weston is not a real pedophile.
First and foremost, my sincerest apologies go out to the comment section. I'm disgusted that I'm committing the mortal sin of re-blogging a story. Barstool Jordie already did a fantastic job with his instant to reaction to John Lyng and Terry Malloy pitching back-to-back perfect games in the great American past time of Kan Jam.
Jordie wrote a perfectly fine blog, but I'm afraid he doesn't know the full story like I do. You see, I know a thing or two about John Lyng and Terry Malloy, the greatest Kan Jam duo to ever walk this planet (for the record, I will not be referring to the game by it's "proper name" of "discflect" because that's stupid and wrong). I'm sure a lot of people of saw my tweet the other day (over 20 million people, not to brag) and thought, "That's just a dumb joke. This @JohnRichTV guy is having a laugh. He didn't actually read anything about the unheard of Kan Jam duo of John and Terry."
But those people are wrong. I do know about John Lyng and Terry Malloy. I read an entire expose about them in the Wall Street Journal. The crazy thing is, a few days after I read the article, the Wall Street Journal was sued by the Malloy family. I don't know what grounds the Malloy's sued on. All I know is that after they sued, WSJ took down their article. Now you can't find a trace of the story on the internet anywhere. Nothing about their relationship, nothing about the lawsuit, nothing about anything other than their Kan Jam victories. Google their names all you want. It's like the story never existed. But luckily, my brain is a steel trap. I remember everything I read.
John Lyng and Terry Malloy started Kan Jamming together back in 2012. The two barely knew each other when they first teamed up. They were separately enrolled in a Kan Jam tournament in Fresno. But John's partner got sick, and Terry's partner, Tim Weston, got arrested the night before for being a pedophile. Despite their situations, Terry and John showed up anyways to try and talk their way in. Terry attempted to convince the tournament director to let him play solo. He wanted to throw the frisbee, sprint to the other side, and knock his own shot into the kan. But the director wasn't having it. John, who was planning to give the exact same pitch, overheard this argument and had a new idea of his own. He walked up and said, "Terry, hi! It's me your partner! I was able to make it after all!" He assumed the identity of Tim Weston. The director bought the lie, and the partnership was born.
The two of them wiped the floor with the competition. None of the matches were close. They made it all the way through a 64-team tournament to the championship match. Unfortunately, that's when a competitor from another team pulled up an article about Tim Weston in the NY Post.
"Hey, this Tim Weston guy is a pedophile!" he announced.
Commotion broke out. The other competitors booed and hissed and threw their frisbees at him in disgust. Police officers ushered children off the premises.
Then John had a choice to make. Either play in the championship match under the identity of a convinced pedophile, or admit that he was in fact not Tim Weston at all. But admitting he was not pedophile Tim Weston would disqualify them from the tournament. All the frisbee tosses, all the slams into the kan, everything they competed for all day would be thrown at the window. It was the hardest decision of John's life, but in the end he decided to come clean.
The crowd got even madder. The only thing Kan Jammers hates more than a pedophile is a liar. John and Terry were chased out of the arena by an angry mob. It turned into a scandal that rocked the Kan Jam world.
The next day, the President of Kan Jam announced the harshest punishment in Kan Jam history. A three-year suspension from all official Kan Jam activities for both John and Terry.
During their suspension, John's sick partner dumped him. He vowed to never speak to "John the Liar" again. With Terry's partner in prison getting the absolute shit beat out of him on a daily basis for being a pedophile, the both of them were left partnerless. But they weren't deterred. The two of them knew they had to team up. What happened that fateful day on the kans was nothing short of magical. Despite the burning hatred the Kan Jam community had for them, they acknowledged that John & Terry had quite possibly played the best stretch of games in the history of the sport. It would be an insult to Kan Jam if they didn't team up.
John divorced his wife and moved to a studio apartment in Sacramento where he could be closer to Terry. They did nothing but practice for the next 3 years. By the time their suspension was up, they would be an unstoppable force of Kan Jam fury. The two would run drills in the morning before work, play simulated matches in the evening, review film each night. They learned to play drunk. They learned to play high. They bought an industrial sized wind machine to practice competing in the elements. They ate all of their meals off frisbees. Life outside of Kan Jam seized to exist.
They went hard for 2 years. Too hard. Over time, Terry slowly started to develop pain in his right elbow. The pain gradually got worse. While long tossing one morning, it became unbearable. Terry had to got to the doctor. It was a torn UCL. He required emergency Tommy John's surgery. It was a devastating blow. Terry loved his right arm. So did John. They couldn't understand why it would betray them in the most important year of their life.
There was only one thing for Terry to do. Learn how to throw left handed. They started training even harder. Terry quit his job to make time for rehab + intense lefty immersion therapy. It was rough at first. Terry had never used his left hand for anything. Not even as a fun new way to masturbate. He couldn't hit the broad side of the barn with a frisbee for months, let alone serve one up above the kan for John to jam. John was getting frustrated. He was a strong believer in negative motivation. He would berate Terry mercilessly to his face, and shame his left arm to anyone who would listen. He created multiple burner accounts to bludgeon him with insults online. In the end, it worked. Terry's began to develop a passable left. A month before their suspension was up, he was fully locked in. The lefty training turned out to be great for John as well. He was diving left and right, bending over backwards to save Terry's errant shots. Thanks to Terry's months of inaccurate tosses, there was nothing John couldn't direct into the kan.
Better yet, weeks before their triumphant return, Terry's right arm started to come back around. He was an incredible rehabber. The best rehabber his physical therapist had ever seen. Now Terry was ambidextrous. Ambidexterity is a massive advantage Kan Jam. It allowed Terry to throw shots from any angle. Forearm left, forearm right, backhand left, backhand right, tomahawks, between the legs, behind the back, whatever the situation called for. The possibilities were endless. That final year of their suspension took them to a level nobody thought was possible.
The first tournament was a cakewalk on the kans, but the crowd was ruthless. The people hadn't forgotten that they were big lying cheaters just 3 years ago. They protested inside and outside of the competition. They wrote really mean things in car paint on their vehicles. A bunch of people kept calling John a pedophile for some reason, even though the pedophile was Tim Weston, who was still having a hell of a time in prison. But in the end it didn't matter. They ran the table and raised their tiny little individual 1st place plastic trophies, and won week's supply of free ice cream from Moo's Creamery.
A few days later, John and Terry went to Moo's Creamery for dinner to discuss strategy. Strangely enough, Bakersfield Mayor, Harvey Hall was there as well. The two tried to introduce themselves, but Mayor Harvey wouldn't even shake their hand. He'd heard about the two of them. He gave them a look of disgust, muttered something under his breath about John being pedophile, and went back to his mud with worms sundae. John was very much not prepared for how much the whole pedophile thing would stick. It seemed wildly unfair. The reason they got in trouble was because he was explicitly NOT Tim Weston. He didn't even fucking know who Tim Weston was. Never seen the guy in his life. If anybody should be getting shit for it it's Terry. Terry was friends with the guy. It was such bullshit. But whatever.
While John & Terry were finishing up their meals, they heard a commotion from across the creamery. The mayor was choking on his ice cream. Patrons of the creamery shrieked in terror and ran around in circles with their arms flailing in the air like you see in cartoons. But John remained calm and acted fast. He hustled across the room and assumed the intimate Heimlich maneuver position. He formed a fist with his hands, tugged on the mayor's naval, and gummy worms launched out of his throat. John had saved the mayor's life.
Moo's Creamery erupted in applause. The mayor gave John a big hug and apologized for being a dick. Moo's Creamery gave him another free week of ice cream. Quickly, word of what John had done spread across the Kan Jam community. He went from the most vilified man in the history of the game, to an American hero.
John did the whole press junket. It was instant fame. He had a blurb written about him in the Bakersfield Times. He did a 5 minute radio hit with Bob & Tom. He threw out the first pitch at a high school baseball game. He did a steak signing at the hometown butchery. John's life had changed forever.
However, Terry grew resentful of John's fame. Everywhere they went, people only wanted to talk to "John the hero". He headlined all of their interviews. He signed all the frisbees. He nailed all the chicks. The two were equal parts of the team, but you wouldn't know by looking at them from the outside.
Terry felt as if he wasn't getting the credit he deserved. He was the one who heroically fought through the adversity of injury. Terry was the one with the uncanny ability to throw with both arms. Terry went to the hometown butcher shop more than John ever did. And John was basically a pedophile. Why did he get to be the famous one?
Despite all of that, the two of them kept winning. They rattled off an unheard of 17 straight tournament wins. Nothing could defeat the dynamic duo. They were an unstoppable train barreling down the Kan Jam tracks. No one was safe. Until the Great Phoenix Throw-Off of 2016.
John & Terry checked into the Red Roof Inn the night before. As he always did the night before a tournament, Terry ordered some local cuisine, listened to the Hamilton soundtrack, and got a full 10 hours of sleep. John was a different story. John had become an animal. The fame had gone to his head. Everyone wanted to hang out with John, and John loved the attention. A die-hard Kan Jam fan living in Phoenix DM'd him on Instagram inviting him to a party at his apartment. There was even going to be a girl there. John could never turn down such an invitation. As Terry was balls deep into Hamilton, John went to the party. It was a legendary night. Five dudes and the chick stayed up until 5am drinking jungle juice out of a Gatorade cooler, snorting cocaine off of frisbees, and watching cool concert videos on YouTube. John even got a hand job in the closet (from the chick). That's just the type of guy he was. He didn't fall asleep on the couch until 3 hours before their first match.
John woke up at 7:30. They played at 8:00. He quickly got his shit together, gave his new girlfriend a kiss on the forehead, and rushed out the door. He arrived late to the first match, but his celebrity status was so great that the tournament waited for him. He showed up in shambles. He was obviously still fucked up from the night before. Terry was disgusted. What had John become? Was Kan Jam no longer the most important thing in the world to him?
Luckily, they were the 1-seed, and their first match was against a couple of rookies who barely qualified by finishing runner up by making a miracle run in the Scottsdale Splash. It wasn't fathomable that John & Terry could lose to them. The disparity between the two teams was Mike Tyson & Buster Douglas on steroids. But John was a disaster. His mind was elsewhere. He could barely see the frisbee. He threw like woman. Terry was serving up discs on a silver platter, and John simply couldn't jam them. Terry did his best to carry the team, but in the end it wasn't enough. John & Terry lost on a walk-off double banger. They were eliminated in the first round.
A hushed silence fell across Phoenix. What had happened? On what planet could John & Terry lose to a couple of fledgling greenhorns? They were humiliated. Terry was furious. He couldn't even look John in his dilated blood-shot eyes. They had a whole meet-n-greet scheduled at BJ's Brewhouse after the tournament. They didn't have the heart to show up.
John & Terry cancelled their next few tournaments. They needed a break. They'd been pedal to the medal ever since they met, and they needed rest. Terry took a trip to the Maldives to clear his head. John went home to his divorced wife and pathetically begged for her back. She laughed in his face and slammed the door on him. Then he moved into hand job girl's apartment. But after a few weeks, the two of them got the itch to jam kans again. They went back to Moo's Creamery in Bakersfield to talk things out. They thought it would be good for them to revisit the location of the best day of their lives. Surprisingly enough, they were able to work things out. You could cut the tension with a knife, but they agreed to put aside their differences. They signed up for the Moab Summer Series that next weekend and vowed to get back on track.
But the night before the series, everything changed. The two of them split an AirBnb in Moab the night before. As they sat in the living room eating falafels from Moab's famous Sultan Mediterranean Grill, Terry got a text from his very old mother. Tim Weston had been released from prison, and he was in Moab. Tim Weston was free. They were stunned by the news. They didn't know what to do. The situation got even more tense.
"Wow, that's crazy", John said.
"Yeah, for sure" Terry replied.
As they sat in silence, not knowing what to say, they heard a knock on the door. They opened the door to see Tim Weston himself. For some reason, Terry's mother had told him where they were staying. After informing them that he was sexual predator (as he was legally required to), Tim demanded that Terry take him back as partner. Tim claimed he was innocent. He said he was railroaded by a justice system who profiled him due to his pear shaped body, Jared Fogel looking face, and a series of photoshopped text messages created by Chris Hanson because To Catch a Predator sold 8 episodes and they only had 7 pedophiles so they needed to frame someone to fill their obligation to NBC.
John laughed in his face. "Do you really think Terry would ever take you back? After all we've been through? It's over for you Tim. Find a new age appropriate partner and get on with your life."
But Terry felt differently. Terry grew up with Tim. He wholeheartedly believed Tim's story. Tim had never lied to him before. Why would he lie about not being a pedophile? Plus, he was sick of John's diva attitude. After an intense argument that featured lots of yelling and a thrown falafel, Terry agreed to take Tim back. The Terry & John dynasty was over.
Or so they thought. The next morning, Terry and Tim showed up to the tournament together. Terry informed the director that he would no longer be playing with John, and that him and Tim would be partners moving forward. The tournament director said, "Are you fucking serious? No, you can't do that. This dude was literally on Dateline NBC last week. I watched the episode. He bought candy and wine. He rented Shrek. We're not letting him play in our tournament. Is he even allowed to be here? How could you possibly think we'd allow that?"
Terry quickly realized the mistake he had made. It was probably a bad idea to team up with famous pedophile Tim Weston when he was already a part of the greatest Kan Jam duo in the history of the world. They kicked Tim off the premises and proceeded with the tournament. Terry was distraught. What had he done? He stood there alone as his competitors lined up to play. He was going to have to forfeit. But out of nowhere, the doors to the arena dramatically swing open, and old western whistles played over the loudspeakers like when an outlaw walks into a saloon. The place fell silent. It was none other than John Lyng.
John walked straight to the cans.
"Are we doing this shit?" He says to Terry.
"Let's do this shit." Terry replied.
Those would be the last words the two ever spoke to each other. They proceeded to steamroll through the Moab Summer Series. They were back. The two have been competing together for the last 7 years, winning tournaments at a staggering 87% and throwing perfect game after perfect game. But they never spoke again. The Tim Weston incident was the straw that broke the camel's back. But they were simply too good to break up. It would be doing a disservice to Kan Jam if they stopped playing together. They meant to much to the future of the sport.
To this day, John and Terry continue to compete, winning tournament after tournament. John continues to do his local radio hits, and make frequent appearances at farmers markets. But he never speaks of Terry. He refuses to address the status of their relationship. Terry keeps up his routine of eating local foods off of frisbees and listening to Broadway showtunes at Red Roof Inn's in medium sized cities across the country. John & Terry may never speak again, but as long as they're throwing the same frisbee, they will continue to make magic on the kans.