Nerf Ball Becomes Serious Business for Some People

Teach your children well: any child-like game can be turned into a career.

That’s the lesson to be learned from Frank “The Natural” O’Brien, who says he has never been beaten at his child-like game of choice -- Nerf Basketball.

O’Brien, 25, works for a mortgage company in West Springfield, Mass. But he has also parlayed a talent for throwing a small, spongy ball into a small, flimsy net from distances up to 20 feet into a high-profile sidelight.

O’Brien has hooked up with Hot Shot Distillery Company of Owensboro, Ky., which has created a tropical fruit-flavored schnapps. To promote the product, the firm has sponsored Nerf Basketball tournaments in Boston and Chicago.

For two weeks in November, Hot Shot tournaments were held at a handful of taverns in the Chicago area. A small wire hoop and backboard are attached to a wall, and competitors are given points for making shots from different spots.

The winners of those tournaments were invited to the city championships to play for $250. Once the city champion is determined, that person gets to play O’Brien with another $250 on the line.

O’Brien left Chicago with his unbeaten record intact. Mike Nelson of Glenview, Ill., won the city championship but failed to tarnish O’Brien’s unbeaten streak.

“When I went up against Frank, it didn’t go so well,” Nelson said. “I got nervous and starting thinking about what I was doing. The first time I didn’t.”

The outcome was no surprise to O’Brien.

“I really don’t practice,” he said. “As a kid I played it. From the start I was better than my brothers and next door neighbors. I was just like an average kid, messing around.

“At one point, I put a hoop up in the house and announced ‘I can’t be beat’ because I really hadn’t been beaten and I really haven’t been beaten.

“After I won a local tournament last year, a friend of mine recommended me to these people (Hot Shot). We met and it was just a fairy-tale relationship since then.”

O’Brien is a big fan of the Boston Celtics and star forward Larry Bird.

“I met Bird in Boston and I was actually supposed to play him for a $10,000 winner-take-all, but that fell through for one reason of another,” O’Brien said. “But upon meeting him, I saw the same characteristics I have.”