These are definitely athletes.
Many run faster than 30 mph and can leap to catch objects more than 9 feet in the air.
Hang time? Jordanesque.
About 100 of these athletes — dogs, amazing ones — with their trainers will flock to Naperville’s Nike Park, at Mill Street and Diehl Road, this weekend for the Ashley Whippet K-9 Frisbee World Championships.
Naperville’s Tom Wehrli and his wife of 49 years, Chris, have been to all but a handful of these events since 1980. They started running local events in the late 1990s and once the world championships moved to Naperville in the mid-2000s they served as directors.
This will be their last year at the helm.
“I turn 73 this year. It gets to be a lot physically and mentally,” said Tom Wehrli, an athlete himself, a gymnast, at Naperville Community High School, class of 1971.
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There’s permits, fees, insurance, site plans, the food vendor and Porta Potties, the loading and unloading. There’s the 40 banners for the event stored in his garage.
Tom Wehrli, an Ashley’s Hall of Famer himself, speaks with reverence of the sport’s founders: Irv Lander, Eldon McIntire and particularly Alex Stein, who with his acrobatic pup illegally jumped onto the Dodger Stadium turf during a 1974 broadcast of Monday Night Baseball to play Frisbee long toss.
After Stein got out of jail, a sport — led by its first star, Ashley Whippet — was born.
Most of the 17 rescue dogs the Wehrlis have owned have been Frisbee dogs. Their best athlete, a setter-retriever mix named Delta, was a three-time world finalist who performed at NFL halftime shows in Detroit, Green Bay, Indianapolis and Minnesota.
Wehrli anticipates teams from Canada, Costa Rica, Japan and Mexico, plus people and dogs nationwide arriving to compete or watch this weekend’s action at Nike Park. Stein himself will be coming up from Florida.
After the Wehrlis fulfill their duties, Tom will be content maintaining the Ashley Whippet K-9 Frisbee Museum, a treasure trove located in the basement of their Naperville home.
In addition to a “couple thousand Frisbees,” Wehrli said, including models signed by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Dick Biondi, Bruce Jenner and Wham-O co-founder Richard Knerr, the museum displays historical discs, international banners, jerseys, articles, and way, way more — even a portion of Ashley Whippet’s ashes.
“It was a tough choice because of the love of the sport,” Wehrli said of retiring from the championship. A Michigan couple has expressed interest in running it, he said.
“Alex (Stein) and I are still going to be the ones that pick our lifetime achievement and hall of fame awards,” Wehrli said. “After that I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about getting stuff done for the coming weekend. I think Chris and I have earned our wings.”
Dave Oberhelman is a reporter for the Daily Herald.