Competitive Edge: World champion axe thrower Mark Mirasol, MEd’17, aims for success as he builds a business around the up-and-coming sport
By Graham Hays
Mark Mirasol’s life changed for good during a highway trip across the Western U.S. four years in the past. The holiday vacation, which began with a marriage proposal to his traveling companion and then-girlfriend Kristyn, finished with an more surprise as they rolled into Wichita, Kansas, on the remaining night time of their vacation. Looking for a taste of area taste, they visited an axe throwing facility on a whim.
“I was completely horrible at it,” laughs Mirasol, recalling his to start with attempts to toss an axe. “That’s a person issue I at times go away out. But I have appear to very own it at this issue. I was terrified of the axe bouncing back again. I would toss and then recoil back. It has been an fascinating journey from there to where I am now.”
Now happily married, the Mirasols are co-house owners of The Lazy Axe throwing heart in Albany, New York, and Mark is a earth winner in the activity, acquiring won the Significant Axe Match in the 2021 Environment Axe Throwing Championship. It will make for the unlikeliest of origin stories. But with the skills he figured out although earning a master’s at Peabody University of education and learning and human advancement, Mirasol was well prepared to switch an unexpected passion into a lifestyle-changing opportunity.
Figures on costs of participation for axe throwing are tricky to come by, despite the fact that pattern tales abound touting its increase as a specialized niche pastime. Yet when the Mirasols found they however experienced the itch upon returning residence, they found nowhere to toss near Albany. Their instant of entrepreneurial inspiration arrived right after constructing a target in their yard and looking at relatives and mates enjoy it.
“We were capable to make a powerful situation that it would be a special enjoyment small business that we would be bringing to the Cash Location,” Mirasol says of convincing a bank to issue a financial loan for their business enterprise.
The Lazy Axe opened its doors in July 2019. Company are welcome on their have, although teams make up a great deal of the clientele—from bachelor and bachelorette functions to team-constructing function excursions and aggressive leagues. Each individual to start with-time session begins with a fast tutorial.
“It’s not very like a bowling alley, exactly where you get sneakers and a ball and you’re prepared to go,” Mirasol says. “For us, protection is our leading priority, and we realize it is a new action for most individuals coming in. So, we make it a place to teach new visitors how to toss safely.”
Affiliated with the Globe Axe Throwing League, The Lazy Axe abides by that organization’s policies and regulations. The common hatchet is 12-to-19 inches from the prime to the bottom of the manage, with a blade length of a lot less than 4 inches and a body weight of less than 3 pounds. Friends throw at a concentrate on 12 feet away, approximately the perfect distance for an axe to make one rotation in flight. Though it’s feasible to quit by a shop like Residence Depot, invest in a hickory cope with hatchet and get started competing, lots of companies also generate axes exclusively created for throwing.
These times, visitors to The Lazy Axe also see a golden axe hanging over the counter, the 1 that will come with profitable one particular of the disciplines—hatchet, massive axe or dual—in the Entire world Axe Throwing League Earth Championships. At first, Mirasol didn’t take part in any of the leagues or competitions at The Lazy Axe. A tennis player who however occasionally competes in Planet Crew Tennis beginner competitions, he admits to having a little bit of a competitive streak. That led Kristyn to ban him from axe competitions.
“She did not want me scaring individuals away,” Mirasol jokes.
She ultimately relented, if only so that their establishment’s greatest regular, Gary Dayter, would have some competition. In 2020, Mirasol and Dayter tied for fourth place in the twin willpower of the earth championships. A calendar year later, Mirasol won the entire world title in massive axe.
At the time the Mirasols opened The Lazy Axe, Mark was doing work whole time handling the math pathways plan for the State College of New York program. (He still operates for SUNY on a portion-time basis.) But prior to that function, he was the affiliate dean for campus lifetime at Bard School at Simon’s Rock in Good Barrington, Massachusetts. At Bard, he acquired of Peabody’s 15-month master’s application in unbiased university management. He bookended two summers of examine in Nashville all-around simple do the job through the faculty yr at Bard.
He did not imagine utilizing the diploma to run a tiny small business. Then once again, when he and Kristyn pulled into Wichita that night, he did not consider he would ever be a environment winner.
“Whether it is economic obligations, administrative jobs or running personnel, even just the concept of formidable instructing and learning is applicable to what we’re carrying out at The Lazy Axe,” Mirasol states. “That’s been really gratifying. There are so lots of transferable expertise from training to the outside environment and jogging my personal company. In masking all the sides of operating a university, actually, there are quite very similar obligations in functioning a business.”
When a aspiration arrived contacting, he had the instruments to realize success. And an axe.