| The
idea for Infinet has its origin on a playground in
Honolulu, Hawaii, where Larry Thompson and a bunch of "weekend
warriors"
gathered at 10 am every Saturday morning to play basketball.
Every few
weeks upon arriving at the court there would be a worn out
net hanging from
one of the rims. It took some fun out of the game not having
the
satisfaction of seeing the ball swish through the net. Parks
and recreation
wasn't interested in replacing the nets so it came down to
someone going to
a sporting goods store and buying some new nets, take down
the worn out one
and installing a new one. A lot of extra time, effort and
money...
They say necessity is the mother of invention,
and it was Thompson who
decided to do something about this net problem. Couldn't a
basketball net
be made out of a higher quality material that would last a
long time but
still have the same look and feel of regular nylon or cotton
net? After
research that led to the highest quality fiber available,
Thompson then
constructed a prototype made from this material and tried
it out on the same
playground hoops. After 9 months of use, to his amazement,
there was no sign
of wear on the nets. Particularly important was the areas
where the fiber
was in constant contact with the metal hooks on the rim that
support the
nets that always wear out first. Unbelievable! After nine
months outdoors in
the elements--hot sun, salty air and rain--as good as new!
Seeing these first test results was like hitting
a game winning shot with no
time left on the clock--maybe better! Thompson's thought at
this point was,
"We've got a winner!
Actually "the game" had just begun
in creating and eventually marketing a
great product. The road for Thompson led back to his childhood
roots in
Oregon where he has sold the Infinet basketball nets to homeowners,
apartment complexes, recreation centers, schools and, in 1999,
Infinet was
installed at the famed MacArthur Court on the campus of the
University of
Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and has been used in NCAA competition
since that
time. No Infinet has worn out do to regular use. Several have
been
ceremoniously cut down after team championship victories...
With a look to the future, Thompson believes
that it's time for every hoop
in America, and the whole planet, to have an Infinet basketball
net hanging
proudly from the rim.
Because after all, "More swishes = More fun". Isn't
that what it's all about? |
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