The Beavers (formerly the Beaver Boys) are burning up the bike polo courts and a national men's magazine has taken notice.
Former Milwaukeeans Brian Dillman and Eric Kremin were featured in GQ this month for their tenacity in the sport of bike polo. In 2010, with the help of their original teammate Joe Burge, the team took the World Championships. In 2012 they took the North American Championship, and in 2013, after a move to San Francisco and the acquisition of new teammate Joey Halverson, they took both.
And apparently the Beavers aren't content just to win.
Byard Duncan of GQ had this to say about them:
"...After years of playing together (first in Milwaukee, where Kremin and Dillman met, and now in the Bay Area, where they picked up Halvorsen), they’ve developed a formula. They play fast and rough. They train hard and "clock in" during tournaments, avoiding alcohol, parties and most social interaction with other teams. Most importantly, they execute an uncannily flexible game. On the court, they’re chameleons – capable of assessing and hammering their opponents’ weak spots with lethal immediacy.
"These qualities are what make them both the most exciting team for an outsider to watch, and the most intolerable for many other die-hard polo disciples. If The Beavers, with their elastic strategies and win-at-all-costs mindset, could help the sport make its first foray into some form of mainstream recognition, they’re also its biggest scapegoats – a trio of braggarts intent on uprooting the gritty communality that birthed polo in the first place..."
The entire GQ profile is here: "Leave it to the Beavers to Make Bike Polo Famous."
Hard-court Bike Polo is a variation of traditional Bicycle Polo in which teams of players ride bicycles and use mallets to strike a small ball into a goal. Interested in thwacking the ball around?
Learn more about Milwaukee Bike Polo.
Jason McDowell grew up in central Iowa and moved to Milwaukee in 2000 to attend the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
In 2006 he began working with OnMilwaukee as an advertising designer, but has since taken on a variety of rolls as the Creative Director, tackling all kinds of design problems, from digital to print, advertising to branding, icons to programming.
In 2016 he picked up the 414 Digital Star of the Year award.
Most other times he can be found racing bicycles, playing board games, or petting dogs.