TITLES
Dave Lewis and Arthur Coddington have won dozens of tournaments together since they first teamed up in 1993.
They have won seven Freestyle Players Association (FPA) World Championship titles together. Year by year, here's how
Team Shrednow's major titles stack up:
SUMMARY OF MAJOR TITLES
FPA World Championships (Open Pairs): 1996, 2001, 2003
FPA World Championships (Open Co-op): 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
US Open Flying Disc Championships: 1998
World Flying Disc Federation Championships: 1999, 2003
1996
Arthur and Dave win their first major title by taking the Open Pairs title at the Freestyle Players Association (FPA) World Championships in New York City's Central Park.
Despite a poor qualifying position - they played third of eight teams - and after torrential rains delayed the start of the finals, Dave and Arthur went dropless
to win the title by more than seven points over their nearest rival. Theirs was the first dropless routine to win the world championship since 1986. Their
performance earned them the 1996 Routine of the Year award. Arthur finished the year ranked #1 in the world, and Dave finished at #2.
1997
Arthur and Dave competed with Dave Murphy in the Co-op (three-person) division from 1996 through 1998. Dave Lewis struggled through injuries all season. He passed up playing
Open Pairs with Arthur at the World Championships in Honolulu so he would be injury-free for Co-op.
Arthur, Dave and Murf had observed that
teams that use two discs for only part of their routine could break the rhythm of the performance when they discarded or picked up the extra disc. The goal was to maintain
possession of both discs through all five minutes of the performance while not sacrificing the difficulty level of the moves. It was an ambitious routine played to music from the film
"Mars Attacks" and the band Queen.
The conditions for the finals were squirrely, with puffs of wind appearing out of nowhere. Nevertheless, the team focused on each move
and turned in another dropless performance to take first place by seven points over Larry Imperiale, Randy Silvey and Bill Wright. It was the second year in a row that Dave and Arthur had won a world title, and it was Murf's first FPA world title.
Their dropless performance also won the 1997 Routine of the Year award. Arthur finished the year ranked #1 in the world, and Dave finished at #3.
1998
Arthur, Dave and Murf defended their Co-op world title in Seattle. Continuing the double disc theme, the boys created an entirely new performance to classical music by
Rimsky-Korsikov. Second place finishers from Hawaii - Larry Imperiale, Randy Silvey and Bill Wright - put the pressure on with a one-drop routine. For a while, it looked
like Arthur, Dave and Murf might be dethroned. They were hitting their moves but lacked the spark of Honolulu. With about one minute left in the performance, Dave Lewis brought the spark
with a long tipping combination that ended in a move that surprised even his teammates. Dave's triple spinning legover catch ignited the crowd and his team. They finished strong and
edged out the win by barely a point.
Arthur, Dave and Murf traveled to Dallas later that summer for the US Open Flying Disc Championships. Playing their world championships routine, they easily won the title.
Arthur finished the year ranked #2 in the world, and Dave finished at #3. Teammate Dave Murphy took the year-end #1 ranking.
1999
In July Arthur and Dave traveled to Europe for the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) Championships.
WFDF is the international governing
body for all disc sports. Every two years they sanction an overall championship that rewards performance across seven disc events. Freestyle is one of them. The freestyle
title at WFDF is considered a major title on its own, so many freestyle specialists travel to the WFDF tournament just to enter one event.
In Sweden, Arthur and Dave
were on their game. Playing through hellish conditions, they won both qualifying rounds. In the finals, they edged Dave Schiller and Paul Kenny for the title with
a routine that combined music by Frank Sinatra with a song by alternative rockers Blur.
Back in the states, the world championships were held in Santa Cruz, California. Dave, Murf and Arthur outscored a tough Texas team (Dan Yarnell,
Steve Hanes and Tristan Doshier) by two points to threepeat. No team had ever
won the world championships three years in a row. Dave finished the year ranked #2 in the world and was named Player of the Year, and Arthur finished at #3. Once again, Dave Murphy took the #1 year-end ranking.
2000
Injury struck during 2000. While preparing for a chance to four-peat, Dave Murphy re-injured his back in late May. Three ruptured discs, bone spurs and gnarly scar tissue meant
he had to sit out the competitive season. Arthur and Dave recruited legendary player Tommy Leitner to fill Murf's spot on the team. They adapted the routine they were working on
with Murf and found ways for Tommy to showcase his incredible game.
As a new team with little practice, there was no predicting how they would compete in the big show. The new
rivals were Paul Kenny, Randy Silvey and Dan Yarnell, who had created an entertaining thematic routine. In some ways, it would be a clash of styles - presentation versus difficulty.
In 1998, Dave was the key to the win with his late-routine heroics. In 2000, Tommy and Arthur went off, each going dropless. Dave held together the fort, and the team came away with
a victory margin of nearly three points. Four in a row for Arthur and Dave. No duo had ever won more than three. The new trio earned the 2000 Routine of the Year
award.
Dave claimed the #1 ranking at the end of the year, with Arthur close behind at #3.
In 2000, Arthur claimed his first world title without Dave Lewis by teaming up with Lisa Hunrichs Silvey to win the mixed pairs world championship title. Primarily because of his double win,
Arthur edged Dave as the 2000 Player of the Year
2001
The world championships could not have gone better for Dave and Arthur. In Open Pairs, they romped through all three rounds and recaptured the title they first won in 1996. Despite
playing after a nearly perfect routine by Larry Imperiale and Paul Kenny, Arthur and Dave performed well enough to win the title by a point and a half.
In 2001, the third member of the co-op team was another legend - Dave Schiller. Dave, Dave and Arthur had the luxury that Tommy Leitner had not - time to put
together a routine from scratch. The main rival was the same - Kenny, Silvey and Yarnell - but Dave Murphy had returned from his injury and teamed up with
Larry Imperiale and Tommy Leitner to create another superstar team.
Team Shrednow's finals performance was reminiscent of 1998. A quiet beginning with a few
mistakes, followed by a performance that built to an exciting techno ending. Though the team made some mistakes, the judges scored Team Shrednow 2.5 points higher than
any other team. Five in a row for Dave and Arthur, tying Joey Hudoklin's all-time record for the most consecutive wins in the co-op division. Dave repeated as the
year-end #1 ranked player, and Arthur came in at #3.
Dave and Arthur's awards in 2001 included being named the Pairs Team of the Decade for the 1990's.
See Team Shrednow's Winning Co-op Performance
the whole routine (72 megs)
the ending (quicktime 19 megs)
the ending (streaming 6 megs)
2003
After finishing 2002 without a major title, Arthur and Dave returned to the top of the podium at the World Disc Games, which doubled
as the World Flying Disc Federation championships. Arthur and Dave place won all four rounds, despite a deep field that featured
monster team and 1998 world champs Dave Murphy and Ted Oberhaus, legendary team Skippy Jammer and Tommy Leitner and the new, fast-rising pair of Randy Silvey and Jake Gauthier.
In the finals, Murphy/Oberhaus and Jammer/Leitner both played well with only a few drops. Arthur and Dave
came out firing on all cylinders - a necessity when matched up against turbo players like Murf and Ted. Continuing their tradition of trading the leading role, this time
Arthur took to the fore. After hitting an early gitis, Arthur came alive and brought extra fire and intensity to their Guns n Roses routine.
Arthur and Dave won all three categories of judging - difficulty, execution and artistic impression - and took first place by nearly five points.
Two months later, Arthur and Dave were on the beach half a world away in Rimini, Italy for the FPA World Championships.
Dave Murphy and Ted Oberhaus peeled out in the semifinals, hitting an almost perfect, agressive routine. Arthur and Dave had to perform while the buzz from Ted and Murf
was still dying down. Rather than stray from their game and risk placing low among the four teams advancing to the finals, Arthur and Dave decided to play within themselves
and see what happened. They played great. Not as great as Murf and Ted, but they stayed close, laid down enough big moments to excite the crowd yet held back enough to keep
people wondering "what if?"
The next day, conditions were wicked, and by wicked I mean bad. The winds were high, well above the 10 mph comfort limit of most players. Worse, the wind was inconsistent depending
on how high the disc was flying. There was a narrow strike zone from a player's waist to shoulders. Above the shoulders, the disc would lift and fly over their head, sometimes into
the sands downwind of the stage. Below the waist, the disc would drop with a thud to the red carpeted stage. All day, teams were defeated by the wind. In fact, Dave, Murf and Arthur
were defeated in the co-op final early in the afternoon. They won difficulty and artistic impression, but the wind forced them into so many errors that they were out of the running
for first place. Dave and Arthur decided the problem was fear. Fear the wind and it will rule you. Approach it with aggression and you at least had a chance. No guarantees, but
you had a chance.
The plan was to perform the same "Sweet Child o Mine" routine as in Santa Cruz, changing one or two moves that became impossible in the hellish wind. The sketchy conditions had slowed
the tournament down. By the time Arthur and Dave were called to play, it was after sunset and teams were playing under the lights. They started the routine, testing the conditions,
thinking only of the next move. Very quickly, it was clear that their aggressive approach was working. They were playing cleanly and hitting big moves without pushing beyond what
was available. Dave was especially on fire, hitting a huge tipping combination and a long series of double spinning pulls. Arthur grabbed a triple spinning crow. Perhaps it was the
relief of being able to play like they know they can after a day of frustrations. Perhaps it was the energy of the amazingly supportive crowd. Arthur and Dave were full of energy
and intensity that fueled their four minutes. After the last catch, they celebrated and heard "that's going to be hard to beat." They had played a two drop, difficult routine
when it counted.
Because they finished second in their semifinal pool, two teams played after Arthur and Dave. Though there was some anxiety over what would happen next, there was tremendous comfort
in having laid down a great performance, in having played great when it counted. Arthur and Dave knew the next teams would have to also play great to beat them. If they did, it
would be fun to watch. Both Tommy Leitner/Pat Marron and Dave Murphy/Ted Oberhaus played great, with hard moves and only a few drops. Watching them, there was a sense that
what might hold them back was an intensity and routine structure. In the end, the judges scored Arthur and Dave as the winners by an astounding 6.9 points. Each of Arthur and Dave's
victories has its own unique story, and they will remember this one as one of the sweetest.
The winds were higher in the afternoon, wreaking havoc with the Mixed Pairs final. No team nailed their routine, but Lisa Hunrichs-Silvey and Arthur persevered
and had enough fun in the craziness to eak out their second Mixed Pairs world title by two points over Bethany and Rodney Sanchez.
Video: World Disc Games 1st Place (20 megs)
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