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It is with great sadness that we report the passing of one of darts most
memorable personalities, Mike McBride. You say that you’ve never heard of him? Well, do you throw Black Widows® or Golden Eagles® or know
someone who does? Do your dart supplies come from Horizon Darts? Then you know Mike.
Mike WAS Horizon/Laserdarts. Horizon was his idea, his inspiration, his
work and, except for his wife, Terry, his life for 19 years. Chances are that if you’ve called Horizon or Laserdarts and talked to someone with a deep
resonant voice that sounds like it belongs on radio, then you’ve talked to Mike.
Almost 24 years ago, I met a towering man with extremely intense eyes, a
quick wit, and the sharpest mind I’ve ever seen. Like many others that would come face to face with him in the years to come, I was scared. Many darters
who played against him over the years can tell you that it only took one glance at this giant, intimidating presence to make you want to start looking for a place to hide.
But once you started talking to him, you found that he was one of the most
personable men you’d ever meet with a very big silly streak. A fierce competitor at the line, he could beat you to a pulp in the match, but the next
time you saw him, he was running through the dart hall with a sheet tied around his shoulders being ‘DartMan.’
When a fire alarm continued to go off during a match, he calmly walked over
and, with one swipe of a massive hand, tore the alarm out of the wall, wires and all, then returned to the line to hit the number needed to win the match.
Even though he hadn’t played at tournaments in years, such stories still abound about McBride at various darting events. Some are hilarious, some
startling, but all were 100% McBride.
Most suppliers will no doubt remember is how he was always telling jokes. In
fact, there was a time when he would not take your order unless you had a joke to tell. It didn’t matter if it was old…you just had to have one. Many a
customer was surprised when he hung up on them if a joke wasn’t told quickly…they always called back. It gave them a memory of Mike that they will always remember.
Early on, his life had been a wash of colorful endeavors. In high school, he
was All-State in football and basketball, as well as a national debate winner. He later sold auto parts, owned a towing company in Las Vegas, built race
cars, been a dealer in Vegas, a miner in Colorado, and a radio DJ in Denver and ran his family’s health food stores. By the mid 70’s, he owned a rare
stamp and coin company and co-owned a business that dealt in gold and silver. All of these paths gave him a very diversified business background.
This would prove invaluable when he started Horizon. It also made him an extremely interesting person.
When he was introduced to the game of darts, he thought it was boring. He
would give up when he got to bullseye because it took too long to hit it. That soon passed.
Determined to become one of the best, he started playing darts 6 to 8 hours
a day. It still took a lot of convincing to get him to join a dart team in Kansas City’s growing dart league. But, once he started, there was no going back.
Not only did he become one of the premier dart players in the Midwest, he was soon the President of the Kansas City Dart Association, an office he
held for a number of years.
He came to love darts. He called it a gentleman’s game…one that started
and ended with a handshake. On a national level, he helped run several tournaments in Vegas, sponsored numerous players through Horizon and Laserdarts, was active in the ADO (American Dart Organization), and, early
on, became a sponsor and advocate for a fledgling newspaper called the Bull’s-Eye News.
The road to Horizon was an unexpected one. As with a lot of players starting
out, he bought several sets of darts and assorted supplies looking for that ‘magic set.’ Local players would ask him if they could buy whatever he was
discarding that week.
Soon a small business had started. Mike started carrying a briefcase with a
few supplies. Next, he put small dart cabinets in a few bars to let the players have ready access to supplies. But, more and more, he was becoming
frustrated with the British dart companies who distributed 90% of the world’s darts and supplies. He often mentioned that there should be a company that
sent you what you ordered, didn’t back order half of it and had great customer service. With the encouragement from family and friends, a little money from
a friend’s father and his wife’s credit cards, he started a business in the basement of their duplex.
Eureka…Horizon Darts was born. With Mike’s expertise, tireless work and
insight, the business had soon outgrown the basement and moved into a larger location. His business savvy soon had built the business to the point
where even that building wasn’t big enough. In three short years, Horizon had become one of the largest dart distributors in the country. So, an even larger
building, an old roller rink, was bought and Horizon moved into it’s present home.
At about the same time, Mike heard that Laserdarts (in Chicago) was up for
sale. He wanted it. This was just the thing to add to the Horizon family. It would help the business jump into the next big arena…. manufacturing. The
challenge was daunting.
First manufactured by Fansteel, the Black Widow® had long been the
premier dart in America. Mike intended it to remain so. It was, and still is, the hardest dart to manufacture. Stringent quality control was instituted to
keep the same high standard. Each barrel is still inspected for even the slightest flaw in the metal and coatings and then weighed to be a truly
‘matched set.’ New scientific coatings were found that would adhere to the metal better and last longer.
Mike designed new darts like the K.C’s to bring a completely different ‘front
-heavy’ look for a more consistent grip. Due to Mike’s tireless work ethic, Horizon and Laser became one of the largest dart companies in the U.S.
Always with his finger on the pulse of dart innovations, he soon designed a
line of moveable point Laserdarts and then, expanded the lines to include soft tip versions of all Laserdarts lines.
When it became obvious that the web was the place to be, he sought to have
the best dart web site possible. This move brought Horizon/Laser into the international arena in a big way. Now darters from Borneo to Timbuktu, as
well as those in the U.S., have access to a massive array of darts and dart supplies not previously seen.
Not just a nuts and bolts kind of guy, he was also the creative mind behind
the beautiful and innovative Horizon and Laser catalogs. Always busy and challenging himself with new goals, it is unfortunate that, when he passed
away, he was finally at a place in his life where he was looking forward to a vacation. This is something he hadn’t had in 10 years.
Those of us who knew and loved him can tell you that there wasn’t a man
walking with a bigger heart and a readiness to help anyone …be it a lifelong friend, a complete stranger and occasionally an enemy. Life is certainly a lot
different without him. His presence is still with us, but the intense eyes, beautiful voice and smiling face are absent.
The true sadness is that he never realized the number of lives he touched in
so many ways. He never made a big deal of it, but his generosity was renowned. For all the gruff exterior, he was one of the biggest teddy bears around.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, he was my strength. Going to all doctors
visit, shaving his head when I lost my hair and sitting in the chair right next to me during every treatment were just a few of the loving gestures he
constantly made during that trying time.
But it wasn’t just family that benefited from him. When anyone around him
suffered any loss or hardship, he was there trying to ease the burden any way he could. His intelligence, wit and ‘no-holds-barred’ advise were
respected by everyone who ever had the chance to spend some time with him. As one of his friends said, “He could cut you to the bone with what he
was telling you. But you knew that what he was saying was absolutely the truth ...the exact things that were running around in your head but you were
afraid to face. But then he’d put his hand on your shoulder and let you know that everything would work out because now you knew what you had to do.”
A kind and wise man gone way too soon, he will be missed by all who had
the pleasure of knowing him… The dart community has suffered a mighty loss.
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