Preston Humphrey – who has been alive exactly as many years as Blueberry Hill has been hosting a darts tournament – will be at the pub’s 42nd annual Open Dart Tournament this weekend. But he won’t be throwing darts. He is still overcoming rotator cuff surgery.
Yes, darts is a sport, and yes, a damaged rotator cuff can throw off your darts game.
Humphrey manages Blueberry Hill’s dart league, which is recruiting teams for the next season starting in June. But he won’t be managing the tournament – that is Doug Wilkinson’s baby.
But Humphrey will be working the room this weekend for potential dart leaguers, admiring the competition and making friends of the winners.
“I talk to people,” Humphrey said. “I buy the winners drinks. I am popular with the winners.”
Humphrey buys the winners drinks with house money. As Blueberry Hill’s self-styled “ambassador of darts,” his drinks – for himself and the dart winners he wants to treat – are on the house.
“Preston is one of those wonderful people who likes people and enjoys the social aspect of people,” said Joe Edwards, owner of Blueberry Hill, among other properties, and developer of the Loop. “Everybody likes him, and that is always important in leadership.”
Humphrey, who grew up in North St. Louis, started throwing darts at Blueberry Hill while studying law at Washington University School of Law in 1996. He attended the Wednesday evening dart league as a spectator until one of the competitors, Art Thames, pressed him into playing one night.
“He literally drug me into a doubles match,” Humphrey said. “I had never thrown a dart in my life. Not at all.”
Humphrey already had been coming to the dart league for the camaraderie, and he found that aspect only got better once he was one of the players. When he graduated from law school, passed the Missouri Bar and got a job as a junior attorney at an area firm, he found he needed that weekly camaraderie more than ever.
“One of the things they don’t tell you in law school is how unhappy-slash-miserable a young attorney’s life is,” Humphrey said. “When you’re the low man on the totem pole getting yelled at by your bosses, you knew on Wednesday night you were going to have some fun and blow off steam.”
He stayed involved as a player for years, then started to help run the league for a few years before taking it over officially in 2007.
“He has built up the number of teams and built up interest in the league,” Edwards said. “It’s a fun, social sport and you don’t have to be good at it to enjoy the game. You aim at a certain spot on the board. You miss. You aim again. You hit! Whoopee! Then you have an adult beverage to celebrate.”
“The adult beverage is key,” Humphrey said.
Humphrey – who is now an attorney who runs a solo practice – will be at Blueberry Hill this weekend, buying adult beverages for the winners with house money. And, as a former player, he will be admiring some of the nation’s best dart throwers.
“Sometimes it’s fun to just watch how good the players are,” Humphrey said. “Sometimes you just have to say, ‘Okay, I could never do that.’”
Blueberry Hill’s 42nd annual Open Dart Tournament will be held May 9-11 at the pub, located at 6504 Delmar in the Loop. For more information: http://blueberryhilldarttournament.com/.
For more information on the dart league, email Humphrey at phumphrey@phlawstl.com.
