Cali has been playing darts for over 20 years.
She was introduced to darts at a young age. Her cousin Jim had a board setup at his house since his father owned a darts store. It was a fun way to pass the time on a rainy day, but she wasn’t aware that at that time, all over the U.S., dart leagues were forming and major tournaments were cropping up everywhere. Still a kid, her focus was on other things.
She loved drawing and painting and was an Art Major in college.
Music was also a big part of her life. She had played in band from the 4th grade throughout high school, and had seriously considered continuing her education in music, to play flute professionally.
She also played basketball in high school and college, at the division III level. She once scored 18 points in 20 minutes. That happened to be on her 21st birthday.
That same day, she received a present from her cousin Jim; a dartboard cabinet with dartboard inside. It brought back fond memories of the days they would shoot together. That gift sparked her to join a local dart league with one of her roommates, where they had great success considering they both had little experience!
Even with that early success, it wasn’t until about 10 years later that she decided to dig out that same dartboard and get back to playing.
That year, she decided to treat herself to a new set of darts. She went to the local dart shop and tried out a few sets. The guy who owned the store immediately took notice of her accuracy and asked if she wanted to join his team in the upcoming summer league.
That was the summer of 1999. She won most of her matches that year. She enjoyed it so much, she decided to play in the fall league too and has been a member of the Salt City dart league ever since.
That same league also hosts one of the largest ADO ranked tournaments in America, The Syracuse Open. To think that a major tournament was held only a few miles from her house was too good to be true!
She played in every event, relishing the challenge of playing against the top shooters in North America.
After she lost and was out of the final event in the tournament, she would stick around to watch every match until the final dart was thrown. She couldn’t get enough of it, never wanting the tournament to end. This event always fell on or close to her birthday and she felt it was the absolute best way to spend it!
One year, a player she watched all the way to the finals spoke to her about other tournaments that were held in Ontario, Canada. She was excited to know that there were other tournaments that were only a few hours drive away. The next year she met up with that player again, Robin Curry.
After losing again to another top ranked player, she was left to pack up her darts for the weekend, somewhat dejected. Robin approached her, saying a few words of encouragement, that made the loss sting a little less. They got talking and Robin suggested she come up to Ontario next month, for a tournament. She couldn’t wait! She wanted to do this every weekend!
Before long, Robin and her were doing just that, traveling to tournaments all over the east coast! With someone to split the costs of travel and their success as a doubles team, it was becoming a lucrative side gig!
And with Robin’s help, Cali quickly learned the more advanced strategies and her game improved dramatically. In 2008 she cracked into the top 10 in the American Darts Organization ranking list. By 2012, she was number 1 in the country!
She held that title for the next 4 years.
She has continued to stay in the top 10 rankings for 15 consecutive years, with most of those years being in the top 5.
She has been a member of Team USA at the WDFWorld Cup 6 consecutive times.
Thanks to darts, she has had the opportunity to travel all over the world. Places like Ireland, England, Romania, Japan, Turkey and all over the US and Canada.
Her and Robin continue to join forces in all ladies pairs events and have been one of the most successful ladies pairs teams in America. Cali feels their success is in part due to their incredible chemistry. Robin and Cali married in 2013.
Cali continues to compete in tournaments all over the country. She also recently played in the WDF World Masters held in The Netherlands, where she made it to the final 16.
She feels this upcoming year will create more opportunities to play darts abroad. She has once again made the World Cup team for USA, this year in Denmark.
With all of the amazing opportunities she has experienced through darts, she wanted to give back to the sport that has given her so much.
She has since dedicated herself to creating a YouTube channel called “Garage Darts”. Her inspiration for this project was initially to help her family and friends outside of darts, understand the game that is such a big part of her life. She in turn hopes it sheds light on the game for the general public in America, especially people who are interested in learning about the game.
In her early days of darts, she felt there wasn’t a lot of information regarding American darts. She wants to help new players learn all the things she struggled with early on. She produces these episodes herself, drawing all the animations, developing scripts, laying in the audio tracks and editing it all together into what she hopes is entertaining as well as informative.
She plans to move into more advanced topics as the episodes progress. Her hope is that one day, darts is as popular in the US as it is in other parts of the world.
The name Garage Darts is a tribute to the many days she spent hanging out in the garage with her dad, a mechanic at heart. To this day, the garage is one of her favorite places to be.
As a diehard DIY’er herself, she still works on cars and many home improvement projects. Since she spends so much time in her garage, why wouldn’t she have a dartboard hanging up there?!
