By JOHN CARLSON
jcarlson@muncie.gannett.com
It’s a long-standing staple of classic pub life, but something else is also true.
Darts aren’t just for the Brits anymore.
“I’ve played darts for probably 10 years,” said Felix Lukenbill, which technically makes him a late arrival, even by American standards, in a sport dating back to the 19th century and earlier.
On this Sunday evening, though, he was doing his bit to promulgate the sport for future generations, hosting the darts league that competes each week in Big Shots Pub, the sports bar at 700 S. Nichols Ave. that he owns with Rob Jones.
Established at the bar about a year ago, the league now has five teams and a cadre of 20 to 25 players, which essentially amounts to a foothold hereabouts.
“Indianapolis?” Lukenbill said. “They have hundreds of teams there.”
Still, those who compete here do so enthusiastically.
This night they were gathered on the platform where the bar’s two electronic dart board consoles sat, laughing and joking over the bar talk and blare of the football game commentaries coming from the televisions, sipping beers between their turns to throw. Then they’d launch three darts in rapid succession, the lighted numbers on the boards automatically tallying their scores, retrieve them and wait to try again.
Friendly competition
“It’s competition,” Lukenbill continued. “Everybody’s just having fun, but they are being competitive, also.”
That wasn’t news to Eddie Dines, who was among those competing.
“We’re all friends,” he said with a chuckle. “Of course, I want to beat them.”
A darts player for five or six years, he was led to the league at Big Shots by a friend with a rather pointed sense of humor.
“He said, ‘You’re a natural,’” Dines recalled, laughing again, “because I’m horrible at pool.”
Competing in the league has upped his level of darts play, he added, to where he’ll throw the occasional hat trick, nailing three bull’s-eyes in a row.
“It happens,” he acknowledged. “I’ve had good nights. But it’s not like I do it every week.”
Still, he has a realistic assessment of his darts skills, and doubts that he will ever wind up competing for national honors in Las Vegas, as some members of top teams do. An encounter with an old guy in Indy who cleaned his proverbial clock convinced him of that.
“I thought I was good,” Dines said, a little ruefully.

As the players walked into Big Shots on Sunday, they carried compact plastic cases holding their darts. Lukenbill said you can buy sets for $6, and buy sets for $200.
“I compare it to a pool stick,” he said. “You like what you like.”
League member Charles Karakasilis, a Chicago transplant, uses a bargain set, and would like to get some better ones.
Sometime, anyway.
“The ones I have, they seem to be working for me right now,” he said.
Of course, as with any sport, buying the right equipment is hardly the key to success.
“It’s a skill that you have to learn,” said Holly Ellington.
While her husband, Greg, is a player in the league, she is not at this time. However, she plays regularly in a “blind draw” competition that follows league play every Sunday evening.
Whatever your opinion of darts, she says, it’s not just tossing sharp things at a circular target.
Aiming is essential.
“Some people look at certain places on the board,” she said. “Some look above the number. Some look below it. Some look right at it.”
Whatever her aiming point, she said one thing is consistent: “I’m trying to get better each week. The guys in the league make it look easy. It’s not.”
Don’t play mad
Other factors?
“Just finding a comfortable position and relaxing,” said Daniel Crisp, who acknowledged he is something of a rookie in the darts game, being new to the league.
Then there was the issue of anger.
The recommendation: Don’t play, um, peeved.
“The madder people get, the worse they throw,” he declared, though he also admitted some folks think they throw better when fueled by a bit of a temper.
He, of course, always wants to throw his best, which is one reason he joined the league in the first place.
“I’m a very competitive person,” Crisp said. “It’s an outlet for that.”
Truth be told, those little darts inspire some big moments of fun and intensity for the league players.
Lukenbill has watched top players compete in Las Vegas.
“They really get to screaming,” he said. “And they do that here, too, as far as that goes. Hit three bull’s-eyes in a row to win a game, and they really get pumped.”
But even if he simply remains a league player at Big Shots, Dines  says it’s all good.
“I’m having fun,” he said, “because I want to throw darts anyway.”
z Contact John Carlson at 213-5824.