Team DeMello: Spokane family united by horseshoes rallies behind world champ Jeremiah, 12

For most families, a summer road trip means a vacation. For the DeMellos, it’s all business. Another summer road trip means another chance to compete for a world championship.

This week, John DeMello, his father John Sr., and three of John’s sons, Wade, James and Jeremiah, made the cross-country drive from Spokane Valley to Wausau, Wisconsin, for the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association World Tournament. While all five will compete, much of the family’s attention is centered on 12-year-old Jeremiah, who won the Cadets Boys world championship last summer in Salt Lake City.

But inside the DeMello family, horseshoes has never been just about championships.

It is the sport that has brought together three generations. It is how they spend Tuesday evenings at Franklin Park. It has taken them across the country, introduced them to lifelong friends and, in many ways, become the thread connecting a family whose summers revolve around steel shoes, dirt pits and road trips.

“It’s a friendly game,” John DeMello said. “Every game starts with a handshake and ends with a handshake. There’s no trash talking. You see a lot of games where people are trash talking, and there’s none of that in horseshoes.”

That sense of community is what first drew the family into the sport. John DeMello’s father began his competitive horseshoes journey in the mid-1980s after retiring from fastpitch softball.

“I always loved the game of horseshoes,” John DeMello Sr. said. “When I got done playing softball, I found competition in horseshoes.”

The elder DeMello qualified for his first world tournament in 2019, when the event was held in Winnemucca, Nevada. John DeMello made the trip with two of his sons, Wade and James, to watch their grandfather compete.

“Watching him just kind of made me feel that I could compete and do the same thing,” John DeMello said.

When they returned to Spokane, John DeMello already had next year’s tournament on his mind.

“I came home and told the wife, ‘Next year it’s in Louisiana, so we’re going to be taking a road trip,’ ” he said.

The road trips kept coming. So did the tournaments. Now, horseshoes has become a family affair. John competes. His father competes. Wade, 16, James, 15, and Jeremiah all compete. Only the youngest of John and his wife Billie Jo’s four fostered or adopted sons, 8-year-old Theron, has yet to enter tournaments.

What began as a trip to support their grandfather has grown into an annual tradition that stretches across the country.

For a sport many people associate with backyard barbecues, competitive horseshoes demands remarkable precision. Players are grouped by ringer percentage. Each ringer contributes to an average that determines who they compete against. At the world tournament, those divisions become even tighter, often separating competitors by only a few percentage points.

The format gives everyone, regardless of skill level, a chance to compete for a championship.

Jeremiah entered the world tournament as a promising player, but hardly the favorite.

He had shown flashes during preliminary play, alternating strong performances with inconsistent ones.

“I didn’t really realize what talent he had until last year in the world championship,” John DeMello said. “He’d throw a good game, then throw a bad game, so it was kind of a roller coaster the first two days.”

Then something changed.

“He didn’t really have time to think about it,” John DeMello said. “One game would get over with and before you knew it, the next game was starting.”

By the championship round, Jeremiah was throwing with a confidence his father hadn’t seen before. His final opponent was four-time defending Cadets Boys champion Gavin Begaye.

“They were going back and forth,” John DeMello said. “Gavin would take the lead, Jeremiah would come back and take the lead.”

When the final shoe landed, Jeremiah had completed the upset, winning 40-37 to capture the title.

Only afterward did his father see just how much pressure his son had been carrying.

“When he got done with the last game, he came over and we were hugging him,” John Demello said. “He sat down on the bench and his foot started going like a million miles an hour because all the nerves that were built up in him were exiting him.”

The championship earned Jeremiah prize money and recognition back home, but the title wasn’t what stood out most to him.

“What I remember most was hanging out with my friends and having fun,” Jeremiah said. “My family was there to support me, and it was incredible.”

After Jeremiah DeMello’s introduction to horseshoes, the sport quickly became a significant part of his life.

“I like throwing with people,” Jeremiah DeMello said.

That social side of horseshoes is something the entire family talks about. Last summer, a friend he met through horseshoes helped Jeremiah DeMello settle into the biggest tournament of his life.

While staying at a hotel near Zion National Park before the tournament in Salt Lake City, Jeremiah DeMello met another young horseshoe pitcher named Lucas Cantone at the swimming pool. Cantone had traveled from Massachusetts with his grandmother, who serves as the NHPA’s photographer.

The two boys quickly became friends.

“They were like inseparable,” John DeMello said.

The friendship continued throughout the tournament as they practiced together before competition.

John DeMello believes having Cantone around helped Jeremiah stay loose during a week that easily could have become overwhelming.

The two boys have stayed in touch since then and even teamed up at the world team tournament earlier this year and won their division.

The friendship illustrates what the DeMellos believe makes horseshoes different from many competitive sports.

“The camaraderie of it is amazing,” John DeMello Sr. said. “It’s like one giant family. We make a whole lot of friends.”

That welcoming environment has kept the DeMellos coming back every year. Back home, classmates couldn’t believe it. Many of Jeremiah’s friends reacted with disbelief when they learned he had become a world champion.

This year has presented a completely different challenge. Rather than remaining in the Cadets division, Jeremiah moved from the 20-foot pitching distance to the standard 30-foot distance, competing against boys ages 13 through 18.

His father believed there was nothing left to prove at the shorter distance.

“He throws regularly from longer distances, so he was ready,” John DeMello said. “It’s just been impressive to watch him be able to step back and really not lose too much of his percentage.”

The move also means Jeremiah enters this year’s tournament as one of the youngest competitors in his division.

Among those standing in his way is Hastiin Begaye, a three-time world champion who throws at more than twice Jeremiah’s current average.

Rather than focus on percentages or reputations, John DeMello’s advice to his son has remained simple.

“You just have to keep throwing your ringers and keep the pressure on him,” he said. “If you go out there throwing 20%, you’re not putting any pressure on him. But if you’re throwing ringer for ringer, he’s going to feel the pressure.”

Much of John’s coaching now centers on Jeremiah’s mindset instead of his mechanics.

“When you throw a bad shoe, you just have to forget that and come back and throw the way you know you can throw,” he said.

Before competition, Jeremiah drinks a Red Bull, flips his hat backward and tries to stay calm. When nerves arrive, he relies on the same strategy his father has taught him for years.

“I take deep breaths,” Jeremiah DeMello said.

Asked what it will take to win another championship, Jeremiah answered with one word.

“Courage.”

Jeremiah isn’t the only DeMello making strides.

His brothers have improved alongside him, turning practices into friendly family competitions.

Wade, in particular, has made one of the biggest jumps.

“He came a long way in less than a year,” John DeMello said. “He’s gone from a 1% for his first tournament to now he’s throwing up close to me. He’s up into the 20s now.”

This year, all three brothers will be competing in the world tournament.

Although they compete in different classes based on their averages, they’ll spend the week practicing together and watching each other’s games.

For John DeMello Sr., seeing three generations compete together is something he never imagined when he first picked up horseshoes after his softball career ended. His own competitive résumé includes a world championship in the Elders Division two years ago. Last year, however, he wasn’t able to defend that title after breaking his femur.

Instead, he watched Jeremiah’s championship run from a wheelchair.

“It was awesome,” he said. “I felt so proud. The way he was pitching, I knew he had a chance. He did it all on his own.”

This summer, grandfather and grandson return to the world tournament together.

“The reigning world champion in the men’s division started just like Jeremiah,” John DeMello Sr. said. “All of them did. They all started when they were his age.”

He hopes his grandson stays with the sport long enough to someday contend for a men’s world championship.

Now, as Jeremiah takes the court to defend the title he won a year ago, expectations are different than they were in Salt Lake City.

The mental approach of horseshoes is just as important as the mechanics of the throw itself.

“It’s horseshoes,” John DeMello said. “It looks like a tough game, but it’s a very repetitive game. If he can get into that repetitive motion, he’ll throw a lot of ringers.”

Jeremiah’s personal goals for this tournament are simple.

He wants to win his group, improve his average and, if everything goes well, earn another paycheck.

This year’s world tournament is expected to draw roughly 900 competitors from across the country, all chasing championships in their respective classes.

For the DeMellos, however, success has long been measured by more than titles. Every Tuesday evening back home, they gather again at Franklin Park, where another practice begins with the familiar clang of steel against steel.

Whether Jeremiah returns to Spokane with another championship or not, those evenings will continue. Another tournament will appear on next year’s calendar. Another road trip will be planned. Another generation of DeMellos may eventually step onto the courts.