Saturday night at Southpoint is full of teenagers seeing movies, buying clothes and grabbing a bite to eat. Among the sea of adolescents, you spot a flock of clubs and balls and fire soaring through the air. As you approach the source of this spherical symphony, you see a figure. You may not know his life, but he has the ability to change yours. The man’s name, you may ask? He’s Chris Fowler, otherwise known as Juggleboy.
After interviewing many kids at my school, some of them have told me they have memories of you since they were eight or nine. So I just have to ask, why here, why Southpoint, why for so long?
“I’ve been here for 14 years. My dad is the reason I started here and started juggling in
the first place. Him and my mom were visiting when [Southpoint] was very new at the time, six months old or something. And they saw a couple other performers so they were just like, ‘Hey you should do that.’ So I just started doing it for fun, and then I realized I could do this kind of stuff for a living, between here and just about everything you can name. I’ve even done wedding receptions. In this line of work, you do all kinds of stuff, and between all that I managed to make a living and it gives me four days a week to pretty much do whatever I want to do, which is kind of neat.”
What led you to competing in the World Juggling Federation?
“When everybody’s a teenager, you feel like you have something to prove. I’ve always been very competitive but I’ve backed off a little bit. I was having a lot of fun with the videos and was like, ‘Hey let’s try and compete.’ It was just something I wanted to do, but now I don’t really want to do it as much anymore, but I still want to compete in other things, so I guess I still haven’t fully given up the competition quite yet.”
Do you regret choosing the stage name “Juggleboy”?
“That [nickname] wasn’t even mine! A friend of mine in church gave it to me and it just stuck. It stuck and everyone called me it. At the time I hated it, now I don’t really care. I’ve been Juggleboy for 20 years now and now I’m 32 and still Juggleboy. I’ll be Juggleboy at 50. That’s just the name that stuck. Changing your brand at this point is a bad idea.”
Do you have anything else to add?
“Find something to drive yourself, because so many people go through life without purpose. [It] just seems like a terrible way to be. One huge thing is just find something you love, even if it isn’t your living…. There are so many people that live and do their career, working for retirement, and then retirement happens and they’re just like, ‘Now what?’ I have the very fortunate situation that I’ve found things that I’m very passionate about that I can do….Don’t just survive, that’s not a great way to live. You have to have some- thing, some reason to wake up in the morning…. Pretty much every day I wake up, and sure I might be tired in the morning sometimes but…” [interrupted by a passerby]
“Dude, that juggling was intense, bro. Good job on that, man.”
To the passerby: “Thank you, thank you! … But I wake up and I’m excited about the things I have to do for the day because it’s stuff that I enjoy, and I think that’s a huge thing.”
– By Connor Lewis
For more photos, check out the Juggleboy gallery.
