Hoop dreams: Hoosier basketball board-game inventor expects a big score.

• Author: Kaelble, Steve
• Position: Around Indiana

IT'S SAFE TO SAY THAT there's not an Indiana inventor with higher expectations than Michael Montgomery. The Madison man's board game focusing on basketball is now in mass production, and he's certain of its bestseller potential.

"There's never been a game like this," he says, brimming with enthusiasm. "All I know is that it's going to be a major thing. It undoubtedly will become one of the most popular games ever."

The game is called Spot-A-Shot. It features a board resembling a basketball court, special dice and five basketball-shaped game pieces per player. If a player rolls and "A" on the dice, he or she can move a ball onto the court. The object is to move each of the balls through the series of numbered spots on the court by rolling a 3 outside the three-point arc and a 2 on the inside, eventually landing at the free-throw line and rolling a 1 to score and exit the board. The first player to move all five bails onto and then off of the board wins.

The story of Spot-A-Shot's creation is the stuff of legends. "In November of '96, my father passed away," Montgomery says. "Two weeks later, I had a dream."

In the dream, Montgomery and his father were playing a basketball board game. Montgomery woke from the dream at 2 in the morning, his head filled with the details of Spot-A-Shot: the board design, the special dice, the rules, even the name. Later that day, Montgomery created a prototype of the new game and spent hours playing it with a friend. Before long, he decided to patent the dream-inspired idea.

He started the business in his basement, handcrafting the games from wood, couple of dozen or more per day. Through word-of-mouth, media appearances and a bit of advertising, the game took off. He sold nearly 4,000 copies last basketball season, with high-profile customers including college basketball coaching legends Rick Pitino, Denny Crum and Bob Knight. It's even on display in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Montgomery's success also caught the attention of Roger Williams, CEO of Madison-based Royer Corp., a company best known for malting plastic cocktail stirs and related items for resorts, hotels and restaurants around the world. "We live in Indiana, we are basketball crazy and Spot-A-Shot was addictive when we started to play."

One thing led to another, and Williams signed a deal with Montgomery allowing Royer to start...