The Garden Island – The Power of Play (2016)

This one is a bit of a different view of footbag, talking about the value of play in general, and also the benefits of barefoot activity. This is something that is often valued for young children but the man interviewed here, Reverend Zander recommends his of hack circle, juggling and other disciplines into what he calls “Hackido”.

The full article can be read here.

HANALEI — Reverend Zander likes to play. It is, he says, a “universal expression of joy, builder of brains and the great healer of the soul.”

Welcome to the world of Hackido!

It’s a small, soft round ball made of hemp fabric on the outside and hemp seeds inside. Take one, two, three of four of them, and, well, you’ve got the power to change your life in your hands, Zander says.

And the lives of others, too. Perhaps the world.

“It’s about play. It’s a spiritual thing for me,” he says. “I consider play our sole purpose. It’s universal.”

“You can do this anytime, anywhere, any place,” he continues as he juggles three Hackido! balls. “It always changes up the mood. I don’t care what kind of a situation you’re in. If you pull out three hacks and start juggling, people go, ‘Oh, there’s a juggler, everything is cool.’”

 

New York Times – Floppy Little Footbag is Big Game on Campus (1984)

One from the more distant archives. This one is an article in the New York Times, mainly about the popularity of the hack circle and similar activities, such as juggling, taking off on campuses around the time. Some quotes from Gerg Cortopassi, co-founder of World Footbag Association.

Read the full article here.

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 11— The object is a small, floppy sphere that lies inert wherever it falls, but it has started students leaping and kicking and, according to one professor here, ”feeling better about themselves” on campuses around the country.

At Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania it is called a Hacky Sack, at the University of Delaware a footbag.

By whatever name, it is the instrument of a new sport with ancient Oriental roots that moved down the West Coast, crossed the country to East Coast colleges and now, proponents say, is beginning to find converts from Europe to the Far East.

By May it had grown so popular that it gained its own national organization, the World Footbag Association, based in Portland, Ore., whose officials estimate that as many as five million Americans are playing forms of the sport.