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Local friends hope Hacky Sack grows in popularity
A simple kick will keep a Hacky Sack flying, but when Zach Marine and Brian Moeller practiced with one Wednesday at Veteran's Park in Marshfield, they combined kicking with fluid artistic movements.
The activity may conjure groovy images of flowing hair and beards trailing dancing hippies, but what Marine and Moeller engaged in is much more organized and intricate.
This is called "footbag freestyle."
"We got into it the way almost everyone gets into it, and the way we did is I went online looking for 'hacky sack,'" Marine said.
The two friends would kick around a Hacky Sack, but when Marine searched the Internet, he found this was only the foundation of an entire sport, called footbag.
Footbag was invented in 1972 in Oregon when John Stalberger met Mike Marshall, who was recovering from knee surgery and was kicking around a hand-made bean bag to work on his flexibility. Stalberger took to the game, they became friends and began playing what they called "Hack the Sack." The two eventually designed a product known as the "Hacky Sack," and used "footbag" as the name of their sport, according to the International Footbag Players' Association at http://www.footbag.org.
The game has grown to an organized sport with specific rules and moves with clubs and players throughout the nation and the world.
Hacky Sack is actually a trademark, but anyone can find something labeled as such and begin.
"One comment I hear the most is, 'I could never do that," Marine said. "You just have to learn the basics."
Moeller said he practiced basic kicks for about six months before getting into the freestyle moves. Now both he and Marine can chat while flipping the small bag around their legs, heads, or even catching it on the outside of their feet behind their backs before flipping it to the opposite foot, turning around in one fluid motion.
Both 18 and from Marshfield, Marine and Moeller are about to part ways for college. Luckily for Moeller, who will attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he has the UW Madison Footbag Club.
Marine said that if one doesn't exist already at Washington University in St. Louis, he'll probably be the founding member.
They began practicing in Veteran's Park to garner interest in the sport and see if anyone would stop and join. Marine said the sport often doesn't get the recognition it deserves in the media and seems to have a "druggie" stigma, having once been a popular recreational habit among hippies at Grateful Dead concerts.
Freestyle footbag, however requires great coordination and dexterity.
"There's an overall connotation, but a lot of people who play wouldn't do that because you need a lot of endurance," Marine said. "You're essentially jumping up and down for an hour and a half."
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