Many Common Sports Started at the YMCA

It was at the International YMCA Training School in December 1891 that James Naismith invented the game of basketball, at the request of Luther Gulick, the director of the school. Gulick needed a game to occupy a "class of incorrigibles" - 18 future YMCA directors who, more interested in rugby and football, didn't care for leapfrog, tumbling and other activities they were forced to do during the winter. Gulick gave Naismith two weeks to come up with a game to occupy them. Naismith decided that the new game had to be physically active and simple to understand. It could not be rough, so no contact could be allowed. The ball could be passed but not carried. Goals at each end of the court would lend a degree of difficulty and give skill and science a role. Elevating the goal would eliminate rushes that could injure players, a problem in football and rugby.  The first goals were actually peach baskets!  

Volleyball was invented at the Holyoke YMCA ( Mass.) in 1895 by William Morgan, a Y instructor who felt that basketball was too strenuous for businessmen. Morgan blended elements of basketball, tennis and handball into the game and called it
"mintonette." The name "volleyball" was first used in 1896 during an exhibition at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., to better describe how the ball went back and forth over the net. In 1922, YMCAs held their first national championship in the game. This became the U.S. Open in 1924, when non-YMCA teams were permitted to compete. 

Softball was given its name by motion of Walter Hakanson of the Denver YMCA in 1926 at a meeting of the Colorado Amateur Softball Association (CASA), itself a result of YMCA staff efforts. Softball had been played for many years prior to 1926, under such names as kittenball, softball and even sissyball. In 1926, however, the YMCA state secretary, Homer Hoisington, noticed both the sport's popularity and its need for standardized rules. After a gathering of interested parties, the CASA was formed and Hakanson moved to settle on the name softball for the game. The motion carried, and the name softball became accepted nationwide. 

Racquetball was invented in 1950 at the Greenwich YMCA ( Conn.) by Joe Sobeck, a member who couldn't find other squash players of his caliber and who did not care for handball. He tried paddleball and platform tennis and came up with the idea of using a strung racquet similar to a platform tennis paddle (not a sawed-off tennis racquet, as some say) to allow a greater variety of shots. After drawing up rules for the game, Sobeck went to nearby Ys for approval from other players and, at the same time, formed them into the Paddle Rackets Association to promote the sport. The original balls Sobeck used were half blue and half red. When he needed replacements, Sobeck asked Spalding, the original manufacturer, to make the balls all blue so they wouldn't mark the Y's courts. 

Aquatics, Weightlifting and Fitness Classes All Have Roots In the YMCA

Swimming and aquatics have long been associated with the YMCA, and tens of millions of people across the country learned how to swim at the YMCA. It was not always this way, however, and for many years swimming was seen as a distraction from legitimate physical development. 

It is hard to overestimate the effect the YMCA movement has had on swimming and aquatics in general. A Springfield College student, George Goss, wrote the first American book on lifesaving in 1913 as a thesis. It was a YMCA national board member (then the YMCA International Committee), William Ball, who in the early 1900s encouraged the Red Cross to include lifesaving instruction in its disaster and wartime services programs. The first mobile swimming pool was invented at the Eastern Union YMCA (N.J.) in 1961, enabling the Y to take instruction and swimming programs to people who could not go to the Y. 

The term "bodybuilding" was first used in 1881 by Robert Roberts, a member of the staff at the Boston YMCA. He also developed the exercise classes that led to today's fitness workouts.

Organizations of All Types Have Been Influenced By the YMCA

YMCA staff members played a key role in the development of the Boy Scouts of America. After Lord S.S. Baden-Powell and others started scouting in 1897 in Britain, it spread to America, and many YMCAs here had Boy Scout programs around the turn of the century. Soon it was decided by the Boy Scouts that they needed their own national organization, and in June 1910 a temporary national headquarters for the Boy Scouts was housed in a YMCA office in New York City. The first National Council office of the Boy Scouts of America was opened in New York City in 1911. 

The Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire Boys and Girls) was founded in 1910 through the joint efforts of Luther Gulick and his wife, Charlotte. Gulick was already well known for his work in the YMCA, his understanding of the whole person leading to his design of the YMCA's inverted triangle, one side each for spirit, mind and body. Busy with his existing commitments, Gulick did not want to take on the task of forming another organization. He did, however, advise others on the organization of the Thetford Girls, the forerunner of the Camp Fire Girls. 
 
The United Service Organization, better known as the USO, was created in October 1940 as a joint effort by the YMCA, YWCA, National Catholic Community Service, the Salvation Army, the National Jewish Welfare Board, and Traveler's Aid Association. Realizing the scale of mobilization needed as America prepared for World War II was far beyond the scope of any one organization, these organizations, each with long histories of helping servicemen and noncombatants at time of war, banded together.  

The Peace Corps, founded in 1961 by order of President Kennedy, was patterned after the YMCA's program of World Service Workers, which had started in the 1880s. The student Ys of that era included as members John R. Mott and Robert Wilder, who founded the Student Volunteer Movement in 1888. The volunteers pledged themselves to overseas missionary work after graduation from college. The YMCA was given the opportunity to organize the corps, but turned it down due to the burden of its other activities. 

• Two major sports, basketball and volleyball, were born at the YMCA. 
• A YMCA instructor created the first group swimming lesson.
• The YMCA was the first to establish certification programs for lifesaving, swimming and aquatic instruction.
• The YMCA also pioneered and greatly expanded summer camping, night school, vocational counseling, adult education, college student services, and junior college.
• YMCA World Service workers were forerunners of Peace Corps volunteers.
• The YMCA assisted in the formation of other major voluntary groups such as Boy Scouts, Camp Fire, and the USO.