They stand in a circle. A hacky sack bounces from person to person. Cheers ring throughout the senior hall.
A group of students recently discovered their new favorite past-time — hacky sack.
The group formed when senior Holden Rolfs found a hacky sack over the summer and started bringing it when his friends got together to work on summer homework.
He never played hacky sack before, but it just stuck him as something he should start playing with his friends.
Senior Josh Montague said no one was very good in the beginning.
“We have gotten better,” Montague said. “We just enjoy doing it — you get to hang out with your friends. We just get better at it.”
There are many different hacky sack games the players enjoy after school.
One favorite is called “Numbers,” where all the players try to hit the hacky sack once.
After that, each person tries to do two continuous hits, and when someone misses, that person is out. This continues until only one person remains as the victor.
“It is a social activity,” Montague said. “We don’t like to leave right after school ends to just go home. We get to hang out for a little bit before we leave. It is an activity that we can all engage in and hope to get better at.”
Senior Cassidy Kruger said she really likes hacky sack because it is something fun she can do with her friends.
“We really get into the game — we are really competitive about it,” she said. “It is friendly [competition], but some people get really into it and excited when they win.”
While hacky sack may be new to some people at BV, physics teacher John Holloway used to play at his fraternity while in college.
“It was a fun past-time,” Holloway said. “It was just something to do when you were hanging out and needed something to do.”
Rolfs said he is happy to have found a game all of his friends can have fun playing.
“It is a good way to meet new and random people that you have never talked to before,” Rolfs said. “They will join because they are interested in the same thing. I am not the best hacky sack player at all, but it feels good to know that I started another way for people to get together and talk while enjoying hacky sack.”
Not only did the game alter Rolfs’ after-school schedule, but it also changed the shoes he wore.
“When I first started playing, I used to wear Crocs all the time,” Rolfs said. “Now I wear normal shoes, like tennis shoes, because it is really hard to play hacky sack in Crocs.”
Rolfs said he also likes hacky sack because of the way he looks while playing. After practicing, he can now hit the hacky sack around 10 times in a row. When he started, he could only hit it around two times in a row.
“Once you have been playing for a while you can take it back up over your shoulder and pass it off to other people,” he said. “Everyone in the group gets an exhilaration from when you succeed.”
