Were just a bunch of people who love to kick. The idea of starting FOOTBAG ERIE was to unify kickers from the greater Erie Pennsylvania area, to spread the word about the sport and to become better kickers.

Never heard of Erie? Well we are in the northern most part of western Pennsylvania. Find us on the MAP




  • FOOTBAG HISTORY

    Footbag was invented in 1972 in Oregon City,when John Stalberger met Mike Marshall, who had been kicking around a hand-made bean bag. John had recently had knee surgery and was looking for a way to work on his flexibility, and he instantly took to the game and become good friends with Marshall. They called the game "Hack the Sack."

    Stalberger and Marshall soon became enthralled with the game, which Marshall had been hoping to promote with the general public. The two designed a product, which they trademarked the "Hacky Sack", and began putting together a plan to market the product and the sport. At the same time, they decided to create a "generic" term for the sport itself, as opposed to their product, and they named the sport "footbag".

    Tragically, Mike Marshall died of a heart attack in 1975, at only 28 years of age. Stalberger, determined to realize their vision of footbag as a sport, continued to promote the product and the game. He formed the National Hacky Sack Association along with the help of many others. He ultimately sold the rights for the Hacky Sack footbag to Kransco (operating under the Wham-O label), which also manufactered the Frisbee flying disc.

    In the years following the creation of the Hacky Sack product, many footbag enthusiasts began sprouting up around the world, and a sport was born. Following the model of volleyball and tennis, players began volleying a footbag over a 5-foot-high net (on a Badminton court) and "footbag net" became an attractive alternative sport. Freestyle footbag (where players stand in a circle, do tricks with the footbag, and pass it around the circle) has become the most popular form of the game, because of its cooperative nature. Advanced freestylers choreograph routines to music, much like rhythmic gymnastics or figure skating.

    Footbag sports now have a rules body that governs the various aspects of competitive footbag play: the International Footbag Committee (IFC).




  • THE SPORT & VARIOUS GAMES

    1. Circle Kick
    Circle kick is the most common game played with a footbag, and it is the game people usually refer to when they talk about "hacking the sack." Players stand in a circle, do tricks with the footbag, and keep it moving around the circle. A "hack" is achieved when every person in the circle contributes a kick. Circle Kick has many variations including:
    2. Footbag Net
    In footbag net, players (either playing for themselves, or with a partner) move a footbag back and forth across a five-foot-high net. This game combines elements of tennis, badminton, and volleyball. Specifically, the court dimensions and layout are similar to those of badminton; the scoring is similar to old scoring system in volleyball (you must be serving to score); and serves must be diagonal, as in tennis. Footbag net games can be played to eleven or fifteen points, although the winners must win by at least two points.

    3. Footbag Golf
    comming soon

    4. Freestyle
    Footbag freestyle is a footbag sport where players demonstrate their abilities by performing sequences of difficult moves. In competition, there are 3 main freestyle events. The main event is where a player choreographs and executes a 2 minute routine to music. Much like figure skating, players are given scores for technical and artistic merit. These scores take into account choreography, difficulty, variety, and execution. The second major event offered at footbag tournaments is Shred30. This event is purely technical. Competitors have 30 seconds to execute as many unique, difficult tricks in a 30 second period. Their score is calculated with a mathematical formula, which takes into account the average difficulty of the run, and penalizes the players for drops. A third event is Sick Three. While not always an official offering, this event is usually held and judged informally at several events, including World Championships. The objective of this event, is for players to link three hard tricks together in the most impressive way possible. Players are usually given between 5-7 attempts to land a combo, within a maximum time frame of 2 minutes. This event is often judged by a panel of judges, who sometimes use videocameras to verify that moves were hit cleanly within the combo. Judging is purely subjective.

    sited: http://en.wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia