The origin story of hacky sacks dates back to the summer of 1972, the activity was created by two friends who were desperate for a game to play. They lived in Oregon at the time and were inspired to create a fun game to play.
It started with a homemade rice filled bean bag which then turned into an intense, interesting game played by many. After one of the friends passed away, the other one wanted to keep the legacy of Hacky Sacks going so he kept on making the product better than before, and it then turned it into a sport. It was very popular back then, everyone and their mothers were playing this game but then it sort of disappeared for a while. Until recently, this generation of high schoolers brought this game back to play and now many students from all over are enjoying it again.
A Hacky Sack is a small round bag filled with plastic pellets or sand which is then played by many people.
How you play this game is by keeping the bag from going on the ground without using your hands. You usually play this game with a group of people to make it more fun.
Chloe Bardwell is a sophomore at the high school who enjoys hacky sacking. She says that in the beginning she thought it was stupid and she didn’t see the point in kicking a bean bag around. But then she and her friends tried to play it because everyone was saying it was fun and it turns out she really likes it.
Even though she likes hacky sacking now, she still said “I think it’s pretty cool I guess, but also cringy,” when asked about the students in her school making a hacky sack account on Instagram.
Ryan Trudel, junior at SHHS, is very fond of hacky sacking. He started hacky sacking because of the ongoing trend. In the beginning he thought it was quite hard but over time and more practice he said that it has become easy. He really likes the Instagram account that was made for hacky sacking, and he likes how it brought the sport and community together.
Peter B-G Weller is an English teacher at South Hadley High School who used to hacky sack in high school. It gives him a sense of nostalgia and brings him back to 1995 when he heard students were starting to hacky sack again.
When asked about the students’ hacky sacking all the time, even during school, he said, “There’s a time and a place. I was never able to hacky sack in class or in the hallways of my school, but before and after school it was okay.”
B-G Weller said he wonders if hacky sacking is going to stay like it was in the 90’s or if it’s just a quick trend that will be gone fast.
Now that hacky sacks are being brought back, it’s uniting people together and giving everyone an opportunity to try out this trendy sport.
