Frisbee now has some competition as the game of choice on BYU’s campus as Spikeball, a new sport, makes its debut.
BYU students Kace Redder and John Preston have big plans for spikeball. Redder, Preston and other spikeball enthusiasts are trying to create a spikeball club and eventually promote it to be an intramural sport.
“Really our goal is to not only make a club but make it an intramural sport,” Redder said. “So we have to prove a demand for the sport, and so we’re out trying to endorse it.”
Redder explains that spikeball is a four-player game where teams of two bounce a palm-size ball against a net about six inches off the ground to the opposing team. Similar to volleyball, points are earned when the opposing team cannot return the ball. The first to 21 points wins.
“It’s kind of a mix between foursquare and volleyball,” Redder said. “Teams are partners of two, and you get up to three hits between the team, and you try to hit it off the net to where the opponent can’t return it.”
Redder discovered spikeball when he was cleaning out his parent’s garage.
“I just found this set unopened in my garage, and we opened it up and asked my parents what it was,” Redder said. “John and I started playing it over the summer with everyone in Idaho, and we felt like it would be a good opportunity to make a club here at BYU.”
Preston, the partner in advocating spikeball, explains how their plans are bigger than just a club.
“Eventually we would like to see it as an intramural sport,” said Preston. “That’s the big picture, but right now we’re just trying to get enough people to make it a club, and hopefully it will catch on and become big enough in the next year or so that BYU will consider it an intramural sport.”
The club advocates set-up games between the Kimball Tower and Joseph Smith Building and play between classes. They invite anyone to join who is interested. They also have a Facebook page where they post information about the potential club and when it plays.
The spikeball advocates on campus think it has a lot of potential to become popular because of the fun nature of the game.
“It’s way fun, really simple, and it’s a different sport that is really easy to play,” Chad Unsicker, a spikeball lover said.
