YMCA Sports: Y-Sports News

Registration is NOW OPEN for our Spring Sports Season.

Click HERE to register for:

• Summer Ball / T-Ball (3-8 Years Old)

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Contact Chris Bellecourt at cbellecourt@seattleymca.org or at 425-485-9797 for more information.

• Volleyball was invented at the Holyoke (Mass) YMCA in 1895, by William Morgan, an instructor at the Y who felt that basketball was too strenuous for businessmen.
• Racquetball was invented in 1950 at the Greenwich (Conn.) YMCA by Joe Sobeck, a member who couldn't find other squash players of his caliber and who did not care for handball.
• Professional Football began at the YMCA. In 1895, in Latrobe, Pa, John Brailer was paid $10.00 plus expenses by the local YMCA to replace the injured quarterback on their team.
• Basketball was invented by James Naismith during an international YMCA Training School in December of 1891 at the demand of Luther Gulick, the director of the school. Not only was basketball invented by a YMCA institution, but the game's first professional team came from the Trenton (NJ) YMCA.
• The first YMCA "swimming bath" was built in Brooklyn (NY) Central YMCA in 1885.
• 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 1880's.
• The Associated Press was first established in 1907 as the YMCA Press.
• Black History Month was first observed as Negro History week in February 1926, at the Wabash Avenue YMCA in Chicago, IL.
• Toastmasters International was invented in 1903 as an older youth public speaking program by Ralph C. Smedley, education director of the Bloomington, (Il) YMCA.
• Father's Day in its present day was created at a meeting at the Spokane, Washington YMCA in 1909 by Louis Smart Dodd.