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YMCA Association Newsletter - Words From the Ys
View the YMCA of the Suncoast's Association Newsletter Online! Read all about the latest programs and activities as well as feature stories on International YMCA work; Activate America health initiatives; national and local Y events; staff, member and program spotlights...and so much more! Stay up to date with your YMCA!
The YMCA is In The News!
Click on our links below to read published press statements and articles about your YMCA.
YMCA launches new brand to draw attention to what it can do for communities
Rays Baseball Foundation Awards $75K
Palm Harbor providing more scholarships
Hernando County YMCA's sponsors holiday "giving trees" to help needy families
Youth Triathlon Series in Trinity gives beginning triathletes a taste
Not only a place, 'Ground Zero is in us all'
Water aerobics classes at Hernando Branch YMCA are for all ages
Women at Greater Ridgecrest YMCA rise above their fears and learn to swim
Ridgecrest YMCA instructor makes fear of water float away
Hernando County YMCA in Spring Hill celebrates two decades of growth
Spring Hill YMCA offers cheerleading classes
Pasco County YMCA cheerleading program filled with high spirits
Hernando Branch YMCA basketball program gives youngsters a shot
Swimmer Devin McCaffrey, a middle schooler, brings in collegiate times
YMCA offers more than a workout
Team takes the plunge at YMCA in Pasco
Flag football coaches focus on building character
Triathlete hopes to help raise $25,000 for YMCA Hernando Branch
Pasco YMCA Class Helps Kids Become Triathletes
400 Youngsters Are Hooked On YMCA Fishing Festival
New playground is icing on the expanded Greater Palm Harbor YMCA cake
YMCA Program Teaches Families Healthy Eating
Before/After School Project Proves It's Fun to Stay at the YMCA
Gills YMCA Offering Child Care
Bardmoor YMCA Pioneers National Health Program for Cancer Survivors
West Pasco YMCAs Celebrate International Day
YMCA Expands Second Time in Five Years
Ospreys Will Find New Home Waiting
YMCA Invites Public To Step Up To Fitness
YMCA Is Offering Free Week Long Passes
Citrus County Residents Want Y Of Their Own
Swim Lessons Can Head Off Danger
Working Hard at Getting in Shape
Fired Up for a Cool Workout - Swimming Dragons Program
Oldsmar Facility is Steps Closer
Day Camp to Introduce Kids to the YMCA
Youth Programs, Activities at the YMCA
History of YMCA Sports
Everybody Plays, Everybody Wins - Sports at YMCAs:
Y History Firsts and Foremosts
Millions of people have been introduced to sports at YMCAs. Many of the sports people play were introduced at YMCAs, too. As kids head back to school, afterschool sports will be in full swing. The YMCA would like to share its role in your sporting activities.
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. Morgan blended elements of basketball, tennis, and handball into the game and called it “mintonette.” The name “volleyball” was first used in 1896 during an exhibition at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., to better describe how the ball went back and forth over the net. In 1922, YMCAs held their first national championship in the game. This became the U.S. Open in 1924, when non-YMCA teams were permitted to compete.
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. He tried paddleball and platform tennis and came up with the idea of using a strung racquet similar to a platform tennis paddle (not a sawed-off tennis racquet, as some say) to allow a greater variety of shots. After drawing up rules for the game, Sobeck went to nearby Ys for approval by other players, and at the same time formed them into the Paddle Rackets Association to promote the sport. The original balls Sobeck used were half blue and half red. When he needed replacements, Sobeck asked Spalding, the original manufacturer, to make the balls all blue, so they wouldn’t mark the Y’s courts.
Softball was given its name by motion of Walter Hakanson of the Denver YMCA in 1926 at a meeting of the Colorado Amateur Softball Association (CASA), itself a result of YMCA staff efforts. Softball had been played for many years prior to 1926, under such names as kittenball, softball, and even sissyball. In 1926, however, the YMCA state secretary, Homer Hoisington, noticed both the sport's popularity and its need for standardized rules. After a gathering of interested parties, the CASA was formed and Hakanson moved to settle on the name softball for the game. The motion carried, and the name softball became accepted nationwide. Shortly thereafter, the Denver YMCA adopted a declaration of principles for softball, adhering to noncommercialized recreation open to all ages and races and demanding good sportsmanship. When the Amateur Softball Association of America was formed in 1933, the Denver YMCA team represented Colorado in its first national tournament, held in Chicago.
Professional football began at a YMCA. In 1895, in Latrobe, Pa., John Brailer was paid $10 plus expenses by the local YMCA to replace the injured quarterback on their team. Years later, however, Pudge Heffelfinger claimed that he was secretly paid to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association in 1892. The NFL elected to go with Pudge’s version of events.
Yes, it was at the International YMCA Training School that in December, 1891, James Naismith invented the game of basketball, doing so at the demand of Luther Gulick, the director of the school. Gulick needed a game to occupy a “class of incorrigibles” -- 18 future YMCA directors who, more interested in rugby and football, didn’t care for leapfrog, tumbling, and other activities they were forced to do during the winter. Gulick, obviously out of patience with the group, gave Naismith two weeks to come up with a game to occupy them.
Naismith decided that the new game had to be physically active and simple to understand. It could not be rough, so no contact could be allowed. The ball could be passed but not carried. Goals at each end of the court would lend a degree of difficulty and give skill and science a role. Elevating the goal would eliminate rushes that could injure players, a problem in football and rugby.
Introducing the game of “basket ball” at the next gym class (Naismith did meet Gulick’s deadline), Naismith posted 13 rules on the wall and taught the game to the incorrigibles. The men loved it and proceeded to introduce “basket ball” to their home towns over Christmas break. Naismith’s invention spread like wildfire.
Not only was basketball invented by a YMCA institution, but the game’s first professional team came from a Y. The Trenton (N.J.) YMCA had fielded a basketball team since 1892 and in 1896 its team claimed to be the national champions after beating various other YMCA and college teams. The team then severed its ties with the Y. It played the 1896-97 season out of a local Masonic temple, charging for admission and keeping the proceeds.
YMCA of the Suncoast ANNUAL REPORT 2009
Do You Have A YMCA Story To Share?
Were you a Y kid at summer camp? Did you play basketball afterschool or learn to swim at the Y? We'd love to hear your YMCA story! Please write to us and tell us how the YMCA has made an impact on your life!
My YMCA story begins in 1966, the summer I began going to YMCA Camp Sloper in Southington, CT. Little did I know the impact Camp Sloper would have on my life. I continued to spend each summer at Slopers, through CIT and Junior Counselor and then three years of Senior Counselor. I made many fast friendships. The best thing about a YMCA camp is you can be yourself. There weren’t any cliques or status to be concerned about at camp. You were never judged by superficial means, but by your character. We built lean-tos, hiked mountains, slept under the stars, built fires will little more than a match and a tee-pee made of twigs. I learned problem solving, responsibility and team building without even knowing! I impacted the lives of many young children who still today remember a girl nicknamed “Figgy”. I was honored this past summer to be entered into the YMCA Camp Sloper Hall of Fame. I was able to send my two daughters to Camp Sloper to enjoy all the things that made my childhood so special.
The most important thing that happened at Camp Sloper was I met my husband there my final summer, 1982. I had graduated from the University of Connecticut and the job market was no where. So I decided one more summer of Slopers was what I wanted to do. Good thing, because it was the way I threw a Frisbee at staff orientation that made Dan notice me, the girl nicknamed “Figgy”. We married eight years later, and now we’re entering our 18th year of marriage.
Since we married in 1990, we’ve moved around the country quite a bit. When we settled in upstate New York in 2000, my daughters were five and three. We joined the North Area Family YMCA in North Syracuse and enjoyed the many family programs they had; Family Fun Nights, swimming lessons and Parent/Child Gym. I soon found myself working there as a facilitator for Parent/Child Gym and worked my way into Preschool Teacher and then coordinator of the blossoming program. The first year we had four 4 year old graduates and the following year, twenty!
I’m happy to have found the Gills Family YMCA upon moving to Florida in 2006. I began working the front desk greeting members and answering questions. Now I work behind the scenes designing marketing materials and updating the website for the YMCA of the Suncoast.
The YMCA has been there and fit my needs in many different ways throughout my life. I will continue to turn to the Y for family, fellowship and friendship.
~Lynn (Newton) Sweeney
MY MEMORIES OF THE YMCA DATE BACK MANY YEARS. DURING WORLD WAR II THE DETROIT YMCA HAD SO FEW MEMBERS THAT THEY OPENED THEIR DOORS TO WOMEN. THE MEN WERE AT WAR. THOSE WERE THE YEARS WHEN THERE WAS SO LITTLE WE COULD DO BECAUSE OF THE RATIONING, ETC. A GROUP OF FEMALES AND MYSELF JOINED AND THE CLUB WAS THE YUCATAN CLUB. WE ENJOYED THE POOL, AND RECREATION FACILITIES. THEN THE USO ASKED IF WE WOULD BE INTERESTED IN INVITING SERVICE MEN ONCE A WEEK AND WE SURE SAID YES. SO ONCE A WEEK WE TOOK THE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION DOWNTOWN AND RODE BACK WITH A LOAD OF SERVICE MEN FROM ALL OVER THE NATION AND WORLD. WE GIRLS FURNISHED THE SNACKS AND MUSIC, GAMES. WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO DATE THE MEN, BUT SOMETIMES THEY MANAGED TO ENJOY OUR COMPANY OUTSIDE OF THE Y. WHEN THE WAR ENDED, WE WERE STILL ALLOWED TO COME TO THE Y. THERE, RETURNING SERVICE MEN CAME TO SOCIALIZE AND WE DEFINITELY TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO MEET THESE MEN. THAT'S HOW I MET MY FUTURE HUSBAND, A RETURNING NAVY MAN FROM DETROIT SUBURBS. MANY OF MY FRIENDS MET THEIR MEN THE SAME WAY. WE HAD SOME REALLY FUN TIMES AND EVENTUALLY I MARRIED AND HAD MY WEDDING RECEPTION AT THE Y.
~CATHERINE L. CLARK
My family moved here on Thanksgiving in 1968 & subsequently built the first wheel-chair equipped home that Rutenberg/USHomes designed, (with my mother's help). My father was a disabled veteran & we moved here from Pittsburgh for his health. The house is located on a cul-de-sac at the end of the YMCA Clearwater rear property. When I attended JFK Jr. High, I was invited to join the YMCA Leader's club & it was the beginning of my first career. I enjoyed volunteering until I got my first job as a Jr. Counselor for the summer day Camp Calusa. Later years, I grew into Sr. Counselor & Assistant Director. We had the very good fortune to hold the camp on some property that is on Alligator Lake in Safety Harbor. The Pinellas County currently owns the site off SR590. We used to hike the kids up the hill to the Humane Society, along McMullen Booth to the horse farms, or canoeing on Alligator Lake searching for alligators, which were found often. We had such a great time, enjoying "countryside" when there was way more countryside. The last night of the day camp was an actual sleepover, with tents & campfires. Staff would stay up all night, eating & gabbing, from sundown to sunup. Music, afternoon thunderstorms, tipping canoes, snakes & other varmints made it just the most memorable. In high school, Clearwater had double session, so I got out of class at 12:15PM & I could be at the Y by 1 for my first full-time job. It was a great job, I would meet all the local celebrities, movers & shakers, politicos, doctors, lawyers, judges & thiefs. I played racquetball & worked out with (Pistol) Pete Maravich, as well as Terry (Hulk Hogan) Bollea. Swimming was a big part of my experience at the YMCA & I became a certified lifeguard. The Dunedin High School team held their practices a the Y & I became friends with some that last until today. Our facility became one of the first to install Nautilus equipment for strength training & I had the pleasure of meeting the developer & inventor of this equipment, a rather eccentric individual named Arthur Jones. Along with many of my friends, I developed into a highly ranked raquetball player as the Clearwater YMCA regularly hosted the Florida state racquetball championships. I enjoyed the family atmosphere & appreciated the male companionship at the YMCA. I'm thankful for the special place called the YMCA.
~W.F.(Willy) Culkar
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For more information on YMCA of the Suncoast news, please contact:
Communications Department
YMCA of the Suncoast
2469 Enterprise Road
Clearwater, FL 33763
Phone: (727) 467-9622
E-mail:
info@suncoastymca.org
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