Kick off your hacky sack career with Bobsacks

Your typical salutation when meeting someone new usually excludes backflips and footbags — unless you're a member of the unofficial MSU hacky sack club, dubbed “Bobsacks.” Frequently spotted playing outside of Montana Hall, Bobsacks is a rapidly growing team of dedicated sackers.

According to the World Footbag Association, the sport has existed since the 1970s, with Hacky Sack being the name of a popular producer of the footbags used to play the game. However, it wasn’t until the fall of last year that Bobsacks made their debut on campus. Created by Kadin Kisse, Zack Niedzwiecki and Gracyn House, the group has quickly gained traction. According to Thomas Reilley, the creator of the Bobsacks Instagram, with nearly 70 active members today, there is no slowing down in the near future for the group.

At its core, hacky sack is a simple sport. “You don’t serve it to yourself and you don’t say sorry,” Reilley said. “Oh, and no hands. Anything else flies.”

Though the rules of hacky sack are simple, certain aspects of the sport make it more nuanced than one might expect. As House explained, the sport has a real competitive side and various tricks — such as backflips — that can be implemented in-game.

“There are competitions — I know Missoula had one at the beginning of September that was put on by a kayak raft company. It’s based on teams of four; you’re given a time limit, and the goal is to keep it up in the air and get as many touches as possible. You’re also awarded points based on tricks,” House said.

“It’s like volleyball. You can’t use the same body part twice, and the same person can’t hit [the footbag] twice,” Bobsacks member Dante Shepherd added.

Additionally, as explained by Reilly, hacky sack contains its own terminology, using vocabulary similar to that of soccer. On top of the general hacky sack language, Bobsacks has cultivated their own terminology — but due to its explicit nature, the Exponent encourages you to visit the group to learn more about their terms.

Although hacky sack can be competitive, Bobsacks members explained that, on campus, it is more of a hobby or, for some, a life-style. Moreover, many members use the sport as an escape, such as the self-proclaimed “hack queen” Olivia Lynch. “Honestly, it’s a mental relief for my day. A lot of us are in hard classes, and it’s good to disconnect with that while connecting with your friends,” Lynch said.

In spite of Bobsacks being an unofficial club, they’ve built a tight-knit community, according to House. “The way this started was just a few people hacky sacking. Then, people would just walk by during passing period and ask if they could play with us, and we eventually got a group text going,” House said. “I would say most of us just know each other through hacky sack, which is the neat part.”

Though the closeness of the group is obvious, the sackers expressed their excitement for new members, painting hacky sack as a beginner friendly sport, “I came from Boston. I had never even seen a hacky sack before I came here,” Shepherd said.

Ranging from members who have less than a year of experience, like Shepherd, to those who have over ten, like members Josh Lucas and Zac Holman, Bobsacks encourages anyone who is interested in the sport to give it a try. As best expressed by Jesse St.Onge, self-proclaimed pro-sacker and backflipper, “there is no better way to get into hacky sacking than to start playing.”

To check out more sacking shenanigans, Bobsacks can be found on their Instagram page, @bobsacks_msu.