Recently, Sentinel students and a few staff members have been found playing the popular 90s game hacky sack throughout the day, whether that is during lunch, breaks during classes, or passing periods.
The game was made in the summer of 1972 in Oregon City, Oregon by Mike Marshall and was originally made to be a rehabilitation exercise for knee pains.
Students Opinion
The trend has only been around for about two months or so, but it seems to have Sentinel students in a chokehold.
Senior Sonya Long admits that she “gave it a shot” because “a lot of [her] friends started getting into it [and it] seemed like the whole school was getting into it” as well. Even though she might not have played the game unless most other people around her started to, she has taken a liking to the game in the “couple of weeks” that she has been playing it.
Long likes the portability of the game and that “you can [play] it anywhere as long as there is room for it”. When she does play, it is only at school during the 45-minute lunch period with her friends, and they usually play on either “one of the lawns” around the school property, but mostly the one in front of the school.
Another senior, Tanner Bird, also enjoys playing hacky sack and sometimes even plays with Long. He has been playing for about “two months”, right around the time the trend was gaining popularity again. Bird says that he started playing because “one of his co-workers showed him the game”.
Similar to Long, he plays during the lunch break at school on the front lawn, but he is also known to play at “work with [his] coworkers”. A usual game for Bird lasts around “an hour” or so.
Now, students aren’t the only ones noticing and joining in on the trend. Profe Rosenberger, Spanish teacher at Sentinel, noticed a spike in the game’s popularity during the “second semester” of school.
He has multiple students in his “sixth period Spanish three class [that play on] block day breaks” and sometimes he even “joins in”.
Profe appreciates how popular the trend has become at Sentinel because “[it] is a great way to get students off their phones” and he finds it quite “refreshing to see students playing hack[y] [sack] during break and not worried about checking their phones”. Not only has hacky sack been a great way to keep students off of their phones during class breaks, but it also hasn’t “become a distraction” during classes, unlike how phones can be.
A younger generation has also been getting into hacky sack as Profe talked about how his “kids are into it now “, and how the Rosenberger family “plays more regularly”.
The Comeback
Hacky sack has not only become popular at Sentinel, but in other high schools across the United States as well. It originally got popular in the Northeast but quickly spread with the help of social media.
No teenager interviewed can truly explain why the trend started other than that they saw a social media video and thought it looked fun.
On the social media app TikTok, the trend has been described as the “Hacky Sack Epidemic” by teenagers who play the game. Multiple Instagram profiles make the game look like a national sport, with them having official rules and teams.
Because of the surge in hacky sack sales, storekeepers are reporting getting up to “15 calls a day about hacky sacks” and going from selling “two or three a week to more than 30”.
The trend also could have started because of the “Performative era” that Gen-Z has been going through since the end of 2024. Performative is a term used to describe males who like more feminist things, like matcha and tote bags, to get females to validate them.
Because hacky sack is considered more of a mellow and “stoner” sport, it fits right into the category of hobbies that are labeled as performative, and it is possible that social media could turn this trend into a toxic trait.
Despite social media controlling trends’ popularity and how people perceive them, hacky sack is a great way to get people outside and off their phones. As shown at Sentinel, the game has brought students and teachers together and overall has brought a lot of joy into the school.
