There’s more to the Y then meets the eye! The YMCA is so much more then you may realise.

Did you know that the YMCA invented the game of Basketball?

Did you know that the YMCA established Father’s Day?

Did you know that the YMCA developed the game of Volleyball?

Did you know the YMCA supported the troops and provided nurses, shelter and activities throughout the war?

The game of basketball as it is known today was created by Dr. James Naismith in December 1891 whilst he was working for the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was encouraged by his mentor to develop a game that would keep young men engaged and active as well as condition young athletes during cold months. It consisted of peach baskets and a soccer style ball. He published 13 rules for the new game. He divided his class of eighteen into two teams of nine players each and set about to teach them the basics of his new game. The objective of the game was to throw the basketball into the fruit baskets nailed to the lower railing of the gym balcony. Every time a point was scored, the game was halted so the janitor could bring out a ladder and retrieve the ball. After a while, the bottoms of the fruit baskets were removed. The first public basketball game was played in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1892.

Four years after James Naismith invented basketball in Springfield in 1895, William G. Morgan, an instructor at YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts, wanted to create a game for older gentlemen which had less physical contact. He borrowed a tennis net, raised it 6 feet, 6 inches above the floor, and invented the game of “mintonette”, which could be played by a group of any number and involved volleying a large ball over the net. An observer wisely suggested that a better name for the new sport might be “volleyball”.

YMCA New Zealand staff had worked with the armed forces since late 19th century providing social, religious and physical recreation programmes for servicemen. This travelling kitchen saw service in Boulogne. By 1917 there were 15 NZ YMCA centres in the fighting area of France, every one within range of German shells and none more than 4 miles from the frontline.

Most of the allied armies on the western front had YMCA units attached to them for recreational, educational and comfort services. They organised an accommodation club in London for New Zealand soldiers and had field services in France. “Most soldiers stayed at the YMCA or the New Zealand Soldiers Club. This, a soldier declared, was the best place I struck and the cheapest. The food was splendid and the beds good. Tariff, bed eightpence; breakfast eightpence; dinner one shilling and ten per

It was founded in Spokane, WA, at the YMCA in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd, whose father, William Jackson Smart, had raised six children on his own.

After hearing a sermon about Mother’s Day, Dodd told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them. Although she initially suggested June 5, her father’s birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June.

In 1972, President Nixon recognized Father’s Day as an official holiday. Looking for a good way to spend some quality time with your dad on Father’s Day?  Surprise him with a gym membership, personal training session or a concession card to our many group fitness classes.

Racquetball is another YMCA invented sport. Joseph Sobek a tennis, handball and squash player who worked in a rubber manufacturing factory, was dissatisfied with the options for indoor sports in Greenwich, Connecticut. He could not find squash players of his caliber and he did not care particularly for handball, so in 1950 he designed a short, stringed racquet, used a children’s toy rubber ball, and created rules for a new game using the handball courts. He called his new sport “paddle rackets”. The sport really took off in the 1970s and there are an estimated 15 million players worldwide today.[37]

YMCA member, Moina Michael, created the red flanders field poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served in World War I. Inspired by the famous wartime poem, Moina sold silk poppies to raise money for ex-soilders. Her campaign was so successful that the poppy has been adopted as an international symbol of remembrance.

John Mott was the President of the student YMCA. Mott organised the World’s Student Christian Federation in 1895 and went on to organise national student movements across the world. John Mott received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his work in establishing and strengthening international Protestant Christian student organisations that worked to promote peace.