DECATUR -- Used for a variety of things from targets for volleyball practice to animal training, a unique kids' toy continues to draw kids of all ages with its swiveling hip motion since it first appeared on the American toy market in 1958. One group of Lady Bulldog enthusiasts had a little fun with this device during breaks in volleyball practice on June 20.
Head volleyball coach Cali Lankford has about 15 of the popular toys on hand to use as part of her volleyball training exercises during junior and senior high practice sessions in the gym at Decatur Middle School.
During her daily exercises, Lankford uses hula hoops as targets laid out on the volleyball court on the gym floor. One of these drills involves laying three hoops in front of the center-court circle. The girls line up in three lines along the front court. Lanford, standing on a serving stand behind the net, hits the ball to each line. The girls either use a forearm serve or dig to launch the ball up and into the center of the hula hoop. This exercise allows the girls to get more control over the height or direction the ball travels.
The hula hoop was so named because the action that is used to keep it spinning around the waist resembles the popular Hawaiian dance. The concept was first invented and marketed in the early 1950s by Australian department store owner Alex Tolmer. Tolmer saw a group of kids spinning the hoops, then made of bamboo, around their waist during gym class. Tolmer used a new product called plastic to make his hoop and sold the toy in his department store.
Enter two American entrepreneurs, Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin. In 1957 Knerr and Melin started the WHAM-O toy company and needed a marketing idea. They purchased the rights to Tolmer's product and began manufacturing the hollow circular toy out of Marlex which was provided by Phillips Petroleum.
In 1958, the toy hit the market and, within four months of its release, sold 25 million hoops. By the end of the first year, WHAM-O sales reached a whopping 45 million dollars. On March 5, 1963, the hula hoop became a major fad across the country. However, the popular fad quickly faded away but the toy still lives on today.
In Decatur, the fad was revived as one junior high volleyball player named McKenzie Thao managed to spin up eight hoops around her waist and maintained the spins for just over five seconds. Thao also managed to keep a single hoop going while practicing her volleyball forearm hits for another five seconds.
Seeing Thao, some of her teammates and young assistants joined in the fad during a water break. Soon, one corner of the Decatur Middle School gym turned into a reenactment of the 1963 fad.
Lainey Hernandez, a student at Decatur Pre-K and one of the volleyball helpers, began launching a few hoops across the floor and watched as the hoops gyrated as they lost momentum and fell to the floor. Then everybody went back to work and the hula hoops were put away for the day.
Some fads can fade away into the history books never to be seen again. But the hula hoop, like the Frisbee, will always have someplace and someone to keep it alive well into the 21st century.
NOTE: In January 2004, two people in Tokyo, Japan, managed to spin a pair of 13 feet, 4-inch, hula hoops (the largest ever manufactured, around their waist three times, setting a new Guinness Book record. According to Ripley's "Believe It or Not," in April of that year, a circus performer spun up 100 hoops around her body.
Westside Eagle Observer/MIKE ECKELS
While Dylan Thao looks on, McKenzie Thao spins up eight hula hoops at the same time during a break in volleyball practice at the middle school gym in Decatur June 20. A short time later McKenzie successfully pulled off an experiment when she spun up a single hoop while practicing her forearm hits.