Hacky sack, otherwise known as “footbag,” is a collaborative game of dexterity, where players kick a small, round, pellet-filled bag back and forth between players.
The sport is typically affiliated with images of college quads in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but it’s experiencing a resurgence — so much so that there’s even a current hacky sack shortage.
The U.S. Open Footbag tournament is taking place in West Linn, Oregon, this weekend, just across the river from Hacky Sack’s birthplace of Oregon City.
The game is characterized by its laid-back nature, but this weekend, hacky sackers will compete in several different events, including “freestyle battles” and “Net,” a volleyball-style event where competitors have to kick the bag over a 5-foot-tall net. They can even show off their tricks and compete with planned hacky sack routines.
Oregon is not only the birthplace of modern hacky sacking, but as it turns out, the birthplace of several professional hacky sack athletes.
One of those athletes is Tricia George, who’s considered one of the best players of all time, according to her entry in the Footbag Hall of Fame.
She holds several Guinness World Records in hacky-sacking and has been playing since 1980. She’ll join us on the show, along with a newer player, Brennan Reim, a soon-to-be 9th grader who’s competing in this weekend’s competition.
He’s been hacky sacking since 2024.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Hacky sack is back, or maybe it never went away. Hacky sack is the collaborative game of dexterity in which players use any parts of their body besides their arms to keep a small round pellet-filled bag in the air. It’s also known as “footbag,” and it was created in Oregon, in Oregon City, meaning this weekend will be a kind of homecoming. The U.S. Open Footbag tournament is being held in nearby West Linn. That is the home of my next guests. Tricia George has been hacky sacking since 1980. She holds several Guinness World Records in the sport. Brennan Reim just finished 8th grade. He’s only been playing footbag since 2024, but he is an avid player, and he’ll also be competing this weekend. Tricia and Brennan, welcome to Think Out Loud.
Tricia George: Thank you.
Brennan Reim: Thank you.
Miller: Tricia, first, just from terminology, are you more likely to say hacky sack or footbag? And is there a difference?
George: Well, right now they’re pretty interchangeable, but the difference is that hacky sack is a brand name for a footbag.
Miller: Like Kleenex.
George: Just like Kleenex is a brand name for tissue.
Miller: OK, so what do you say in general?
George: For my generation of kicking, we use the term footbag.
Miller: OK.
George: But we understand, I mean, hacky sack is used everywhere else, so.
Miller: When did you first start playing? You talked about your generation. When did you start?
George: I first started it just out of college, and when I first played, I played alone for quite a while until I met my people, and then it just burst out from there.
Miller: What attracted you to it?
George: What attracted me then still attracts me now, and it was the whole philosophy of fun first, of community, of the idea that you get into a circle, and the whole purpose is to make everybody successful in that circle. So when we talk about a hack, a hack is when everybody touches the footbag before it hits the ground. So that’s the goal.
Miller: And a failure is communal and success is communal. It’s not someone’s fault if it falls. We didn’t make it work this time, but let’s try again?
George: And we do it again and it builds community. It builds camaraderie and just a lot of respect that we started off with a nice easy courtesy toss to a person. It’s all about really setting up for success, and our family of footbag has grown worldwide, as you know.
Miller: Brennan, what first attracted you to footbag, hacky sack, a little under two years ago?
Reim: A lot of the same things. I got brought to a competition by a friend’s family. And the community was just very open and greeting and it was just a wonderful place.
Miller: Now you say a competition, which is different a little bit than what Tricia was talking about. So, what are the different versions of footbag in addition to someone just using their chest and knees and head or whatever and feet to keep the sack in the air? What are the other events that are gonna be happening this weekend?
Reim: During competitions it’s a lot of conventions and competitions, so there’ll be like general kicking, just like people having fun, and then there’ll be the actual tournaments. There’s a couple different types. There’s netbag, which is footbag, but it’s like literally you score on the other side with the net. It’s kind of similar rules to volleyball. There’s freestyle, which is just them doing tricks.
Miller: And like style points.
Reim: Yeah, yeah. There’s a system for scoring it, and then there’s consecutives, which is how many times you can kick it.
Miller: When you started, in 2024, how many of your friends or classmates were into it?
Reim: Zero.
Miller: Zero. OK, that’s striking because Deena Prichep, a Portlander who had a piece for NPR recently, and other folks in recent weeks even have been saying that hacky sack is huge among Gen Z. So how popular is it right now?
Reim: I came to school on a random Monday and everyone was playing it. It was wild. It was very spontaneous.
Miller: This was recently?
Reim: This was, yeah, like a month ago.
Miller: OK, so this is like a new wave of excitement that’s sweeping your generation right now. How do you explain that?
Reim: I think it’s a lot of people realizing that it’s a really fun thing to do without your phone, and they got banned in Oregon, phones. So in a lot of schools, people are like, I can’t do this, so let’s do this instead. It’s really fun. It’s an amazing thing to do with your friends. Whenever I’m kicking, there are so many people that come and like, “Hey, can I kick with you?” And they always have so much fun.
Miller: Do you have a head start since you’ve been doing this for two years and your classmates have been doing it for two months?
Reim: Yeah, I have a bit of a head start. Yeah, they think I’m better than I am. And it’s very amusing.
Miller: Can’t they? They can see how good you are, I imagine. Or they have an inflated sense of your skills?
Reim: I don’t think I’m very good, but they do.
Miller: You don’t think that because you’ve seen people like Tricia?
Reim: Yeah, I kick every Saturday with them, and it’s, yeah, it’s humbling.
Miller: Tricia, so let’s get to just the heights you have scaled footbag-wise. How many world records do you have first of all?
George: Well, I have four current world records.
Miller: What are they for?
George: They’ve happened over the years. The biggest one that you know about is a doubles record, and we kicked the footbag 132,011 times.
Miller: There are so many things that are amazing about this that I want to linger and unpack it. Even just the first thing that comes to mind, aside from the physical and emotional and mental stamina, is counting. Is it up to you to say, 99,453, 99,454 and if not, if you’re not counting, then how do you even know?
George: So Guinness has some very specific rules that you have to follow. A, you have to record it. We had to do recordings and back then we had to do that. And then we had a series of counters. Nobody counted for longer than an hour, and they had a backup. So we used a clicker, so you count with a clicker. And then they’d pass the clicker to the next person and then somebody else, the person writing it all down. So we didn’t have to do a lot of thinking. When you have to pass before 20 kicks, that’s another rule so that one person can’t go take a nap while the other person carries it. Every 20 kicks we pass. That gives you –
Miller: And you try to go 20 kicks?
George: Yeah, yeah, I was like, I do 20.
Miller: You can’t do more, but you actually try to hit that number?
George: Yeah, yeah, 25 is the limit, we gave ourselves 20.
Miller: OK.
George: So that we would have like, if we had a little shank in there, we’d have an opportunity to… But you get it, it’s 8.5 seconds really between your turn and the other person, my turn and Gary’s turn. And you can take a drink of water, eat a bite of a power bar, and keep going.
Miller: You can’t pee, or can you, in eight seconds?
George: Well, I didn’t.
Miller: How long did this go on for?
George: So we kicked it for just under about 22 hours.
Miller: Oh my god.
George: And, yeah, so it’s just a lot of fun. I just have to say that the person I did it with was as obsessive as I am about kicking consecutives, but we had a team. We had probably 15 people around us who were helping and bringing food and just there to put the music on and change the music and give us things to wipe our sweat. It was lovely. And that’s again…
Miller: Can you describe what was going on in your head, or maybe what wasn’t going on, I don’t know, in hour 17 of this ordeal? I’m just curious, what’s in your brain as you’re doing this?
George: I would say it’s probably the epitome of mindfulness, that kind of kicking, whether it’s in singles or doubles, because really you’re nowhere but right there. You have to watch the footbag hit your foot every time.
Miller: Doing that for hours and hours and hours seems unbelievably tiring, that kind of intensity, single-mindedness of focus. I mean, being in the moment, if we’re lucky, any of us can accomplish that when we’re doing something that requires our full attention, but doing that for hours on end seems like a kind of superhuman ability.
George: Well, part of it is the energy that you get from the people around you, that keeps you going. My son just ran the Boston Marathon and his comment about that was the crowds. They just, they’re yelling for you, they’re cheering, and that really helps to have people who do that.
Miller: Do you look at a marathon runner who does it in, I don’t know, 3, 4, 5 hours, 2.5 hours, and saying that’s nothing. I hit a ball in the air for 23 hours, 22 hours?
George: Maybe, but they’re similar. They’re similar in the amount of training and all of that.
Miller: Brennan, what does your training look like right now, and what event or events are you planning to do this weekend?
Reim: My training is me going out during the day and just kicking it for half an hour at a time. The event I’m doing is singles intermediate netbag and doubles intermediate netbag.
Miller: And netbagging, that is sort of using the skills of footbag in a kind of volleyball-like sport?
Reim: Yeah, it’s hitting it over the net trying to score on the other person, back and forth.
Miller: What are you most looking forward to this weekend?
Reim: There’s a lot of really cool people that go to this event. A lot of people travel for it, and I just love talking to them and seeing the different styles of kicking.
Miller: What have you gotten out of this socially? I mean, as you said, when you started, you were the only person your age, or I guess in your school, who was doing it. That has changed. But what has this meant for you socially?
Reim: It’s meant a lot. I love this community so much. It’s very greeting and very nice in general. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot out of it. Like I feel like I’ve been a better person, almost.
Miller: What do you mean by that?
Reim: They’re just great influences on you, like you become more generous, I feel.
Miller: I have to say that in the 80s and 90s, when I would see people doing it, easily 80% of the people were boys or, or young men. Is there still a similar gender breakdown in 2026?
George: It remains true. By and large, it’s dominated by the male, and I’ve spent most of my life promoting to include, to bringing more women into the sport. I’m seeing more women on social media, more girls in schools, and that’s very exciting, but it’s an interesting thing. The other part of that though is again, the welcoming piece. For a long time, I was the only girl with who I was playing with, it didn’t matter. It felt good to be there.
Miller: If you kept it in the air, everyone was happy you were there.
George: Yep.
Miller: Brennan, do you see a similar kind of gender breakdown in West Linn, in middle school or where you’re about to go to high school?
Reim: Yes, I do. There’s a lot of…
Miller: It’s still boys.
Reim: Yeah, very much male predominant.
Miller: Tricia, what has kept you playing hacky sack for 46 years?
George: Pure bliss. It keeps you in shape. It’s good exercise for one thing. And again, we have regular practices. We show up because we want others to show up, and so it’s been a thread through my life for the entire time, so what keeps me going back are really the relationships and the cardio and the strength and the flexibility that you gain from playing.
Miller: It does, it almost seems like a kind of balance-based core/cardio exercise, in your case for 20+ hours when you do the marathon events.
George: Mmhmm. Mmhmm.
Miller: Is hacky sack a fountain of youth?
George: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. The age range of the people who, we have a club, it’s called FLoP, Footbag Lovers of Portland, and the range, the eldest is 75 years old and the youngest is gosh…
Reim: 14.
George: Well, yeah, in middle school, and it feels equal.
Miller: Tricia George and Brennan Reim, good luck to both of you, it was a real pleasure talking with you.
George: Thank you so much.
Reim: It was great.
George: It was great to be here.
Miller: Tricia George holds four world records in footbag. She is from West Linn. She’s been doing footbag or hacky sack since 1980. Brennan Reim is going into 9th grade at West Linn High School. He is a 14-year-old hacky sacker and competitor in this weekend’s competition. It’s in West Linn, but as I said earlier, footbag was invented right here in Oregon, in Oregon City.
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