What Is Spikeball?
A super fun game we love to play at our Young Life club, inside or out! We also play at Campaigners, camp, and family vacations! It's sort of a combo between 4-Square and Volleyball. Watch this video to see Spikeball in action.
How To Win
We'll feature a different way to win every day for the next 12 days. Make sure to check Twitter and Instagram to find out the contest of the day.
For today, everyone can be entered to win just by signing up for The Young Life Leader Blog email list. It only takes 10 seconds to sign up and we won't send you more than one email each month.
The Spikeball Story
Written by Chris Ruder, CEO of Spikeball, Inc.
In 1989, I was 14 years old and living in my hometown of Kankakee, IL. One of my older brother's friends purchased a Spikeball set from Toys-R-Us and we fell in love with the game. We played it on and off for 20+ years with strangers constantly asking us, "What's that game? How do you play? Where can I get one?" After realizing the original company abandoned the game, we wanted to bring it back to life. A few of my family and friends all chipped in some money to launch the business and crossed our fingers. We were pretty confident we'd lose all of our money since we had zero experience launching a business, let alone manufacturing a product. Thankfully, we were wrong.
I've been running Spikeball Inc by myself for about 7 years now. Until a couple years ago, I would go to my 'day job', come home around 6pm, hang out with my wife and 3 young kids until 8 or 9, put them to bed, and then work on Spikeball every night until midnight or 1am. I'd do Facebook and Twitter posts, customer service, print shipping labels, and drive to the late night post office at midnight to ship sets for a few years. Each year the business grew and grew and we learned that a lot of Young Life groups were getting Spikeball sets. We reached out to a few groups and have been doing what we can to get more sets in more Young Lifer's hands. Nashville, TN seems to be the epicenter of the Young Life-Spikeball relationship.
I'm happy to announce that I was able to quit my day job 2 years ago and now we have a team of us working full time for Spikeball. Part of my 'job', if you want to call it that, is flying all over the country visiting tournaments, schools, and other groups that are making Spikeball a part of their community. It's been a dream come true to do what I love for work. I thank Young Life for playing a role in making that happen.
We've partnered with The Young Life Leader Blog to give sets away to 12 different Young Lifers in what we're calling "The 12 Days of Spikeball Giveaway". Over the next two weeks, both on the blog and on social media, you'll see a new contest where you can enter to win a Spikeball set.
Thank you for your support and good luck!
Chris Ruder, CEO, Spikeball Inc.