Hooverball Has Been an Army-Navy Game All Along

Every summer, West Branch turns into the epicenter of a sport most of the country has never heard of. But here's the thing our Hooverball die-hards should know: this game didn't start in a backyard, and it hasn't stayed in Iowa. It started on a battleship.

How a Navy deck game became a presidential workout

Back in 1928, President-elect Herbert Hoover was sailing home from a goodwill trip to South America aboard the USS Utah. He watched sailors playing a rough medicine-ball game called "bull-in-the-ring" on deck, and he loved it enough to bring it home. His White House physician, Navy doctor Joel T. Boone, adapted it into what we now call Hooverball. You can read the full origin story straight from the source at the Hoover Presidential Library: https://hoover.archives.gov/hoovers/history-hoover-ball

The Navy's own historians have told this story too. It's a great read on how a shipboard workout became a presidential ritual: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/409585/keeping-mr-hoover-fit-navy-medicine-and-medicine-ball-cabinet

It never left the military

Nearly a century later, service members are still playing it. In 2013, Marines and sailors with Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 24 ran their own Hooverball tournament at Marine Corps Base Hawaii: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/280838/hooverball-hits-hawaii

The article that goes with it is worth a read too, especially this line from one of the players: "Hooverball wears you out after the second game." Full story: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/101522/mals-24-latches-onto-hooverball

And in 2019, sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer brought the game back, fittingly, right back onto a Navy ship, hangar bay and all: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/337681/uss-boxer-revives-presidential-game-hoover-ball

Military fitness culture

Research on the sport notes it's now played on military bases and in CrossFit gyms across the country, with some NFL athletes even using it to train. That's a pretty wide reach for a game most people first hear about at our festival.

So when we say we're hosting an Army-Navy Hooverball game, it's no gimmick. It's just a homecoming!  Come see for yourself in West Branch.