United States of America Sports & Outdoors Tips by grandmaR Top 5 Page for this destination

Volleyball

In the beginning, volleyball was just something girls had to do in P.E., and people did it at beach picnic. NOW it is not only an Olympic Sport but TWO Olympic sports.

I hated volleyball when I was a girl. The balls went so fast and they seemed aimed right at my head and I could never hit them in the right direction. But it is a sport that people seem to feel that they also could play. You don't have to be particularly tall (although sometimes it helps). And it doesn't need a lot of space or equipment. It can be played both indoors in the gym and outdoors.

Although, it does seem a little perverted to me to put sand in places that has no beach, just so that a beach volleyball tournament can be played.

William G. Morgan (1870-1942) has gone down in history as the inventor of the game of volleyball in 1895 when he was at the YMCA. In 1896 the first league was organized. Until the early thirties volleyball was for the most part a game of leisure and recreation. In 1952 when I was in HS, the first Women's World Championship was held in Moscow and won by the USSR. And Volleyball was included for the first time in the XVII Olympiad in Tokyo, 1964. Beach Volleyball was admitted as a gold medal discipline to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Equipment: Morgan said: "In search of an appropriate game, tennis occurred to me, but this required rackets, balls, a net and other equipment, so it was eliminated - but the idea of a net seemed a good one. We raised it to a height of about 6 feet 6 inches (lm.98) from the ground, just above the head of an average man. We needed a ball, and among those we tried was a basketball bladder, but this was too light and too slow, we therefore tried the basketball itself, which was too big and too heavy".

He had a ball made by Spaulding.

For a pick-up or family picnic game, that's all you need. The ball and a net.

Theme: Beach Activities

Website: http://www.usavolleyball.org/

Race Cars

Auto racing (also known as automobile racing, motor racing or car racing) is one of the world's most watched television sports and is really big in the US. In addition to drag racing, kart racing, and off road racing, there is stock car racing. Stock car racing is the North American equivalent to touring car racing. The big name in that sport is NASCAR.

My son who has his CDL really wanted to drive a race car. Richard Lee Petty (born July 2, 1937 - just 4 months older than me!) is a former NASCAR driver who raced in the Strictly Stock/Grand National Era and the Winston Cup Series. "The King", as he is nicknamed, is most well-known for winning the Nascar Championship seven times. He has a place where people can experience driving a race car.

So when we went to Orlando, my son called the Petty number, and set up to go on the Rookie experience. It was 11 am the day he was leaving Orlando. He had to be there in advance to get instruction and suit up. The address and phone information below are for the Orlando Petty track - there are others in other places in the US.

There were two possible programs. One was a ride-along program for about $89 where you just ride with an actual race driver, and go really fast a couple of times around the track. But the program my son wanted to do was the Rookie Experience - that was about $349.00. In this one, each participant gets into a car by him/herself and an instructor is in a chase car with communication via headset from the instructor to the student. The student gets to drive 8 laps of the 1 mile; 7-10° banking track in this fashion. I think my son went about 125 mph.

They take your photo with the car (and I took my own of him while they were taking theirs) and then you sit under a tent and are called to the cars one or two at a time. Afterwards they give you a certificate to show that you did it, and also your framed photos.

Equipment: Their website says that you need a valid driver's license and the ability to drive a standard transmission plus must have the ability to climb through a 15" high by 30" wide window that sits 36" off the ground. (the car doors don't open)

It further indicates:

All participants are provided a regulation helmet and neck guard. Participants of the driving programs will also be issued a drivers suit and will need to wear socks, closed-toe shoes and clothes that will be comfortable under a drivers suit.

Address: 6022 Victory Lane

Other Contact: local:704-455-9443

Phone: 1800BE-Petty

Theme: Sports Watching

Website: http://www.1800bepetty.com/

Fishing Tournaments

There is a whole cable TV channel (OLN - Outdoor Life Network) which devotes a large part of their programming to fishing shows. In addition ESPN2 (Walker's Cay Chronicles ESPN2's highest ranking angling outdoor television show. Each week, Flip and his guest travel to exotic locations in search of a variety of trophy species) and TNN also show some fishing shows.

Some shows include:

* Sportfishing with Dan Hernandez - Sport fishing show. Dan also offers sportfishing charters and exotics trips for all ages.
* Fisherman's Heaven - hosted by Mike Wasch and Kevin Erickson.
* America's Outdoor Journal - television show shot in many locations featuring sport and fly fishing.
* Jimmy Houston - information on this champion angler.
* Fishing with Roland Martin - includes tips, news, show schedule, and more.
* Offshore Adventures - an ocean oriented, documentary style travel chronicle. Join four adventurous young people aboard the "Go Fisch," a 72-foot fishing yacht.
* Adventures in Fishing with Captain Ray Kelly - television show with a focus on getting children involved in fishing.
* Captain Jim Hammond - a weekly television fishing show and charter services based in Jacksonville, Florida.
* Quest For Adventure - A high-adventure outdoor fishing program with hosts Glenn Lau and Flip Pallot.
* Fishmasters, The - features fish tales, fish brew, fish gals, links, and more.
* Bill Saiff's Rod & Reel - Public Television fishing program. Bill fishes for salmon, trout, bass and walleye. Produced by WPBS TV, Watertown, New York.

We even have a weekly program down in our county on the local cable.

This photo shows various fishing boats off Virginia in the Chesapeake. You can go fishing even if you don't own your own boat. Photos 3, 4, and 5 show docks with charter boats in Swansboro NC, Key West, FL, and Oregon Inlet NC

Equipment: Fishing Tournaments are Big Business. Sometimes there are prizes of $25,000.00 or more. There are all kinds of tournaments in almost every area of the US. If you see a lot of fishing boats out in awful weather, it may be a fishing tournament. The second picture shows the Morehead City turning basin during a fishing tournament when the weather 'outside' in the Atlantic was too boisterous for these small boats. The Coast Guard sometimes has to clear a channel for the vessels transiting the ICW such as we were.

The kind of tournament it is determines the kind of equipment that you need.

Theme: Fishing Trips

Website: http://www.cyberangler.com/tournaments/

Baseball - a National Obsession

Baseball has been a passion in the US for a long time and now it is also played in many other countries (particularly Latin America and Japan).

Most cultures have some type of stick and ball game. Most historians agree that baseball is based on the English game of rounders. Throughout the early part of that century, small towns formed "townball" teams, and baseball clubs were formed in larger cities. Although popular legend says that the game was invented by Abner Doubleday, baseball's true father was Alexander Cartwright who in 1845 formalized a list of rules by which all teams could play. The first recorded baseball contest took place a year later, in 1846. Cartwright's Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club in a game at the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, New Jersey.

In 1866, Charles A. Peverelly wrote, "The game of baseball has now become beyond question the leading feature of the outdoor sports of the United States ... It is a game which is peculiarly suited to the American temperament and disposition; ... in short, the pastime suits the people, and the people suit the pastime."

Equipment: To watch baseball, all you need is a ticket to the ballpark. Most ballparks have internet ticket sales. The URL will tell you the Major League Baseball schedule.

To PLAY the game, you need balls (obviously) and bats, plus the catcher's protective gear, and mitts for the team out in the fiels and batting helmets for the team at bat.

Theme: Sports Watching

Website: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/index.jsp

Sailboat Racing

There are many kinds of water sports activities in the United States. One of them is sailboat racing. There are several kinds of sailboat racing. The one that is familiar to most people are the around the bouy races like the American's Cup. All the boats in those races are built to the same standard dimensions.

There are races every year in Key West - these races have several different classes of boats.

Equipment: The Governor's Cup is another kind of sailboat race in which different kinds of sailboats compete sailing from one point to another.

In this case, they leave Annapolis (the current state capitol) on Friday evening, and must finish the 70 nm course to St. Mary's City (the first state capitol) within 21 hours. The race has been run for 30 years.

The picture shows the Dove replica marking the finish line. [The Dove was one of the two boats which brought the early settlers to Maryland.]

The race is governed by the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing, the C.B.Y.R.A. Handicap and Cruising One Design Rules, and Special Sailing Instructions.

Each yacht in each class of the handicap division has to have a valid rating or measurement certificate on file with the appropriate C.B.Y.R.A. class organization.

All competing yachts must display their proper class flag from the bow pulpit and at least six feet above the deck on the backstay.

They have winners in each class, and an overall winner.

Phone: 410-414-3270 for PHRF rating

Theme: Boating/Sailing

Website: http://www.smcm.edu/govcup/