Wednesday, February 25, 2004
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Wednesday, February 25, 2004 |
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Participation for new sport stacks up A new sport is taking the world by storm and students at Crabapple Lane Elementary are getting in on the action. Cup stacking is a new and exciting brain-based sport that is gaining popularity throughout the nation and the world. It involves stacking and unstacking 12 specially designed cups in pre-determined sequences. Athletes are timed as they stack their cups in pyramid formations and then unstack them to start another sequenced formation. Crabapple’s physical education teacher Laura Thompson was introduced to the sport last fall at the Georgia Association of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance conference. She says when she read about the sport in the program she was skeptical but she went to the demonstration and was pleasantly surprised. “I have to admit that I was a little bit afraid of what physical education might be coming to but by the end of the demonstration I was hooked. At that moment I knew I wanted to come back to my school and introduce this sport into my physical education curriculum,” said Thompson. Students of all athletic abilities can be successful at cup stacking. The sport promotes hand/eye coordination, ambidexterity, concentration, focusing, and bilateral proficiency (using both sides of the brain). All of these skills are important for helping children in their readiness to learn. Students have also noted that cup stacking helps improve their performance in other sports. “I like cup stacking because it is competitive and helps me improve for my tennis tournaments,” said Austin Emmet. Due to the popularity of the sport, Crabapple is in the process of forming a cup stacking team that will be comprised of second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders. Currently 65 students have signed up and Thompson expects that the team will end up having around 75-80 students. “I am very fortunate to have a principal who is as excited about cup stacking as I am and has been very supportive and encouraging in getting this program started,” said Thompson. The team will begin practice Feb. 27 working on both team and individual events. A team tournament is being planned for the spring with the hopes of having an additional tournament with Peeples Elementary and Riverdale Elementary in Clayton County. Thompson is trying to encourage Fayette’s middle schools to get involved in the sport so that students can continue to compete. Due to school board regulations, elementary students cannot attend out of state or overnight field trips, which makes the Crabapple team unable to attend regional meets and the world competition that is held in Denver every year. Although the sport has recently gained popularity, it has been around for over 20 years. Cup stacking originated in the early 1980s in southern California and received national attention in 1990 on a segment of “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” It caught the attention of Bob Fox, who was then an elementary classroom teacher in Colorado. In 1995, Fox became a physical education teacher and offered cup stacking as an after school enrichment class. The six-week program culminated with a school tournament in which 250 students participated.
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