Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Children at Pine Street Elementary School were among the thousands of people across the country last Thursday who participated in the third annual World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) STACK UP!
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
ALANA LEGASSIE, left, a first-grader at Pine Street Elementary School, reacts to having her cups knocked down during a round of BattleStack. Legassie competed against first-grader Caleb Wheaton, right. With BattleStack, each player stacks on a spring-loaded platform and the first player to finish hits their touchpads and sends their opponent’s cups tumbling down. Last Thursday, children at Pine Street Elementary School were among the thousands of people across the country who participated in the third annual World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) STACK UP! with the hope of setting a Guinness World Record for the “World’s Largest Sport Stacking Event.”
During the course of the day, each sport stacker was up stacking and down stacking various pyramids with colorful plastic cups in prescribed patterns at lightning speed for at least 30 minutes.
Once again, Guinness World Records billed the day as the “World’s Largest Sport Stacking Event.” Last year, an official count of 143,530 stackers participated to break the first STACK UP! Record set in 2006.
“There are 365 students in our school,” said physical education teacher Ron McAtee. “Each of our students up stacked and down stacked for 30 minutes. I’ll get a grand total and fax in our results and send along a couple pictures. There were 147,000 people registered for this year’s STACK UP! and our times will be added to the overall total. With any luck, we’ll break the record.”
In a peer teaching warm-up activity, second-graders helped the first-graders work on a stacking cycle at tables placed on one side of the gymnasium. The children then took part in a continuous relay race where they up stacked and down stacked cups as teams, and the final activity saw boys against girls in BattleStack. With BattleStack, each player stacks on a spring-loaded platform and the first player to finish hits their touchpads and sends their opponent’s cups tumbling down.
Sport stacking was first introduced to SAD 1 students about six years ago.
“Every year we have a conference where all the P.E. teachers go down and meet and they have different sessions set up,” said McAtee. “I looked at the paper and saw cup stacking on it, and I was ‘What is this?’ I went into the session and it was unbelievable. The concentration the students have using both hands is amazing.
“I came back and asked then-principal Tom Folsom if I could approach the PTO about getting cups for school. Mr. Folsom said, ‘Sure,’ so I went to a meeting and showed them a DVD, and they agreed to purchase the cups,” he said. “That’s how it all came about.”
Sport stacking promotes hand-eye coordination, ambidexterity, focus and reaction time.
“It’s using both hands at the same time,” McAtee said, “plus it’s competitive because they’re racing themselves every time. They’re always trying to beat their time; they’re not worrying about anybody else’s time. You can do it competitively as far as groups and racing. There’s a series of steps to do the whole cycle, so the students are also thinking ahead.”
McAtee has incorporated sport stacking into his curriculum.
“We break it down and work on pyramids first with three cups, then pyramids of six, then the big pyramid of 10, and then we put it all together in the cycle step by step,” he said. “It’s a three-week unit, and Monica Bearden, the physical education teacher at Zippel, also does a unit on it.”
Second-grader Libby Boone set the girl’s record for sport stacking in both kindergarten and first grade at Pine Street.
“I’m trying to set the record again in second grade,” she said. “It’s fun because it helps with your hand coordination. It’s harder than it looks. Sometimes I practice at home. I like it.
“I think it would be cool to be able to say I helped set a world record,” said Boone.
Jaren Winger, also in second grade, enjoys cup stacking.
“It helps your fingers because you use your hands to set them up and take them down,” he said. “I’m pretty good at it. The more I do it, the better I get.”
This is the first year that Pine Street Elementary School took part in the “World’s Largest Sport Stacking Event.”
McAtee said he enjoys the sport stacking activity because “it’s an even comparison.”
“It doesn’t matter how old you are or how big you are. It’s one of the few sports that are comparable; you can race anybody. I go against the kids every year and I’ve had first- and second-graders that beat me every year,” he said. “This is one of those activities that levels the playing field.”
The cups are made by Speed Stacks, Inc., which was started by Bob Fox in the basement of his Colorado home.
The World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) was formed in 2001 for the purpose of promoting and governing sport stacking around the world. The association was originally titled World Cup Stacking Association (WCSA). In 2005, the name was changed to its current WSSA in response to growing awareness that stacking is considered a sport.
For more information, log onto www.worldsportstackingassociation.org.
(Editor’s note: As of press time, the unofficial count to set a new Guinness World Record continued to climb as verification forms were still coming into the WSSA office. Though nothing is official at this time, early projections have last year’s figure topped by a substantial margin. Local organizers have completed the Guinness Verification Form, signed by a witness of the event, and forwarded it via fax or mail to the WSSA to be counted. The deadline to receive verification forms was Tuesday, Nov. 18. Once all of the sheets are tallied and Guinness requirements are met, the count and appropriate forms will be forwarded to Guinness headquarters for validation).
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
BRYANT PETER-PAUL, a kindergartner at Pine Street Elementary School, had a little trouble with his pyramid during last Thursday’s activities at the school in which students attempted to help set a Guinness World Record for the “World’s Largest Sport Stacking Event.” During the day, each student up stacked and down stacked colorful plastic cups for 30 minutes.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
JULIA GOOD, a second-grader at Pine Street Elementary School, was one of the many students last Thursday who up stacked and down stacked pyramids with colorful plastic cups for at least 30 minutes with the hope of helping the World Sport Stacking Association break a Guinness World Record for the “Word’s Largest Sport Stacking Event.”
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
ZACHARY ST. JEAN, a first-grader at Pine Street Elementary School, scurries along the gymnasium floor during the relay portion of a sport stacking event held last Thursday at the school.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
DOING THEIR PART in the World Sport Stacking Association’s attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the “World’s Largest Sport Stacking Event” are, clockwise from left: second-grader Destiny Howe, first-grader Chris Bearden, second-grader Erik Smith and first-grader Joseph Michaud, all pupils at Pine Street Elementary School.
