#BlueStarByte: Several U.S. Presidents were athletes, but only one has a sport named after them. Do you know which President it is?

Hoover-Ball, named by a New York Times journalist, William Atherton DuPuy, after President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), is a cross between tennis and volleyball, invented by Hoover’s White House Physician, Admiral Joel Thompson Boone, to help keep the President physically fit.

Hoover-Ball is played on a grass court with a net and uses the same scoring system as Tennis but uses a medicine ball instead. Hoover-Ball was inspired by a game played by U.S. Navy sailors in the early 20^th century called “Bull-in-the-Ring,” in which a player in the center of a circle caught a medicine ball thrown by other players.

Hoover-Ball games were played on the South Lawn of the White House by Hoover and various members of his cabinet, giving rise to the group’s nickname, the “Medicine Ball Cabinet.” Today, the sport is still played in Hoover’s hometown of West Branch, Iowa, where each year since 1988, the Hoover Presidential Foundation has held the Hoover-Ball National Championship.