If your peers have yet to call out to you, “let’s sack,” you must have at least seen others around campus kicking a small, pellet-filled beanbag. Amidst an online resurgence of hacky sack, also known as “sacking,” the activity has garnered the attention of many students. You may see “sacking” happening on the lawn, the entrance of Bulfinch Hall, or the walkways leading to Paresky Commons. Yet, beyond it being a fun campus trend, hacky sack is an opportunity to expand our social circles.
As rainfall begins to pause and temperatures rise, students typically engage in lawn activities such as spikeball or merely lying on the ground with some friends. Yet, hacky sack offers us something that these activities don’t. Spikeball demands competitive play and limits players, while relaxing on the lawn requires a pre-existing social circle, making it awkward for unacquainted passersby to join.
Hacky sack, inherently marked by collaboration and a capacity for an unlimited number of players, presents a unique opportunity to meet and include new people. The activity’s primary uniqueness lies in the shared objective it demands of all participants: keep the bag off the ground. Laughing together over a missed pass or complimenting a save, hacky sack breaks social barriers by allowing students to build rapport with unfamiliar faces, thereby creating a stronger sense of unity among ourselves. However, only when we begin to make an active effort to widen our circles and call out to familiar, yet unacquainted passersby can we easily transform a straightforward lawn activity into a social bridge.
Today’s weather forecast predicts rain and gray skies, though in the next week, many of us may have already noticed that temperatures may reach the nineties. To Andover’s hacky sack community, be conscious of the social power you hold by turning your games into open invitations for passersby. If you happen to already be participating in a hacky sack circle, call out to a peer you may not be close with. Say, “let’s sack.” And to those traversing the paths, be eager to step out of your comfort zone and join the circle, regardless of your “sacking” experience. Know that building community is far more important than perfect coordination.
