Roofball . . . A Portland Original . . . Sport(??)

Carla - Thank you for filling me in on Roofball, I never heard of it before, my life is now complete :)

Oh contrare!!!!

I invented this "sport" back in 1968.  However, it wasn't with a football, it was with my little brother's teddy bear.  I would put it in a four-point stance in the back yard and kick it up on the roof.  I would dance the "scored" dance and my pesky little brother would scream and cry.  He deserved it, of course.  Somehow, my mother never did see it that way.  But then again, she didn't see him breaking all my model airplanes on the front porch at 6:00AM either.  But that's another post.

Fond memories.  My little brother is now 47, and we still talk about that "sport" at family get-tegethers.  Our kids love to hear us talk about it. 

Carla - I grew up in Beaverton, and I really think someone saw me playing this game back when I was a child, took the idea and ran with it.  I used to sit in from of our garage for hours and throw a nerf football on our roof and try and catch it when I was younger.

My sons used to play a version of this with tennis balls.  But the points on each bounce were contingent on Goldie, the family Golden Retriever, catching the ball as it came to the ground.

We had a roof that formed a shallow U as you faced it from the back yard.  The ball could come back to earth from any of three "sides".  

Goldie was a champion at anticipating where the ball would be coming down..solely from the sound as it bounced (since she was not tall enough to see the ball bouncing on the roof). 

We also went around the various vents and pipes protruding from the roof.

We didn't rate having ESPN Game Day on hand.

Sorry I don't have a video.

Oh yes, further proof that if you give bored people too much time, and a ball, that a new sport is bound to break out. What the heck, I would play.

Hi Carla, Well I had never heard of roofball before, but now I have. What will they think of next? 

Carla - That's freakin cool!