Herbert Hoover’s Made-Up Sport
Hoover stayed fit through a strange game invented by his physician. “Hooverball” combined elements of tennis and volleyball, played with a six-pound medicine ball on a White House court. Cabinet members reluctantly joined these sweaty sessions from 1929 to 1933, tossing the heavy ball over a net while still wearing suits. The unusual sport lives on at Hoover’s Iowa birthplace today. Players still grunt through matches in his honor.
