I first coined the word Socci the summer before my freshman year at Wando High School, 1996. I learned to play Hacky Sack (tm) that summer and I was really bad, so one weekend, while on restrictions, I practiced by using a tennis ball. It was really hard of course but having nothing else to do and no hack of my own, I stuck with it long enough to make some headway. The next time I played with my friends, I had gone from being one of the worst players to one of the best. hm... Not long after that I was kicking a sack around on the beach and trying to hack while running and it struck me; Socci. (Socc)er + Hack(y) = Socci ® .
Right away I felt that Socci would be all about skill, finesse and should be non-contact in the spirit of basketball. Included would be Play from the Ground, smaller goals placed closer together and small teams. From then on whenever I played foot bag I tried to move with the sack instead of trying to keep it in one place. As I got better at Socci® style, or foot juggling while moving, I introduced it to more and more people. I would get into a casual and perfectly well behaving circle and before long I would have the circle moving. I noticed that people played better once they became engaged in my more active moving style of kicking. During this time, a friend and I played so hard one day that we went through 4 “Hacky Sack Magic” (tm) foot bags in an afternoon. Out of frustration I made my first foot bag an 8 panel slightly over-sized bag. Already I was getting small experimental games together using a variety of things for goals (cars, fences, buildings etc) but Socci was basically still just an idea.
In 1992, I was traveling around the US in a Great American road trip that lasted 5 months. Along the way I decided to start making and selling foot bags for gas money. I came up with a number of different original designs and really enjoyed the design aspect of it. I would take various regular geometric designs, make models of them from poster board, and try to create interesting ways of altering them to look cool. I actually became a bit obsessed culminating in a foot bag made up entirely of people playing foot bag, which took more than a week in the mountains to work out and over 12 hours to actually sew.
On that trip, I also made some hockey size goals out of PVC and I tied together a rope field. A few times along the way I set up my equipment and tried to develop Socci into a sport. We played once at Forsyth Park in Savannah, GA, once in Telluride, CO, and once at the Foot bag World Championships in Palo Alto, CA. The games were fun but hardly resembled a real sport. The sack never stayed "live" for very long and goals were very rare. After the trip I gave up on the idea for while. I still kicked the sack Socci style and I still talked about it, but I didn't do any serious work on it for the time being.
In the spring of 1997 while living close to the College of Charleston I started playing foot bag with some guys I knew who were living or going to school downtown. I would go to the Cistern on George Street and kick it up with them almost every day. Again, I was getting them to play moving foot bag/Socci and telling them about my idea when I realized that if I didn't create this sport, eventually someone else would. That night I went home, found some leather-like material, pulled out my foot bag making stuff and I sewed up a soccer style foot bag to use as a game ball. The first game reminded me that I needed to figure out how to put some more "life" into the ball; I wanted it to have more bounce to keep it alive more and allow play from the first bounce.
For the second game I tried a foot bag with an air bladder inside which I made by covering a glass Christmas tree ornament in layers of Plasti-grip (tm). Once dry, I broke and removed the glass, filled my homemade bladder with pellets, and attached a valve. It was heavy and it had a strange bounce every once in while from the pellets. At this time we were using a football type scoring system with end zones. The game was at Randolph Hall by the Cistern and around a dozen people showed up. It was general chaos, the most memorable thing about it be a very audible head to head collision between two players.
On the next Sunday I introduced Socci’s classic design. Each Sunday I set up games at various parks and I would bring a new ball, goal, field, or set of rules to try out. Over the course of the summer the ball became progressively larger and bouncier allowing more continuous play because of the ability to play it from the one bounce as well as from the ground. This did a lot to improve the flow of the game and the amount of time that the ball stayed in play, but the game was still more stop than go.
The turning point for the sport of Socci came early that fall. My group of players had become harder and harder to bring together in large part because of the heat but also because the game probably seemed like a lost cause. It could be, potentially, a cool expert game for players with extraordinary foot skills, but it would never have a larger appeal than that. I was stumped.
The problem was that the power was all focused in the center of the field. Even with small teams the goals were too easy to “crowd-out”, making shots rare. As a player moved to the wings of the field the angle on goal became smaller so the wings were not particularly useful or utilized. I wondered how I could create more power at the wings while making it harder to defend the goals when it struck me. A triangular goal would create two front sides and a backside. You could move around the goal and score one from all sides. Shift the power from the center to the sides and back.
The following Sunday was the first true Socci Game ever played (September 1997). I had built a three-sided goal from PVC and plastic coated wire fencing; very rough looking. Each goal side was about 3’ tall by 4’ wide or about what one player could defend below the waist. The field was diamond-shaped, made up of two triangles each sharing one side with the other. The goals were in the center of a “goal circle” in the center of their respective triangles. The front goals counted 1 pt, the back counted 2 pts, and the top counted 2 pts (originally the top was a triangle and a significantly smaller target, it top was adjusted to 3 pts for the next game). This may have been the first time in history that a central-opposing power-scheme has been used in a ball sport and it is the world’s first example of a central-opposing power-scheme presently known.
During the next 4 years, I accomplished the patenting of Socci® and the refinement of it's elements; ball, goal, field, and rules, each of which underwent a number of significant evolutions. The ball became even larger and bouncier, the goal became round, the field went from a diamond to an oval, the rules became refined and simplified and the power play and service were introduced.
In the years that followed, I tried unsuccessfully to find an investment partner and manufacturer, but continued to develop Socci products, compile experience playing the game, garner enthusiasts, and improve my ability to manufacture the equipment. Socci was featured on the local news and Mikael Trush did a "Carolina Camera" episode about it. But, since I had to make the balls by hand (a two hour job) and the goals were very large and cumbersome the growth of Socci outside of its fringe was limited.
In 2004 at the Suggestion of Erin and Grant Scheffer I entered Socci in the "Brand New Awards" for Summer ISPO 04 in Munich, Germany. SOCCI WON finalist in the category "Sports Hardware”. Judged by a jury of international sports professionals, Socci also won a special prize worth 1000 Euro, which ultimately made it possible for me to travel to Germany. Grant Scheffer joined me on the trip to Germany and from then on also on the Journey as my Future Business Partner. The response was fantastic. The Europeans loved it, as I always suspected they would, and the trip netted us the contacts we needed to accomplish ball manufacturing in Pakistan as well as interested Distributors in England, Germany, Switzerland, and France and a little sweet validation.
Back in the states, Socci attended it's first AAHPERD (American Alliance for Health Physical Education Recreation and Dance) national trade-show and found a demand for Socci’s high activity, non-contact, and space-saving qualities in the US school system.
In 2005 Grant and I Created Socci Sport LLC to Spearheaded serious end roads into the Physical Education, Health and Activity markets, After Schools Programs, YMCA’s, Parks And Recreation Programs, Summer Camps, Youth and Faith Organizations and a Blossoming Online and Retail market.
In 2006 we filed the patent on my Compactable Socci Goal idea and officially entered the Soccer Skills Training Market. Through a collaboration of teachers across the country we were able to Create a National Kicking Skills Curriculum that has been widely introduce in K-12 Class rooms across the Country and by the end of 2006 Socci is being taught in Over 45 Universities and Colleges to the future Health and Physical Educators in the USA. The Compactable Goal has fulfilled the last barrier to the mass popularization of the sport of Socci. The entire sport fits into a single bag, the goals set up in less than a minute and the field can be drawn in less than 5! Put it in the car, go to the beach, get a game on! The ultimate vision is for Socci to be an Arena Olympic Sport as well as a World Class international professional team sport providing supreme skill exhibition, gripping entertainment, the highest level of sportsmanship, the spirit of international unity, and the promotion of non-violence.
Yani
Jan Bjorn Dilling
Socci Inventor