Ultrafit: Off the wall

It was a cold January night in Columbia Heights, but hot indoors at Central Courts, where the Thursday night wallyball league met for an evening of open play.

"It's yours!" yelled Lori Ellsworth, a veteran wallyballer from New Brighton. "Get it!"

She was shouting at Scott Fuhrman, her teammate on the court and a man affectionately known as "Runt." I was standing above with Runt's brother, Steve, observing from the viewing deck for some insight into the game.

"There's a lot of adrenaline down there," Fuhrman said as his brother ran and dove for a ball below, but missed. His skin screeched like rubber against the bare wood floor.

"Ahhhhhh!" Runt screamed.

This is wallyball, a fast-paced indoor iteration of volleyball played in the high-ceilinged courts regularly reserved for racquetball. The sport, invented by a health-club manager from Southern California in the late 1970s, shares basic rules and premises with volleyball, with one eponymous difference: the walls.

In wallyball, it's common to serve a ricocheting volley that bounces hard off a wall. It can hit the ceiling or the back wall during your team's play. You get three hits per side, just like in volleyball, but a wall or ceiling bounce does not count against your side's effort to redirect a return.

"The sport is quicker than volleyball," said Ellsworth, a 48-year-old software engineer who's played since 1986. "Wallyball keeps you on your toes."

Ellsworth, who plays wallyball three nights a week, said the pace of indoor play helps hone volleyball technique. The rules are stricter, and the ball moves faster, she said. "Some people put spin on the ball and try other techniques so it hugs the wall instead of bouncing right off."

From my vantage above the court, I could see some of these tricks. On one serve, Ellsworth eyed the wall far opposite her stance, tapping a lame duck that just cleared the net. The ball, a rubberized sphere 27 inches around, spun and spiffed into the opposing court, landing between the desperate leaps of the enemy team.

"Nice shot, Lori," Runt yelled, high-fiving her near the net.

The evening's play, a series of three-on-three matches organized by the Wallyball Information Network, a local club, attracted about 20 people. It was a practice night for players such as George Schneider, Ellsworth and the Fuhrman brothers, all of whom have played for years and now travel to compete in wallyball tournaments around the region.

At peak popularity in 1980s

The sport saw its heyday in the 1980s, when hundreds of thousands of wallyballs were sold nationwide, according to Joe Garcia, inventor of the sport and founder of the now-defunct U.S. Wallyball Association. "We had maybe 400 clubs in the 1980s," Garcia said. "More than a million people played."

Garcia, now a 60-year-old land developer in Reno, said he invented the sport after seeing unused racquetball courts at a health club he managed in Calabasas, Calif. He came up with the basic premise for the sport before recruiting star UCLA volleyball player Al Scates to help him refine the rules.

From 1979 to 1988, Garcia traveled the country promoting the concept at health clubs. His company sold nets, balls and hardware. He lived out of a motor home for up to a year at a time. "I was the Pied Piper of wallyball," Garcia said.

Somewhere along this path, Steve Fuhrman, Ellsworth and the rest of the veteran Minnesota contingent caught the fever. In the Twin Cities, wallyball has long had a presence, with hundreds of courts retrofitted for nets at churches, fitness centers, apartment complexes, colleges and community centers, Fuhrman said. Today, at least 3,000 people play statewide, he estimates.

Kneepads save the day

I stepped onto the court to try a match after observing for an hour. It was me and two expert players against an aspiring doubles squad. Runt held his kneepads out to me as I prepared to play. "You're going to need these," he said.

My shoes squeaked on the wood floor. The ball banged off hands and outstretched arms as we warmed up. Instructions targeted at my newbie status echoed in the small chamber.

"Stop moving your feet before you hit the ball," Steve Fuhrman said.

Then Monica Hector, a nursing assistant from Coon Rapids on the opposing team, tossed up the initial ball, batting a serve over the net and into Fuhrman's arms.

The ball bounced vertically from Fuhrman's stance. Ellsworth, our other player, tipped it up again. She yelled for me to put it over.

I ran up and fisted the ball, its rubbery shape rocketing sideways off my hand, but bouncing off a wall and over the net.

Hector and her teammate, Brian Comeau of Bloomington, returned our effort with a soft volley and then a spike. Fuhrman leaped at our net in an attempt to block the ball, missing by an inch.

Earlier, Schneider, secretary of the Wallyball Information Network club, had mentioned that spike shots by seasoned players can top 80 miles per hour. The ka-boom from Comeau's spike left little doubt.

But most play in the court is more subdued, with teams tapping shots over the net, or setting up three-hit plays: Dig. Set. Spike.

The walls become a natural extension of the volleyball medium. Angle shots and bounces off the white vertical planes add options to what you can do during each return.

For my match, a common scenario saw Ellsworth fielding a return as the ball bounced above the net and off the side wall. She'd dig and loft the ball to the center of our court, where Fuhrman could tap or spike it over in an attempt to score.

I spun and searched for the ball when it was batted up, the echoes in the hall, the yells and the squeak of shoes all a bit discombobulating at first. "Get it!" Ellsworth would yell. "It's yours!"

Twice I dove and slid, palms out, kneepads saving my skin, just as Runt had said they would.

But eventually a rhythm came to the game. I calmed down and played more conservatively, diving less, communicating more. "You got it?" I'd yell, watching Ellsworth or Fuhrman move in to bonk the ball aloft.

We had sessions where the volleys would go on for a minute or more. I ran and leaped, returned to my position, then watched and waited as the ball bounced in every conceivable way about the court.

Standing above on the observation deck, Runt occasionally hooted or clapped at a good play. On the court, his brother tapped and spiked. Ellsworth kneeled to dig a perfect return. I ran and reached for the ball, which bounced, spun and flew from fist to wall, over the net, then back to me, before returning again.

I tapped it up. Ellsworth moved in. Fuhrman spiked for a score. Wallyball, in all its weirdness, was starting to sink in.

Stephen Regenold is a Twin Cities writer and author of the syndicated column www.thegearjunkie.com.