History of Roofball
Posted: 04-06-2006 (modified: 07-29-2006)

The game of Roofball was born in 1988, when then-eighth grader Adam Willis's boredom and new rugby ball combined to form a creative force.

The exact reason (but not the rugby ball) is lost to history, but Willis began throwing the ball up onto the roof of his house, trying to make the ball hit the now-famous steel chimney. When just hitting the chimney become too easy for the 13-year-old Willis, he began trying to make the ball roll around behind the chimney, which he considered to be much more difficult.

Later that same day, Willis's friends came by and the rugby ball and chimney were quickly forgotten in favor of a basketball and its accompanying hoop, then bolted to garage roof. The embryonic sport that would become Roofball then laid dormant for several years.

The game got a big boost when the roof on which the sport is now played needed to be reshingled. The basketball hoop was removed during the reshingling process, and left in the house's side yard afterward, never to regain its place on the roof.

This left a clear view of the steel chimney from the driveway, and no competitor for the idle time of would-be front-yard athletes.

The precise date is unknown, but on some summer weekend in the mid-1990s, the game of Roofball was resurrected. The now-airless rugby ball was replaced with a more throwing-friendly football, which had the added benefit of bouncing even less predictably as it traveled downward on the slanted roof.

Most of the modern rules of Roofball were codified during the summer of 1996. The designated throwing area was moved back from directly under the roof's gutter to behind a line 10 feet away from the gutter's edge. Set point values were permanently assigned to catching the ball as well as the newly named 'ping,' (hitting the chimney) and 'around.'

Negative points were also introduced, with players losing 5 points for throwing the ball over the roof and 50 for destroying the chimney outright. The latter rule has not, as yet, needed to be enforced.

Elizabeth Willis's car's permanent parking space on what had been part of the Roofball playing surface necessitated a new rule, and in 1997 players began to have one point deducted for allowing the roofball to hit the car on the fly. The protective measure decreased, but did not eliminate, damage to the vehicle.

The now fully-formed game took a giant leap forward on January 2, 1999, when nine players gathered to compete in the Roofball World Championships, the sport's first-ever organized event. Jason Richards walked away with the title after fighting off a fierce challenge from Adam Willis.

The game, a 49-47 victory for Richards, wasn't sewn up until the final throw of the game, and is still considered to be the greatest contest in Roofball history.

In summer of 1999 saw the birth of the Roofball U.S. Open, with Jason Pyle besting Adam Willis for the first-ever Gold Medal. The second Roofball tournament featured 10 contestants, and featured the birth of the Time Trial, in which each contestant was given one minute to score as many points as possible. The winner received a commemorative award clock, a tradition that continues today.

The bi-annual Roofball Games were added to the summer event in 2000, bringing the head-to-head Time Trial tournament as well as the Team Competition into the Roofball lexicon.

Since 1999, both the World Championships and U.S. Open have been annual events, awarding the Susan J. Willis Trophy (first presented in 2000) and the U.S. Open Trophy (also first presented in 2000) to champions and slews of trophies, medals and clocks to other winners.