Sports for Kids, Fall Activities, and Fun Facts that Might Surprise You

Sports for kids is one of the many Fall activities that makes the season so exciting.

Parents gather to catch up on the week’s happenings. There’s also the cheering for the team and perhaps some cheers or jeers for the referees. 

Some of the many Fall sports for kids include Soccer, Volleyball, Lacrosse, Football, Cross County, Field Hockey. 

While each sport is so different, we’ve become fascinated with their history and interesting tidbits. 

Below are some of our favorite fun facts that we wanted to share as the new season begins.

• Soccer is the most popular sport in the world! It is played in more than 200 countries by 250 million players. Beginnings of the sport can be traced back almost 3,000 years.
   
  • The sport began in England and the current way it was played began in 1863 when the Football Association was founded.
    
    
  • While we might think that women started playing soccer recently, they were earlier women pioneers.
    
    
  • Nettie Honeyball founded the British Ladies’ Football Club with 30 women in 1895.
    
    
• Volleyball is for players that enjoy jumping as a player might be jumping more than 300 times per match.
  
  
  • The sport takes some of its playing style and rules from tennis and handball.
    
    
  • The first official volleyball game was played at Springfield College in Massachusetts on July 7, 1896.
    
    
• Football which is known around the world as American Football, actually came from the British sport that we know as soccer.
  
  
  • Modern rules for how the game are currently played came to be in 1876 and were spearheaded by Coach Walter Camp. He introduced the line scrimmages and down-and-distance rules.
    
    
  • A season of NFL footballs requires the hides of 600 cows, but a cow has a 1 in 17,420,00 chance of being used in the Super Bowl.
    
    
  • On Super Bowl Sunday Americans eat approximately 8 million pounds of guacamole.
    
    
• Cross Country is a popular sport, particularly in high schools where runners compete on dirt or grass with specific rules. It’s a team and an individual sport. Individuals are scored on timing and teams are scored on a point system.
  
  
  • Fauja Singh was the oldest person to ever run a marathon at 100 years old!
    
    
  • Did you know that there’s a Great Wall of China Marathon where runners have to climb 5,164 steps before they get to the finish line? Yes, it is true!
    
    
• Field Hockey has indoor and outdoor rules. Indoor teams play with six players while outdoor teams play with 11 players. When playing indoors, players can hit the ball off of raised barriers around the field.
  
  
  • Celebrities that have played field hockey include Emma Watson, Kate Middleton, Jennifer Lawrence and Heath Ledger.
    
    
  • There are only right-handed sticks! In fact, left-handed sticks are prohibited.
    
    
  • Although called “field” hockey, it’s almost always placed on artificial surfaces.