Volley ball legs from Neenah roots

Benson dreamt up the idea of soccer-volleyball three years ago while watching his grandchildren kick a soccer ball across a volleyball net at his home in Elcho. His daughter, Kristin Ellsworth, teamed with Raunel Lopez of Neenah to develop the idea into a hybrid sport. The trio copyrighted the SoccerVolleyBall name, wrote rules, set parameters for the court and designed a special ball. Friends and family helped test the sport at Neenah's Southview Park. "Neenah is the hometown for soccer-volleyball," Lopez said. The sport is played on grass on a regulation volleyball court, except the net is only 6 feet high. The game also can be played indoors. Teams of two to five players knock the ball back and forth using soccer skills (feet, knee, chest and head but no hands or arms) and volleyball rules (three touches per side). Scoring is similar to volleyball, but the ball is allowed to bounce on the ground once during a possession.

"It is challenging," Lopez said. "You have to have soccer skills to play it."
Ellsworth, who recently moved from Neenah to Madison, said soccer-volleyball combines elements of Brazilian footvolley and Southeast Asia's sepak takraw (kick volleyball). "It kind of merges cultures and brings a U.S. perspective to a type of sport that has been played in various ways in other countries," Ellsworth said.
Lopez helped organize a soccer-volleyball league last summer and has been working with the Neenah Parks and Recreation Department to build two regulation soccer-volleyball courts at Southview Park. Eileen McCoy, Neenah's director of parks and recreation, said the city will maintain the courts, and Lopez's group will introduce people to the sport and run the league.
McCoy said soccer-volleyball is a fast-paced game that could garner widespread interest. "I think it is cool," she said. "It's exciting. It has so much potential, particularly for kids." Lopez said one of the most difficult challenges was finding a suitable ball. Organizers approached Baden Sports in Federal Way, Wash., to manufacture a ball that had the characteristics of a soccer ball but was not as hard or heavy because soccer-volleyball involves a lot of headers.
They eventually turned to Hans Raj Mahajan & Sons of India and spent six months testing and dissecting trial balls.

Source : http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20090504/APC0101/905040447/1003/APC01/Soccer-volleyball+sport+grows+legs