Raleigh PE teacher creates new yard game, Homeball

A long-time Raleigh physical education teacher is hoping a game he invented in his classroom might be the next trendy yard game.

It's called Homeball 360, and Stan Vidalis has been rolling it over in his mind for the last 10 years.

Vidalis started by having students throw a ball into a trash can from outside of a 10-foot circle. The final product is a wooden tower with three baskets on each side and one on the top.

"It's kind of like basketball and touch football put together," he says. "There's a circle that goes around so when you have the ball you can run with it. If the other team tags you, you can't run anymore. You have to just stand there, pivot and pass. The team has to make two passes before they can shoot.

"Watching the kids run around with smiles on their faces, and seeing how much exercise they were getting, I knew it was a sport that I wanted to share with the world."

His older son came up with the game's name.

"Mikey said, 'What about Homeball?' It’s like a home – you have to throw the balls into the windows – and it’s stuck," Vidalis said.

He's become somewhat of an evangelist for his game since then. On a hot Friday afternoon in July a group of his friends met up to play the game at St. David's School, where he teaches.

Clay Matthews is a former St. David's student who happened to drive through campus and ended up playing his first round of Homeball. His younger brother, a student at the school, plays it in Vidalis' class.

"He's said some things about it and about how all his friends loved it," Matthews said.

Vidalis explained the rules to Matthews.

Players break into two teams and throw a ball into one of the hoops from at least 10 feet outside a circle of cones. There are two ways to play –leisure mode which is similar to cornhole, where players individually take turns throwing a ball into the hoop. Sport mode is faster paced. It's similar to basketball or football because players pass the ball back and forth between teammates before trying to score.

"It's kind of what you make it," Matthews said. "It's a lot of moving around. I think it's sweet because anybody can play. Me and my buddy, we're out here in flip-flops both playing and being competitive."

Will Miller has seen similar results in his P.E. classes at Oberlin Middle School.

"You don’t have kids pouting off to the side or playing in the grass with their friends in the corner. There’s a role that everybody can play," Miller said. "Research suggests that kids who aren’t having fun in PE between grades six and nine aren’t gonna be able to hit their fitness goals as they get older into their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s."

Vidalis manufactured more than 200 game sets for sale online. After taking the product to a state P.E. teachers' conference, he said at least 50 schools preordered the game, including UNC-Greensboro.

He and his friends also plan to start playing the game regularly at Dix Park. New players, he said, will be welcome.