Super Ball - History

History

After Stingley invented the synthetic rubber, he tried to find uses for it and someone to manufacture it. He offered his invention to the Bettis Rubber Company (for whom he worked at the time). They turned it down because the material was not very durable. So he took it to the toy company Wham-O and they worked on developing a more durable version. This version is still manufactured by WhamO.

"It took us nearly two years to iron the kinks out of Super Ball before we produced it," according to Richard Knerr, President of Wham-O. "It always had that marvelous springiness... But it had a tendency to fly apart. We've licked that with a very high-pressure technique for forming it. Now we're selling millions."

When the Super Ball was first introduced, it became a fad. Peak production was over 170,000 Super Balls per day. By December 1965 over six million had been sold, and US Presidential adviser McGeorge Bundy had five dozen Super Balls shipped to the White House for the amusement of the staff. Knowing that fads are often short-lived, Wham-O Executive Vice-president Richard P. Kerr said, "Each Super Ball bounce is 92% as high as the last. If our sales don't come down any faster than that, we've got it made." Initially the full size Super Ball sold for ninety-eight cents at retail; by the end of 1966 its colorful miniature versions sold for as little as ten cents in vending machines.

In the late 1960s Wham-O made a "giant" Super Ball, roughly the size of a bowling ball, as a promotional stunt. It fell from the 23rd story window of an Australian hotel (or some reports say, from the roof) and destroyed a parked convertible car on the 2nd bounce.

The composer Alcides Lanza, in his composition Plectros III (1971), specified that the performer should use a pair of Super Balls on sticks as mallets with which to strike and rub the strings and case of a piano. Lanza purchased several Super Balls in 1965 as toys for his son, but soon he started experimenting with the sounds they made when rubbed along the frame or strings of a piano. Several years later, Plectros III resulted.

After watching his children play with a Super Ball, Lamar Hunt, founder of the American Football League, coined the term Super Bowl. In a July 25, 1966, letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Hunt wrote, "I have kiddingly called it the 'Super Bowl,' which obviously can be improved upon." Although the leagues' owners decided on the name "AFL-NFL Championship Game," the media immediately picked up on Hunt's "Super Bowl" name, which would become official beginning with the third annual game.