Students usually play by the rules when it comes to sports like basketball and football, but in the Underground Sports Association (USA), a club dedicated to non-conventional sports, members make up rules to their own original games.

Junior USA club president Tyler Knapp founded the club in January. Its purpose is to get students physically active and socially involved, she said. “It’s a club where we practice non-traditional sports to give people who aren’t as interested in mainstream sports an alternative option,” junior club co-vice president Mark Reid said.

Students who join the USA are given activity options other than playing video games. Through these interactive activities, the club hope that students will connect together. “We formed the USA because we were really interested in unconventional sports and wanted to learn more about them,” junior club co-vice president Kyle Perricone said. “We thought it was a good way to connect with friends while learning about other cultures.”

The club gets a large pool of activity ideas from its Facebook group page, where members can post their ideas. The brainstorming is compiled into a list and students later vote on the activities they want to do at the club meetings on Wednesdays in front of the gym.

The club’s official gatherings, known as “game dates,” occur once or twice a month on weekends. So far, the club has only engaged in one official game date, when they played extreme croquet. The game mainly involved running around throwing balls through hoops and was similar to “organized chaos” in Gunn’s physical education classes. “We played at the Oval at Stanford,” Knapp said. “There were a bunch of obstacles because there were so many people. It ended up being more of a race than a game of croquet.”

In addition to extreme croquet, members have participated in several smaller gatherings such as a pingpong tournament, basketball, Cops and Robbers, a foosball tournament and their own version of badminton.

The club is also planning a “Wet ‘n Wild” day after finals which will include games like water balloon races and a Slip ‘n Slide. They have also talked about having an all-night Laser Quest event in the future. “The club is mostly for students to have other things to do on the weekends,” Knapp said. “Especially now since the weather’s getting nicer, it’s good to get out instead of being on Facebook.”

The majority of current USA members are juniors and seniors but the founders are hoping to attract more underclassmen for next year’s term. “We encourage people to join,” Reid said. “The sports we play are not well-known.”