Dec 9 ~ Young man, there's a place you can go.

December 9, 1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is a worldwide movement of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs. Founded on June 6, 1844 in London, England by George Williams, the goal of the organization was putting Christian principles into practice, achieved by developing "a healthy spirit, mind, and body." The YMCA's traditional symbol is the inverted triangle which represents the organization's three principles. It was created in 1891 by Luther Halsey Gulick, Jr. at Springfield College. The three principles are as follows:

Healthy Spirit - The first YMCA was concerned with Bible study, although the organization has generally moved on to a more holistic approach to youth work. Around six years after its birth, an international YMCA conference in Paris decided that the objective of the organization should become "Christian discipleship developed through a program of religious, educational, social and physical activities" More recent objectives as found on the YMCA UK website include no reference to discipleship.

Healthy Mind - Many colleges and universities owe their creation to the YMCA. Springfield College was founded in 1885 as an international training school for YMCA Professionals, while Sir George Williams University—one of the two schools that eventually became Concordia University—started from night courses offered at the Montreal YMCA. Northeastern University (Boston, Massachusetts) began out of a YMCA in Boston, and Franklin University began as the YMCA School of Commerce. Detroit College of Law, now the Michigan State University College of Law, was founded with a strong connection to the Detroit, Michigan YMCA. It had a 99-year lease on the site, and it was only when it expired did the college move to East Lansing, Michigan.

YMCA pioneered the concept of night school, providing educational opportunities for people with full-time employment. Many YMCAs offer ESL programs, alternative high school, day care, and summer camp programs.

Healthy Body - In 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian, invented basketball while studying at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts (later to be named Springfield College). Naismith had been asked to invent a new game in a desperate attempt to interest pupils in physical exercise. The game had to be interesting, easy to learn, and easy to play indoors in winter. Such an activity was needed both by the Training School and by YMCAs across the country. It was a success from the very first game. Naismith and his wife attended the 1936 Summer Olympics when basketball became one of the Olympic events.

In 1895, William G. Morgan from the YMCA of Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented the sport of volleyball as a slower paced alternative sport, which the older Y members could participate in. In 1930, Juan Carlos Ceriani from the YMCA of Montevideo, Uruguay, invented the sport of futsal as a synthesis of three indoor sports, handball, basketball, and water polo, maintaining the motivation of the sport foot-ball (soccer) on playgrounds reduced.

The Song - "Y.M.C.A." is a 1978 song by the Village People which became a hit in January 1979. The song reached #2 on the U.S. charts in early 1979 and reached No.1 in the UK around the same time, becoming the group's biggest hit ever. Taken at face value, its lyrics extol the virtues of the Young Men's Christian Association. In the gay culture from which the group sprang, the song was implicitly understood as celebrating the YMCA's reputation as a popular cruising and hookup spot, particularly for the younger gay men to whom it was addressed. However, Victor Willis, Village People lead singer and writer of the lyrics, insists that he did not write YMCA as a gay anthem (Willis is heterosexual). Rather, Willis said he wrote the song as a reflection of young urban black youth fun at the YMCA such as basketball and swimming, etc. That said, Willis has often acknowledged his fondness for double entendre. Willis also revealed that he wrote the song in Vancouver, British Columbia.


Sources of information for this week's Hammer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y.M.C.A._(song)