HISTORY
CROQUET Today
CROQUET AS A SPORT AT SEVERAL COLLEGES
May 16, 2021 - Article on U3K4COLLEGE.COM
Did you know that June 5 is National Croquet Day? (Neither did I.)
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I was talking with someone the other day and the subject of croquet came up. Golly, I haven’t played croquet since the 1960’s. All I can remember is that I wasn’t very good at it.
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Just out of curiosity, I did some research on croquet and found out that it, indeed, is an intercollegiate sport (sometimes as a club sport) at a few colleges.
I had no idea how big this sport is on a National level. There is a National organization for croquet called the Croquet Foundation of America (the CFA), and there is a United States Croquet Association (USCA).
A quote from the CFA’s website:
The CFA and the USCA are working with colleges and universities to add Croquet as a collegiate sport and to organize formal croquet clubs. Part of this activity includes building and maintaining court facilities.
Croquet on the Mall
By NMAH, July 30, 2012 - Article on National Museum of American History
Croquet on the National Mall?
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This spring, while researching our series of Meet Joseph Henry museum theater programs, Daily Programs staff at the museum came across several images of the Smithsonian’s First Secretary. Most were formal portraits of the man as Scientist, as Academician; but then it happened. We came across an image of Joseph Henry as Family Man, posing with his three daughters, all outfitted in their summer best, and proudly displaying their croquet mallets. “Croquet mallets?!” we thought, with great surprise. “Croquet on the National Mall?! Who knew?”
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Historians believe that croquet probably originated in France as an indoor version of lawn-bowling, sometime during the 1300s. It was popular enough among the French leisured class that they moved the sport outside and eventually shared “paille-maille” (meaning ball-mallet) with their Scottish allies. The Scots took up the game quite readily; croquet is, after all, very similar to another favorite Scottish pastime: golf. Centuries later, by the 1870s, croquet had become a very popular sport.
