At the center is the award-winning Keepy Uppy® ball, a utility-patented and trademarked ball engineered to move slowly through the air yet bounce and react like a real sports ball. That extra beat of hang time lets a young child track it, get into position, and make contact — turning the frustrating first try most sports demand into an early win. The Keepy Uppy® ball is currently available at U.S. Target Stores, Walmart.com, TikTok Shop, Amazon, as well as Canada, Japan and at KeepyUppy.com.
The Association calls the result the Confidence Curve™. Real ball movement at a speed kids can process. Skills that stick. Confidence that grows. The Keepy Uppy® ball was introduced in 2022 by VICTURY Sports as a pure play extension of their full-force indoor play, which began with the Toy of the Year–winning Ollyball.
Improvement over wins. The method follows the motto — learning, not trophies. When a child sees effort turn into progress, the lesson carries into school and friendships. It answers a concern child psychologist Dr. David Elkind raised in The Power of Play (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-elkind/the-power-of-play/9780738211107): pushing kids into win-driven sports before they can master the basics erodes confidence and drives them out — many quit organized play by their early teens, feeling they’re just not good enough.
Three sports, one rule. A single instruction — don’t let it touch the floor — carries the same slow ball, over a branded net, across soccer, pickleball, tennis, and volleyball, giving kids low-pressure exposure to each and helping families spot a child’s skills and affinity before committing to one sport.
Off screens, into play. As the reckoning over Big Tech and kids intensifies — Meta just agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over claims its platforms harmed young people — parents want a real-world alternative. The WHO and AAP cap daily screen time at an hour for ages 2–5 and call for three hours of activity, and research links heavy screen use to less activity and more obesity (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12103739/) and active play to sharper focus and self-control (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10918530/). Keepy Uppy® and Ollyball® are built for exactly that: safe, full-force indoor play for any room and any weather that turns screen time into active time — building coordination, confidence, and a love of the game.
Play that teaches. The same ball anchors VICTURY’s STEAM-accredited lesson plans — built with Dr. Amanda Gummer’s education team and peer-reviewed by licensed educators — now used in schools and homes for active “learning recess,” with editions in MATH, PHYSICS, and ART. For KUSA, the Keepy Uppy® Ball bridges the gym floor and the classroom.
Built for a budget. Youth sports have become a barrier: families now spend over $1,000 a year on a single child’s sport, up 46% since 2019 (https://projectplay.org/news/2025/2/24/project-play-survey-family-spending-on-youth-sports-rises-46-over-five-years). As an association, KUSA is turnkey and gear-included — the ball, a league jersey, and on-site nets and equipment — a localized model, modest club fees, and no “pay-to-play” ladder.
A model built to scale. The Association grows through licensed leagues, letting community organizations, schools, and volunteers run a program locally — with a goal of 5,000 licensed leagues nationwide by 2030.
A platform that helps, not harvests. A coming KUSA platform at www.keepyuppy.com will manage scheduling and skills assessment across the three sports — and every bit of that data stays with the family. Nothing is shared, sold, or used for marketing. It’s a deliberate break from a youth-sports market where platforms increasingly treat kids and parents as data to monetize.
The approach is personal. Founder and inventor Joe Burke — a former college athlete and former coach of four youth sports — invented Ollyball for his own daughter (https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/his-kids-kept-breaking-things-playing-indoors-so-he/491483), who is now a Volleyball college athlete. “Establishing a league for kids has been on our roadmap for the last five years,” said Joe Burke, founder of the Association and inventor of the Keepy Uppy® Ball.” The revelation came after enrolling his kids in 12 different leagues and seeing firsthand what youth sports get wrong: rising costs, early winner-take-all pressure, and aggressive business models.
“Youth sports have drifted from the point,” said Burke, “It got expensive, contentious, and increasingly built on pay-to-play. We asked a different question: what if a child’s first experience with a sport was laughter, joy, and getting just 2% better every practice and every game? The ball I made for our own daughter gives them that arena — it’s the ‘why’ of Ollyball and primary play pattern of our Keepy Uppy® Ball.”
Families and organizations can learn more at KeepyUppy.com (https://keepyuppy.com/KUSA) or email info@keepyuppy.com
Source: VICTURY Sports LLC
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