BACKGROUND
Double Dutch is a lightning – quick team sport involving two jump ropes, turned eggbeater style around one or two jumpers, testing speed, strength, agility, and creativity.  The sport, believed to have originated with Ancient Egyptian, Phoenician and Chinese rope-makers, has grown in popularity as a competitive sport.

Police Detective Walker and his partner, Ulysses Williams, had been looking for a new sport like Double Dutch for a long time.  Once they found it, they spend months making up rules; they began to dream of having a tournament.

It wasn’t long before children were jumping Double Dutch to the new rules.  The two policemen were given a new nickname:  The Double Dutch Cops.

On Valentine’s Day in 1974, the first Double Dutch tournament was held in New York City.  Almost 900 children competed.

Today in the U.S. more than 100,000 athletes nationwide and in foreign countries participate in Double Dutch programs for the chance to compete in the World Invitational Championship.

Supervised by Ms. Gayle Brock, coordinator of the Cincinnati League, State Official and World Freestyle Judge, the league itself includes over 100 youth from four area YMCA branches.  The coaches and team members from the Gamble-Nippert and West End Branch YMCAs are those who have developed their teams into State and World champions.  In total, Cincinnati programs include West End YMCA, Madisonville YMCA, Lincoln Heights YMCA, Skyline, Melrose YMCA, Powel Grosley YMCA & Evanston Rec. Center. The National Double Dutch league motto is “ROPE NOT DOPE”.  The purpose of the American Double Dutch League since its inception in 1974 has been to provide youth an opportunity to compete in a team sport that required little equipment and/or financial backing.  The American Double Dutch League fulfills its goal each year as hundreds of girls and boys across our nation have caught the “Jumping Fever”.  In Cincinnati, the sport of Double Dutch as blossomed into a sport in which youth of every background can develop and display their skills.  Girls and boys from kindergarten through high school participate in this yearlong opportunity.  Youth travel both in and out of state as they participate and/or perform in demonstrations, city/state/world competitions and workshops.  Drug awareness, Social Skills, Teen pregnancy and even hygiene are all topics presented in a Double Dutch forum.  Cincinnati YMCA leaders have realized from the beginning that the heightening of athletic ability is only one need that the Double Dutch League could address.

Our youth have consistently won Ohio State/Regional Championships in their grade divisions for the past 6 years.  Some of these same teams have also won the privilege of competing in the World Double Dutch Championship Invitationals.  Just last year, 16 West End and Madisonville YMCA teams won world championships in their divisions against over 300 teams from all over the United States, Canada, Virgin Islands, France and Japan.