60 free YMCA trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These YMCA trivia questions cover the whole story of the Y, from the 1844 prayer meeting a young shop worker held for his colleagues to a movement with tens of millions of members on every continent. You will find the four sports that were invented inside YMCA gyms, the first residential camp, the youth movement that grew out of YMCA work, two Nobel Peace Prize winners with Y connections, the wartime recreation centres, the meaning of the red triangle and the year the American organisation adopted its one-letter nickname. The last section is for the song. The 1978 disco hit gets its own run of questions: the album it came from, who wrote it, the record that kept it off the top of the Hot 100, the television night the arm-spelling dance was born, the Guinness record and the ballpark tradition it inspired. Easy questions suit a staff social or a member event at your local Y; the harder ones on dates, founders and foreign names will stretch anyone. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia entries and the organisation's own history, and each question shows its explanation and source after you answer.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was the Young Men's Christian Association founded?
London
Its first premises opened on Great Russell Street that same year, and the building was still recognised as the world's first YMCA when it was sold in 2024.
Q 02Who founded the YMCA with eleven friends?
George Williams
He was later knighted for his work, and a Canadian college was named in his honour.
Q 03In which year was the YMCA founded?
1844
The date was 6 June, when the founder held the first meeting aimed at improving the spiritual condition of young men in the drapery trade.
Q 04What was the trade of the YMCA's founder?
Draper
He was typical of the young men pulled into cities by the Industrial Revolution, where the main leisure options were taverns and brothels.
Q 05Which sport was invented at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield in 1891?
Basketball
The brief was a game that was interesting, easy to learn and playable indoors during the New England winter.
Q 06Who invented the game played at the Springfield YMCA in December 1891?
James Naismith
He was a clergyman, educator and physician, and he attended the 1936 Olympics to see his game played there for the first time.
Q 07What served as the goals in the very first Springfield games of 1891?
Two peach baskets
They were nailed to the balcony, and the custodian had to fetch each successful shot down with a ladder.
Q 08William G. Morgan invented volleyball in 1895 at the YMCA in which Massachusetts city?
Holyoke
He wanted a slower game with less physical contact that older members could play.
Q 09What did William G. Morgan originally call his new net game?
Mintonette
He borrowed a tennis net and raised it to 6 feet 6 inches so any number of players could join in.
Q 10Futsal, the indoor version of football, was created in 1930 at a YMCA in which country?
Uruguay
Teacher Juan Carlos Ceriani designed it for indoor courts, and a rule book followed in September 1933.
Q 11Who invented racquetball at the Greenwich, Connecticut YMCA in 1950?
Joseph Sobek
He was a tennis, handball and squash player working in a rubber factory who could not find squash opponents of his standard.
Q 12What name did the inventor of racquetball give his game?
Paddle rackets
He founded the National Paddle Rackets Association in 1952, and the game spread through some 40,000 handball courts at YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers.
Q 13Which American youth organization grew out of YMCA work, with a Chicago YMCA organizer as its first director?
Boy Scouts of America
Q 21The first YMCA in North America opened in 1851 in which city?
Montreal
Canadian YMCAs were run jointly with the American ones until they formed their own national council in 1912.
Q 22The first YMCA in the United States, founded by seaman Thomas Valentine Sullivan, opened in which city?
Boston
It opened on 29 December 1851, a few weeks after North America's first branch opened north of the border.
Q 23In 1853 the Reverend Anthony Bowen founded the first YMCA for African Americans in which city?
Washington, D.C.
Bowen, born enslaved in Maryland, bought his freedom in 1826 and became the first African-American employee of the US Patent Office; the branch named for him still serves the U Street area.
Edgar M. Robinson took the job when the organization incorporated by William D. Boyce still existed only on paper.
Q 14In which state was Camp Baldhead, North America's first residential camp (1885), originally located?
New Jersey
It moved twice, ending up on the shore of Lake Champlain near Westport, New York.
Q 15Which institution was founded in 1885 as an international training school for YMCA professionals?
Springfield College
During World War II the YMCA helped young Japanese Americans leave internment camps to study there.
Q 16Henry Dunant, a young Swiss YMCA secretary, went on to found which organization?
The Red Cross
He also pushed Paris to host the first YMCA World Conference in 1855, which created the World Alliance of YMCAs.
Q 17In which year did World YMCA president J. R. Mott win the Nobel Peace Prize?
1946
He was honoured for drawing together peoples of many nations and communions, and helped found the World Council of Churches two years later.
Q 18The Paris Basis motto "That they all may be one" is taken from which Gospel?
John
The verse, chapter 17 verse 21, also appears on the open Bible in the World Alliance emblem adopted in 1881.
Q 19According to Luther Gulick, the YMCA red triangle's three sides stand for which three things?
Mind, body and spirit
Introduced in 1891, the triangle became a familiar sight on the home front and abroad in both world wars.
Q 20In which year did YMCA of the USA rebrand itself as "The Y"?
2010
The red-and-black logo was recoloured into five versions at the same time.
Q 24The first YMCA in Africa was established in 1881 in which country?
Liberia
That country also produced Charles Dunbar Sherman, elected the first Black president of the World YMCA in 1955 at just 37.
Q 25By what abbreviation is the YMCA known in Germany, Austria and Switzerland?
CVJM
Since 1985 the letters have stood for Christlicher Verein junger Menschen, "young persons" rather than "young men".
Q 26What were the 250 YMCA recreation centres set up in Britain within ten days of World War I called?
Huts
Temporary versions followed across Europe, run by thousands of volunteers for soldiers and civilians alike.
Q 27In World War II the YMCA helped found which body serving US troops?
The USO
It also supported millions of prisoners of war and Japanese Americans held in internment camps.
Q 28The YMCA grew into a worldwide movement founded on the principles of which Victorian ideal?
Muscular Christianity
The 1865 World Conference in Germany formally affirmed developing the whole person, with sport as a new part of that.
Q 29Which social reformer served as the YMCA's first president, from 1851 until his death in 1885?
The Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl, was already famous for factory and child-labour reform legislation.
Q 30Which 1851 event in Hyde Park helped the YMCA spread beyond Britain?
The Great Exhibition
By the end of that year there were YMCAs in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the United States, among others.