When Tom Place was thinking of a way to entertain children during his work at the YMCA six years ago, he didn’t have to look very far.

A volunteer referee for youth basketball leagues, he decided he would try to duplicate one of his friend’s hobbies to see if it would attract the children’s attention in the dull moments.

“We have a lot of dead time,” the graduate student in mechanical engineering said. “I decided juggling would be an easy way to entertain kids for at least a few minutes.”

Place didn’t waste much time. He locked himself in his basement and went to work.

He spent time learning the motions. He missed some of his throws. He hit himself in the face every once in a while. But after 30 minutes, Place emerged a juggler.

“At the end I was kind of sweaty and gross,” he said.

Since then, Place said he has used his skill to work with kids in sports leagues and summer camps. He has even performed in halftime shows for the games he referees.

According to David Hook, a sophomore in materials science and engineering, while juggling might not be the most widespread hobby, there are more people who can do it than many think.

“You’d be surprised how many people juggle,” he said.

After a friend took up the hobby, Hook said he looked up instructions on the Internet to learn the basics.

A few days later, while at a drum corps show with his high school marching band, Hook and his friend set a hat on the ground and juggled for hours in the rain. They made $60.

“It paid for our entire night,” he said.

Hook said getting the gist of juggling is “like riding a bike.” But since he uses juggling mostly as a hobby to relax, he hasn’t quite taken it beyond juggling three props at a time.

“It’s a completely different pattern for four or five [props],” he said. “I’ll probably get around to it.”

Place said he hasn’t gotten the motions down for juggling four items yet either, but he said he makes his current capabilities count.

“I’m still stuck at three at the moment — but I can do a lot with three,” he said.

Anything around him is a good candidate for juggling — backpacks, basketballs, even the little metal washers laying around in the engineering lab where he works as a teaching assistant.

But he said he does have a simple philosophy for the things he will juggle.

“So long as it’s not sharp or on fire,” Place said. “I’ve done it before and it doesn’t end well.”

At a friend’s house, Place decided to juggle three knives. He caught a point of a knife in his hand and “that put a stop to that.” He said juggling the more dangerous varieties of props aren’t a whole lot different.

“You just have to be perfect,” Place said.

And he said that’s a level he doesn’t quite want to reach. For him, juggling won’t progress much past an interesting hobby.

“It’s a sport to some,” Place said, “but not to me.”

But for Brady Alton, a freshman in computer science, it’s a different story.

His tools of the trade — his specialties — aren’t tennis balls or hacky sacks. They’re devil sticks — a pair of hand-held rods used to twirl a third rod capped on the ends with leather strips.

Ten years ago, Alton said he began juggling with these to compete with his little brother and best friend. They mastered trick after trick in their quest to one-up each other. Alton got better and better, and eventually, the other two lost interest.

Practicing every day for the last three or four years, he’s gotten so good, he said he hopes to use his skill to become a professional juggler.

“I have so much talent in this completely useless act,” he said. “I want to do something with it.”

He said as silly as it sounds, he’s thinking about joining the circus after he gets his degree.

“It’s such a cliche to say, ‘I want to join the circus,'” he said. “If you have the will, you can join.”

Although he’s done a little research into possible career moves, he hasn’t gone too far into the planning process — with good reason.

“I didn’t want to do too much, because I was scared I’d drop out,” Alton said with a laugh.

Whether for professional reasons or relaxation, Place said the allure of juggling is pretty simple.

“Everybody desires to have a good party trick,” Place said.