That is a very good point and one I absolutely hadn't thought of. Dodgeball is school-permitted torture of the weak, unsporty kids by the strong, sporty ones.
We played every single day in middle school and the coach made all the kids take off their glasses first. Imagine a game of dodgeball where you can’t even see the ball until it’s 12 inches from your face. I wonder why I never had a good time.
We had Armageddon which was dodgeball but worse. You’d have to successfully make it from one checkpoint to another without getting shot by the people in the middle. By shot I mean with those foam balls with chunks bitten out of them, not guns.
True story: I sucked at dodgeball as a kid. Always got nailed. Grew older, moved through school, & then *suddenly* in 8th grade - long after we'd all stopped playing - I figured out that the key was to run to the far side of the circle from whomever had the ball, so that I'd have more time to dodge.
I thought this, too. Then, I signed up for a volunteer Dad program at my sons school to come in for a day and help different teachers and students. The last thing they had me do was gym duty, and the gym teacher chose dodgeball. I was the most popular target. But the kids had fun at least.
I actually *liked* dodgeball. It was fast paced, competitive, and *fun*. I was the weird anti-social bookworm on the football team, which probably shifts my perception slightly.
Dodgeball was the only team sport I could ever tolerate. All the other kids liked to play football and I was a social outcast. Imagine if dodgeball had been the thing, I could have been popular!
I miss dodgeball, I heard they got rid of it cause it was "exclusionary" or "too violent" I mean I was a big kid, and tall so I got beaned quite often but it was super fun.
And neighborhood dodgeball was done with soccer balls and basketballs and kickballs. School dodgeball was way way safer. And our recesses was usually 4 ball soccer that evolved into full contact football in the span of 30 minutes. I have no idea what school is like now but we were super physical
we had a game called wall ball with tennis balls where you bounce it off the wall and if you catch it before it hits the ground the thrower has to touch the wall before the ball does, if you fail, you have to face the wall and the thrower gets to hit you as hard as he can with the ball.
I would rather play dodgeball all day as my 12 year old, “husky size”, slow self and get nuked in the face with rubber kickballs than answer a single Slack message in my corporate job.
Last man standing in some version of circle rules dodgeball in gym class, trying to dodge a low and high ball at once, I kneed myself so hard in the face midair I gave myself an instant bloody nose and ended the game 5 minutes early. Never felt so hated in my life.
Well I'm not gay, but as weird as I am I would probably like that. LOL Fuck with my luck he would have one bigger then the other and I would laugh so hard he would cry and run away. Poor guy, I think i broke his heart. Oh well he will get over it. I was too much for him anyway.
I forgot about it
Now I remember and I don’t like it 🥲
Sport classes were traumatic because I was and I’m still clumsy and there were a lot of mean sporty girlies who made fun of me
I found Dodge ball incredibly fun,as long as I wasn't getting hit when else can you get away with destroying people with a hard,plastic ball and just think,you could be the reason that person has trauma!
Dodgeball was one of the few P.E. activities I enjoyed, lol. Running, no. Situps, no. Football, or any other sport that is popular at a professional level, no. Random "kid" games, yes, that was my comfort zone.
I think we should settle things in our government over a game of dodgeball, half of American politicians would be put away for good after a nice dodgeball to the head
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Until one day ... yep, for some reason us about-to-graduate kids got it in our heads to play dodgeball again. So I could test my hypothesis.
And it worked! I was the last kid standing & survived 10 throws.
The very first throw after my team re-entered the ring was a sucker shot straight to the back of my head. Knocked me flat.
Dodgeball sucks. That's my story.
"Life's Just a Ballgame" by Womack and Womack.
Yeah, i was bad at sports too, glad that time is over.
I prefer dodgeball to bills
That was one of the best parts???
Now I remember and I don’t like it 🥲
Sport classes were traumatic because I was and I’m still clumsy and there were a lot of mean sporty girlies who made fun of me
No thank youu