Dodgeball bounces back in adult crowd

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Dodgeball bounces back in adult crowd
4
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 11:30am
This seems safer than soccer (my fave sport). Maybe I ought to give it a try. ;-) Any sports enthusiasts here?

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Dodgeball bounces back in adult crowd

By Associated Press

May 02, 2004 - 12:09:30 am PDT



PORTLAND -- A whistle blows. Grown men and women in T-shirts and shorts make a mad dash toward a line of rubber balls the size of cantaloupes and begin hurling them at each other -- at times taunting "You're out!" when a player is hit.

Dodgeball isn't just a kid's game anymore.

"It's ridiculously fun. It's high energy, you don't stop moving. There's sensory overload," said Colleen Finn, founder of a Portland adult dodgeball league that started this year.

Dodgeball as a recreational sport is catching on among adults across the country -- with dodgeball leagues, pickup games and even an outdoor championship held each year outside of Chicago.

The game's popularity may well grow after the release of a new movie this summer starring Ben Stiller: "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story." It's the tale of a group of misfits who play a dodgeball tournament to try to save their gym from a takeover by a fancy fitness center.

Dodgeball is great exercise. But it's not for people who don't like having objects thrown at them.

"You get to do stuff that you can't do in other sports. It's actually encouraged to hit other people with the ball." said Cameron Levine, captain of Portland's America's Freedom team.

The idea is to have fun and get moving, so rules are loose and can vary between leagues and teams. Basically, players line up on each end of a court with a line of balls between them. A whistle blows, and it's chaos as players race to grab the balls and hurl them at each other. If you're hit, you're out of the game, and the first team with no players left loses.

Because games can go quickly, the Portland league allows opposing teams to play as many games as they can in 25 minutes, and the team that's won the most games emerges the winner.

Levine, 28, was looking for a group activity that involved "some kind of exercise." He felt his options were limited to pick-up basketball games, until he saw an Internet posting for the Portland league. He and several friends signed up.

The Portland Co-Ed Adult Dodgeball League, which just wrapped up its first season, was founded by Finn as an indoor physical activity for kickball players during Portland's infamously rainy winters. It's impossible to play kickball in the rain, she said.

Word quickly spread, and in less than two weeks Finn had eight teams. Gender wasn't an issue. Players only had to be at least 21, because Finn didn't want anyone to feel left out if the teams went out for beers after the games.

Games were held Monday nights in the gym of a former elementary school.

"There's always that kid who wasn't picked for a team in the fifth grade," she said. "This is the perfect chance for redemption."

A few years back, the hitting aspect of the game gave dodgeball a bad reputation on schoolyards. Many schools talked about banning it,

But that's just what seems to appeal to adults, who like the idea of heaving rubber balls at others.

At Kent State in Ohio, Olsen Ebright is manager of the campus dodgeball club. Before the start of a game, he is fond of doing an imitation of Brad Bitt's character from the movie "Fight Club: "The first rule about the Dodgeball Club is you don't talk about the Dodgeball Club."

Pickup games at the school started back in 2003, and the game is now officially recognized as a club sport there.

"I'm a senior now, and I have so much stress. But on Fridays I get to go throw balls at people for two hours, and the stress is gone," he said. "It's a blast."

New Carolina Panthers linebacker Sean Tufts, a sixth-round draft pick out of Colorado, is on an intramural dodgeball team -- but he'll miss the finals because of his first NFL minicamp.

"The ball's real small, but you can definitely get it moving," Tufts said. "We got a guy in the foot last week and took him off his feet. It was awesome."

There's even a governing body for dodgeball, although it was started almost as a joke.

In July 2000, officials with the Schaumburg Park District in Illinois were brainstorming ideas for a family fitness event. They came up with a dodgeball tournament.

"We thought, `What's going to set our dodgeball tournament apart?"' said organizer Bill DePue. "And we decided `Why don't we create our own dodgeball association?"'

Thus was born the National Amateur Dodgeball Association, which holds seven tournaments a year, including the Outdoor Nationals July 23-24 in Schaumburg, just outside of Chicago.

"I think it goes back to the fact that everybody's played it," DePue said. "Whether it was dodgeball, bombardment or whatever you want to call it."

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http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/05/02/oregon/news02.txt

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 2:03pm

I hated dodgeball in school...kickball, now THAT was fun!


iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 4:58pm
Wow! if you think Dodge ball is a **"mean spirited"** game, what do you think of Football??? ;) I agree you can very easily get hurt playing Dodge ball as you can with any other sport, but usually it's a jammed finger.

At my work we played Dodge ball to help relieve some stress, it really helped to get a lot of that work aggression out...LOL I see nothing wrong with Dodge ball.



There was another game I use to play as a kid/teenager, and on softball tourneys called Buns up,,,You throw the ball against a wall or hand ball court, if the player drops the ball, they then run to touch the wall before you hit them with the ball, usually in the back,,,if you get hit 3 times you get to squat down and put your butt up (you try and make a very small target) in the air and every one get one throw to hit you....It really isn't as bad as it sounds, however it was a lot of fun and very popular to play.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 7:34pm

I love football...but they have pads and they understand it's a rough game...and most of us aren't going to be playing it either.


iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2003
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 11:04pm
Football is a rough sport to play with or without pads or protection, although the pads do help; however you still get injuries. Can you imagine playing Football back in the day before pads!! THATS NUTZ!!!

At my work when we played Dodge ball it was very competitive, being in a sales environment everyone wanted to win. I walked away with a jammed index right finger,,,,what the heck was I thinking! (I'm not 12!!) lol Dodge ball is just a game and the more you get into it the harder the people throw the ball, I really don't think, well at least the people I was playing with were trying to hurt anyone. You are throwing the ball hard not to hurt the other player, but to try and hit him/her before he/she gets out of the way...

The buns up game we played no one ever was hurt and in fact my coaches would play it with us...It really isn't as bad as it sounds.

Last time I played Tennis about 10 yrs ago I broke my shoulder had to have it put back together with 6 screws and a plate...I guess when I play sports I go all out to win..



The last Laker game I watched last week it was becoming a contact sport even to the point where Karl Malone got his jersey torn...lol I thought I was watching Football with all the contact & fighting goin' on. lol...

But, we all know no matter what sport you are playing there will always be someone that will play a little harder than most. Most sports I've played, and I'm guilty of it also, when someone does something to some else on your team it's called pay back,,, but that is a totally different issue.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you; I wouldn't play that game again. Someone else made the comment about kickball that I loved when I was in school...