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I don't know why a school district would get so crazy as to ban dodge ball.
That was Vermont.

JR High... GYM... of all the sports that was one of the most fun on a cold winter day.

We used volley balls... We played a game called WAR.

DAMN... WAS THAT FUN!!!

Yes . . . yes it was.

What a bunch of pansy asses . . .

Exactly! It wasnt a good day in the 5th grade unless somebody waylaid you with those red rubber inflatable balls... Damn, thos things used to leave a rasberry if you hit the target just right LOL!

In high school we had a bunch of guys that used to sneak in, when the gymnasium was partitioned. We used to play it with wall balls or tennis balls. You either catch or get wacked. FUN.

I guess I was over the line when I suggested the use of base balls. PANSIES!

We had a gym teacher who would throw a basketball at your head if you weren't paying attention. My shop teacher had a paddle that had holes drilled in it for speed he called Black Mariah. Getting beat up and paddled was a regular part of the curriculum. Dodge ball could be vicious if you were on the wrong team. Same with floor hockey. Sex and violence, my best memories of school.

Funny story . . .

Last day of school, dodge ball mutated into ""war" which includes tackling, wrestling ( biting kicking punching ) the goal was to place the one ball, in hand, against the opposing teams wall.

A friend of mine had the ass pocket of his jeans stuffed with strike anywhere matches ( lick & strike stink bombs )
After boldly obtaining the ball he was consumed under a huge scrambling dog pile. After my attempts to free him ( he was on my team that day ) failed, he screamed and began to flail wildly, which of course invoked a more violent response ( punching kicking biting ) in the dog pile, until a huge plume of smoke went up that set him free.
The matches had ignited, burning clean through both sides of his jeans pocket, not to mention considerable damage to his pride & buttocks.

A cannot even imagine the societal response to such an event these days.
In 1975 I think it was . . . the coaches whom were "supervising" the melee from their office, figured the burned butt cheek was punishment enough . . . or perhaps the could not stop laughing long enough to act.

yeah why not, I will be the devils advocate on this one...

Dodgeball was great, IF you were on the right team. IF you weren't stacked up against the class bully, and IF you were physically built better than average.

Lucky for me, I was above average on the physical side, but I saw many a "scrawny" kid go down hard because the gym teacher thought it funny to place all the bullies on the same team and then pit them against the nerds and scrawny kids.

Not everyone is a jock

It's a sport that compares to surprisingly few out there- Even in contact sports, such as football, the goal isn't to hurt the other team (or at least isn't supposed to be). Even wrestling isn't, by design, supposed to hurt the opponent. Only sport I can think of that compares is boxing.

Can you imagine a gym teacher pitting 80-pound scrawny joey against 160-pound Mike "bubba" McDougle in a boxing match?

I actually loved dodgeball as a kid, because I was physically able to compete, but I can recall a number of kids who were traumatized by it.. if anything, it should be voluntary. I don't agree with banning it, but I would argue that all contact sports in school should be voluntary. Don't want to play dodgeball? Fine, go run laps.

@ 5' 8" now . . . spent my whole high school lunch days in the gym lifting weights . . . I'm hardly "jock specimen material" now.
Certainly not then.
High school football nose tackle @ 137 pounds when I graduated.
They lied on the stadium programs about my weight.
But I'm mean as hell and only feared my father's wrath.

That goes a long way to making one quite formidable.

pUT mE oN tHE wEAK sIDE... lol

I love to play these reindeer games.

I may get pummeled but I'll laugh all the way to the ground and if you're not paying attention, I'd tattoo you with that little rubber ball.

I been hit plenty harder than you're going to be able to muster with an inflatable kick ball.

I hit a guy at one point and it left the raised stamp visible on the side of his head. At the end, I apologized to him for hitting him when he wasn't looking.
(shrugs)

It felt good to "claim another victim" though.

Besides, all you have to do is catch the ball and the cheeser that threw it is out anyway. "Play for keeps"..lol

How come gym class never invented a game called "Lynch Mob"?
Everyone just singles out the most unpopular kid and beats the crap out of him!
Dodgeball seems to have applied the same rules anyway.

You're just bitter cause you can't throw a ball or take a hit.

Toughen up or you'll be the shape of the tooth in the mouth of life.

"It's always chewing, get out of the mouth of the beast and get on with it".

Mike Nobody wrote:How come gym class never invented a game called "Lynch Mob"?
Everyone just singles out the most unpopular kid and beats the crap out of him!
Dodgeball seems to have applied the same rules anyway.

Dodge ball was the opportunity for us to show a few bullies that not every victim takes it lying down... I remember smacking a bully square in the face with the ball, after I caught it and returned fire on him... It happened very fast and he didn't see it coming. He never f**k with me again... I also noticed that he received more attacks by others, once folks figured out what a wussy he really was.

The thing about bullies, Mike is that they operate solely on the illusion of fearfulness. They beat their chests like little Peter-Pans...and this is precisely what Leadership in America has evolved into The bullies have you and I scared....
Soon I shall have some musical material to express my thoughts on all this...

If you run through life whining about bullies . . . you got issues.

sanshouheil wrote:If you run through life whining about bullies . . . you got issues.

How so... ?

PaperDog wrote:

sanshouheil wrote:If you run through life whining about bullies . . . you got issues.

How so... ?

I thought about it... and you are right. People who whine about bullies do have issues. In highshool, I was in 6 fights total. 5 Of them were people who 'bullied' me or others... Make no mistake Sand.. I kicked their f**k asses ...and consequently , they wernt bullies anymore.. So you are right Action speaks louder than whining...