Dodging the Ball: Exploring the Sport of Dodgeball
The film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, really brought the sport of Dodgeball into the public sphere. They did it with a very funny movie and it showed people out there exactly what Dodgeball was and how it is played. Dodgeball is a really fun game that is played in schools all over the world because of the ease with which a game can be started. All you need is a ball and a bunch of other people and one can always find people in school willing to throw balls at each other.
The rules of the game are very simple: two teams are made and many balls are given to each team and the basic object is to throw balls at each other and try to hit people on the other team while dodging the balls being thrown at you. Wikipedia has this to say about the game, “Dodgeball means any game in which players try to hit other players with balls and avoid being hit. Generally the main objective of each team is to eliminate all members of the opposing team by hitting them with thrown balls, catching a ball thrown by a member of the opposing team, or forcing them to move outside the court boundaries when a ball is thrown at them,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgeball). What is interesting about this game is that it is very prevalent in schools all across the country and is usually played at all levels. How did this game come to be played in so many schools?
It probably originated when one day a group of youngsters were messing about in school and they saw a lot of balls lying around and decided to hit each other with them. They formed teams, and there you go, a game was invented that is now played in a large number of schools everywhere. Slowly rules were added and a proper game came about from humble origins. It is possible that other games were also invented in schools by youngsters and then turned into proper sports played all over the world. A game played at a school once involved a bunch of friends sitting on chairs in the cafeteria and dribbling a basketball as close to the floor as possible and passing it around the circle of friends. As the ball became too low to the ground to dribble anymore the person was eliminated and the game continued until one person won the game.
Slowly other rules were added and the game grew, but it never attained dodgeball fame; it just stayed in that particular school. Maybe a game has to have universal appeal and be played by all and only then will it become as widespread as dodgeball.
There have been a few criticisms hurled at the sport of dodgeball, claiming it is too violent for children to play and a lot of them get hurt while playing. Fair enough, but then young children should be strictly monitored when they are playing and they should only use very soft balls that wouldn’t hurt anyone. For older children, harder balls can be used but they still shouldn’t be hard enough to hurt anyone. To hurl the allegation of dodgeball being a violent game and children getting hurt while playing it is a bit unfair because the game is enjoyed by so many people around the world, with different variations, that naturally a few people might get hurt. However, that doesn’t mean the whole sport is bad.
What would be interesting to see would be an extreme version of the sport.
Imagine an extreme version of the sport with very hard and light balls being used, and a crazy course that people could run around in and try to smack other people to eliminate them. It could be a new more hardcore version of dodgeball, and it would be a very fun and interesting new version of the game that could become as popular as laser tagging or paintball. It might make the game popular again with the young and the old alike and bring about a revival of the game that would bring an established school game into a new and unexplored realm of professional sports.
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