What once was only a staple on black tops during elementary school recesses is now an up-and-coming competitive sport on campuses everywhere.
Dodgeball, also known as war ball, prison ball or chain ball, is played in some variation in almost every country, and the Ohio State intramural dodgeball season is well underway.
Although unaffiliated with OSU, a few years ago students started the OSU Dodgeball Team; today dodgeball is officially offered as an intramural sport, costing $40 for a full season.
“I found out OSU offered dodgeball as a competitive sport because I saw the list of the sports from the intramural office,” said Jim Smail, intramural chair for Kappa Sigma. “All the guys are pumped up. They all saw ‘Dodgeball,’ and now they are ready to play.”
Dodgeball is traditionally played on a 25-by-25-foot court with a 2-foot deadzone in the middle. Six opposing players are on each side, and one ball is bounced into the middle by an official to start the game. Players are eliminated after being hit by a ball thrown by the opposing team. After six minutes of playtime, the team with the most players still standing wins.
“It’s exciting because a lot of people haven’t played since they were younger, so it’s fun now to compete against people our age,” Smail said. “Especially with dodgeball – you can just hit anyone you want.”
Although children make up the largest group of players, 25- to 35-year-olds have been the largest growing segment this year, according to the International Dodge Ball Federation.
“The young adult market has really boomed since the release of the ‘Dodgeball’ movie,” said Rusty Walker, executive director of the International Dodge Ball Federation. “Our main market for the sport are kids and college students. After all, college students are just big kids.”
The International Dodge Ball Federation was founded by Walker in 1996 in Gulfport, Miss., as a way to make the young children at his church believe the sport they were playing was important.
“They wanted stakes and a trophy, and they wanted to play for more than just bragging rights,” Walker said. “We formed the organization as a joke to make it look like they were doing all those things. I started getting e-mails, so we started making rules, and so on. That’s how we are where we are now.”
The International Dodge Ball Federation plans to have organizations in all 50 states by the end of 2005 and a projected 300,000 players sanctioned by the end of 2007. It will be holding a College National Championship which will be televised from Panama City Beach, Fla., in March.
“Intramural teams that won their state and area will be invited to play,” Walker said.
Ddodgeball has not always been so popular. In the past, it was seen by many around the country as an unfair sport, putting the advantage of the game into the hands of larger players, thus making the game unsafe for players of smaller stature. This problem mainly surfaced on playgrounds and within physical education departments in elementary and high schools.
According to Kidzworld.com, many teachers and concerned parents thought the game encouraged the stronger kids to pick on the weaker ones, which was thought to encourage bullying. They also thought the game was sending the wrong message by having “human targets,” along with the constant dangers associated with throwing a ball full speed at an opponent.
Today, the International Dodge Ball Federation offers standardized rules, courts, equipment and safety apparel to help encourage safer and more team-orientated play.
The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey has shown that during the past eight years, sports such as dodgeball have accounted for less than .1 of a percent in thousands of the average injury visits annually to hospital emergency rooms. More popular sports, such as football, account for 2.3 percent; basketball, with 3.8 percent, prove that the safety concern of a sport does not play a large role in its popularity.
Safety issues aside, OSU students are just excited to be out and playing the game, some students said.
“Dodgeball is nuts. It’s a crazy, fun, intense game,” said Eric Moller, a member of the Kappa Sigma intramural dodgeball team. “I haven’t played since I was 7 or 8 years old, and I missed it, so this is great.”
For more information about dodgeball, visitwww.americandodgeball.com/.
