Dodge This
Banning dodgeball is like banning childhood.

By Neil Seeman, NRO associate editor
May 4, 2001 10:00 a.m.

hen I was in junior high, a classmate of mine would light up gym class by dangling upside-down from the basketball rim. Our phys-ed teacher — we'll call him "Mr. D." — despised this childhood orangutan. Mr. D. would always say, "One day you're going to fall on your back and you won't look so funny." And one day it happened. The kid plunked 10 feet to the floor. Mr. D., a truly wicked man, hunkered over the poor child and laughed, "You're an idiot," he said. "What do you think you're going to be when you grow up, a circus freak?" To which the class clown replied, earnestly, "No, I want to be a gym teacher, like you."

Ever since then, I've regarded gym teachers — maybe a bit unfairly — as the intellectual equivalent of Ovaltine. Now, I'm sure there are plenty of bright, sensitive, and dedicated gym teachers all across America. Still, I wasn't the least bit surprised when I stumbled across an academic symposium of bone-chilling imbecility in the current issue of the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance entitled, "Is there a place for dodgeball in physical education?"

"I can find few redeeming qualities in dodgeball," writes David Kahan, assistant professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences at San Diego State University. His evidence? "In elementary school, my wife dreaded dodgeball days in physical education class because she couldn't throw and was almost always the victim of a hard-thrown ball that stung on contact … Furthermore, there is the social stigma of being 'beaned' because one is nerdy, unliked, or an easy target." Unliked? I can see how this guy could relate.

Dennis Docheff, of the Department of Health and Human Performance at Concordia University in Mequon, Wis., agrees. "A person trying to record the positive attributes of dodgeball would end up with a very short list … In today's world, with so many things breeding violent behavior in children, there is no room for dodgeball anymore."

I'm not making this stuff up. Of 20 leading physical-education academics (a couple are graduate students) across the nation, just four come out in defense of traditional dodgeball — a.k.a. bombardment, burning ball, killer ball, prison ball, and ball chaser. Robert Kraft of the University of Delaware says gym teachers across the land must unite: "There shall be no human targets in a physical education class … How does elimination from games affect [children's] self-concept and feelings of membership within a group?" he worries. Scott Crawford of Eastern Illinois University says dodgeball is "an activity that masquerades as a playful game when it is much more akin to a carnival arcade shooting extravaganza." (Carnival arcades! Scary stuff!)

The war on dodgeball is gathering steam. "I believe it should be stopped," Art Jones, the director of Dodgeball — a "docu-remedy" — told Fox News earlier this week. Jones aims "to expose the overlooked menace that scarred the Lost-and-Found-ers for life." In New York University's department of anthropology, Jones's Dodge Ball is required viewing for a seminar on "The City & its Culture." "Through fierce investigation and shocking confessions, through flashbacks to gym floor action from the 1970's, Dodge Ball grabs the problem by the roots — in the hope that the hurting will stop, and the healing can begin," Jones says on his website.

Several school districts — including Fairfax County, Va., and Austin, Tex. — have banned the game. In Buxton, Maine, dance and physical-education instructor MaryEllen Schaper insists on a no-dodgeball rule. At the Fiske Elementary School in Lexington, Mass., kids still get to play, but anyone who is eliminated from a round just sits out for only a brief time — to eliminate hurt feelings. At other schools, students play using a large beach ball.

In Miami-Dade, dodgeball hasn't been banned, but gym teachers are being taught to modify the game to make it less competitive. Kids stand in a circle with a deflated ball in the middle. All the children then throw their balls at the target in the center, trying to nudge it. The side of the circle that gets the ball beyond a certain point wins … Somehow, it just doesn't compare to the real thing.

The weirdest part of all this anti-dodgeball hysteria is that it's taking off at the same time as the sport is gaining its first real following among adults. You can now find local adult dodgeball leagues in several major cities. Vanity Fair just listed dodgeball as the "in" sport among adults. The first-ever world dodgeball indoor championship was held in Schaumburg, Ill., on January 6th. Dodgeball Day 2001 is July 28, also in Illinois. Last year, more than 30 teams from across the country competed.

"People like it because everybody's already played it," says Bill DePue, codirector of the National Dodgeball Association. "They all have memories from childhood and it kind of brings them back when they play again."

And yet, the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, which represents more than 18,000 teachers and professors, has condemned dodgeball. The group's journal — the same one that hosted this month's symposium — has consigned the game to its "physical education hall of shame" — where it joins Musical Chairs, Red Rover, and Duck, Duck, Goose. All these games fell into disrepute some time ago because they require children to chase each other; they also engender self-esteem problems.

"Any time you throw an object at somebody it creates an environment of retaliation and resentment," Thomas Murphy, a physical-education teacher at Tobin Elementary School in Cambridge, Mass., told the Boston Globe. "There is nothing positive that can happen except a bully gets to beat up on little kids."

Anybody who includes it as part of gym class "should be fired immediately," says Paul Zientarski of Central High School in Naperville, Ill.

Phys-ed teachers don't like dodgeball because it's an "elimination game." Writing in the aforementioned journal, Leaann Tyson-Martin says educators should move away from elimination games and toward "recycling." "With recycling, players who are tagged or hit are not eliminated, but are recycled back into the game, resulting in no loss of practice time and reducing the potential for students to feel humiliated or inadequate."

Professor Neil F. Williams of Eastern Connecticut State University, dodgeball's fiercest critic in academe, has written: "Elimination games like Tag or Simon Says are essentially self-defeating, because the students who are least skilled and fit are usually the first to be caught."

So there you have it. Today's gym teachers want to eliminate Tag, Simon Says, and dodgeball. Next thing you know, hopscotch will be out; say goodbye to birthday parties. Don't they know you just can't be an American kid without playing dodgeball? Sure, it sucks to be pegged off. But that's what makes the next round so thrilling: It's payback time. Don't you miss it?