When I was in middle school dodgeball was the game we looked forward to the most in gym class. Most boys loved it and all the girls hated it. Everyone knows how dodgeball is played, 2 teams, 3 balls, if your hit your out, if a thrown ball is caught your out. In our games the best players were always divided so the teams would be somewhat even. All the kids who did not want to play would hang in the back and it would be 4 on 4, but instead of throwing at the good players we always tried to get the weaker kids out first. You would think that the better players would be knocked out first but all the top players had a respect for one another and we wanted to punish the ones who did not play. It helped that the weaker kids could not catch a ball if you lobbed it to them so one of those red rubber balls, thrown as hard as our middle school arms would let us, was almost impossible to catch.
If they did catch one you were extremely embarrassed and had to wait until the next game to take them out because no way were they catching it twice.
Today dodgeball is not played in gym classes, partly because those red rubber balls can hurt someone and partly because people felt the weaker kids were getting picked on and humiliated to much. I am glad that I grew up when it was okay to heave a ball as hard as you could at someone and it was considered a sport. Kids today have know idea what they are missing out on.
dodge ball in Mr. Fish’s 5th grade class ..same ball, as circa 1988, same demographics of kids…same tactics and strategy, except the class was divided in 1/2..team A in the middle, and team b formed the circle around you (if you think spreading the field in soccer is difficult for a 5th grader think how that circle shrunk when playing dodge ball.. two balls, and the balls were ate opposiste radaii points of the circle of kids and oh yes, when Mr. Fish was pissed he became part of that circle..the most destructive hit was the jump and feet hit out from under you…at one point in a came yours truely was taunting the other team so bad, Mr. Fish stepped in shrunk the circle added a third ball and bam-bam bam simultaneously, up in the air on my ass and drilled..he siad nothing, didn’t even help to clean the wounds…oh, yeah, we played in the play ground from Dante’s inferno…