Ever invent a sport or game?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

While watching the Olympics I was reminded of the time my friends and I invented our own sport in Jr. High a dozen or so years ago. We enjoyed the game so much that we played it almost every single weekday for a year. I basically just want to know if anyone ever invented your own sport? How was it played and how long did you play it.

Here’s my story:
My game was invented when my friends and I were unable to get any normal sports equipment during the off season of our football class. The cool kids all played either football or basketball, so there were no footballs left to play with and no baskets to shoot basket balls in. All that was left was a tenniscourt with no balls and no raquets and soccerballs with no goals. Being generally disliked by our peers and wanteing to do our own thing, the five of us and one or two other jr. high rejects decided that we would make do and invent a game with what we had. We’d finally have a sport that we would be good at. We had to be good, we invented it. And thus we made Cageball.

Cageball started out a very simple game where players on each side would try to either throw or kick the ball over the net and hit the opponents cage wall. Each hit against the wall was worth a point and the game lasted til the period was ever. Who ever had the most points won. The game slowly evolved and more rules were added when new situation arose. Once we became so good at kicking the ball hard and fast it became a rule that the ball had to bounce inside the larger tennis square at least once before hitting the wall to be a point. This added a bit more challange and strategy to the game play.

Eventually as more rejects joined us to play, we started to devide into teams of five or six. Some of the cool kids began to take notice and a couple of them even began to play with us when they got bored of football or basketball. There was a lot of animosity between us and the basketball kids because of incidents that occured when the balls would go over each others fences. When they started throwing our ball over the opposite wall and into a ditch we started doing the same to them. There was a lot of name calling and threats between the two groups. One day the basketball kids challenged us to a first to ten match at cage ball the next day. We were psyched. We’d finally get the chance to show those jerks we could beat them at something. We had been picked on and imbarrassed by jocks for too long.

The day came and we picked our six best players which included me. We played our hardest and used our best tricks. We lost 9 to 10. The next day we invented another game. I beleive it was like tennis with your feet and a soccer ball. We never let anyone else play and thus left Jr. High the champions of the new sport. We still played cageball from time to time until most of us lost touch or moved away.

2

Destructo-ball.

Invented in college by myself and my friends. We had a green soccer ball, and during winter, couldn’t play it outside, so we were just kicking it around inside when BAM is slammed into a framed picture on the wall, smashing it to pieces. Well, the ‘kick the ball’ game was over. But, in it’s death, a new game spawned…Destructo-ball!

We would play on average once a week. They game is easy to play, and has few rules. A group of people (min. 3) just start kicking the ball around. Eventually, the kicks get harder and more ferocious. The game doesn’t end until something (or, in some cases, someone) gets broken. Keep in mind, though, that although that siginfied the end of the game, it wasn’t the goal, per se. That is to say, you couldn’t aim the ball at the wall and kick it, you still have to try and kick it to one of the other people. The ball got the nickname “trouble”, and had it written on it in ink. Eventually, trouble died, but “Trouble, Jr.” took it’s place, a smaller, lighter, soccer ball. When that got lost, we were blessed with a large, 2’ diameter red rubber ball, called “Trouble McGuilicoty Orbach III.” It’s greatest moment was had by me. It was one of the rare, outside destucto-ball games, and I was on the sidewalk. The front door was open, and in an attempt to actually kick it up onto the porch roof where other players were, a bad kick sent it flying 20’ through the air, through the open doorway (and since the door was partially closed, te ball had abour 1" of clearance on each side) and slammed into the face of another guy walking out of the living room. He had no idea what hit him.

3

I’m sure I part-invented Calvin-Ball prior to the cartoon, with me, one Gaelic Footballing cousin and several American Footballing ones.

Creating new scoring systems for darts is always both easy and fun. Especially mid-game :smiley:

4

Our game was like wrestling, but with a stick.

Use a 6 foot long, ~3 inch in diameter wooden rod. I think it was originally a handrail. One half is painted green, the other half painted orange.

The 2 competitors begin facing each other about 4 feet apart, each holding their end of the rod at arms length above their heads. A referee starts the match and the competitors begin. The object is to touch the opponents end of the rod on to the ground. There is no hitting, kicking, biting, body slams, or using the rod as a weapon on your opponent. Spinning, flipping, rolling on the ground, tripping, and any other leverage move is allowed. You can try to dislodge the rod from your opponent as long as you don’t violate the other rules.

We found that size and strength we not automatically advantages.

5

I used to play a version of Scrabble[sup]TM[/sup], where you had to invent words, with the reasonable certainty that they aren’t in a dictionary. The words had to be pronounceable, plausible and the player had to be ready to provide a full definition and etymology (while maintaining a completely straight face) if challenged. Challenges could also take the form of ‘Actually, I think that one is in the dictionary’.

6

There’s so many word games I invented in teenage years (yes, I actually had friends equally geeky), such as word non-association…and then we discovered that they’d been done for decades on Radio 4.

7

That is all we did in PE. I wasn’t in the reject crowd (I do not think our school had/has one, actually) so it was just me and this kid equally up for doing stupid stuff. Mostly our games would consist of trying to destroy as many things in the gym as possible. Then here was always the great game of softball where you had to yell “I GOT IT I GOOOOOOOOOOOOOT IT!” as loud as possible and at the most inoppurtune times to win. Actually, destructing the game we were playing from within was a general practice. There were some snobby girls that thought they owned everything so seeing who could get them the most pissed off would generally win. Running bases backwords, batting with the wrong dominant hand, screaming as loud as possible, refusing to play untill the coach would accept that Zanzabar the penny was an actual dicatator and his bed of grass upon the glove signified an important holiday, walking as little behind the coach with the glove bag over our head (with all gloves in it as well) as possible, and things like that were all variations of terrorizing games in a light hearted manner. We never got out of control and generally were a calm bunch that stuck to ourselves, keeping a little cult following of friends for participents. Coach mostly liked us as well. I really think I should start a MPSIMS on the topic but it would be sort of weird.

Anyways, we also invented some of our own. We created a version of bowling that used the entire length of the gym and some poor sap’s binder (ours, usually). I forget what the pins were more notebooks, perhaps? A variation of this game involved sliding as much as possible and fall on our ass as hard as possible into the pins. Again, I have no idea what the pins were. Another game would be the corner ball volley with our feet. I love soccer and juggling with my feet so we would go to a corner and just hacky sack with the wall. This was usually done with basketballs. Other sports we played, like tennis, gave us more than just one game a day on most occassions. I can not even remember all the stuff we did with a racket, ball, and cage.

I am sure more will come to me. Every day my friend and I would create a new game or a new form of destruction. And that was only one year. I can not even begin to remember my other years. Hmmm…

8

Australian Blood Feud

Find a small “ring”, maybe 20 feet by 20 feet. Two contestants that must keep their hands in their pockets (which are required) the entire time. Then try to push each other out of the ring, or knock them down, or what-have-you. Scoring is subjective, based on whom the referee believes did the best in each round.

It’s a lot harder than you think. We used to have 3 rounds of 3 minutes each, but that always proved to be too tough for everyone… they’d run out of steam halfway into round 2. So we made it 3 rounds of 1 minute each.

9

Stupid Ball

It was so dangerous that I’m afraid my mom will read this post and spank me, so I won’t detail it here. It involved running into a generally busy state route, chasing after a ball, although we only tried to play when there were no cars (since this was on a mostly blind curve, it was doubly stupid).

It was really dangerous. And stupid. We played every day for weeks until school started.

10

My brother and I invented bike soccer – a two-person soccer match played while on your (children’s) bike, in the street. Goals were two umbrella-tree frond stems laid end-to-end, one goal on each end of the street “field,” which was only about 20 (maybe 30) yards long.

We actually had a lot of fun playing this, until one day when I was chasing down a long kick and angled my bike ahead of the ball, which lodged between the wheels, stopping my bike cold in its tracks – and sending yours truly over the handlebars and hands-and-face-first into a neighbor’s driveway. (Fortunately, no lasting harm was done.)

Our mother then permanently banned the sport.

11

Knee handball: each team had a goal to defend. you played on your knees and kept your hand on a soccer ball. If the ball left the floor or ever stopped moving, it was a turnover. Or if the soles of your feet touched the floor. Teams of 1-2 people. Played indoors. One game could wear through the knees of jeans.

Underhand Game: “Batter” threw a racquetball underhand anywhere he could in the living room and started runnign the bases. If the ball could be caught in the air, the batter was out. A run could ONLY be scored by running all 4 bases. No ghost runners. Home plate was a couch. Runner was out if struck by a ball while not on a base. A typical play involved diving head first into home as the fielder picked up the ball from behind a table and threw it as hard as he could at the diving batter. The fielder could throw the ball as hard as he wanted at the batter. Played 1 on 1.

Masters : In college. This was a great game. Played with a frisbee on a narrow road. Players stood about 50 feet apart each behind a line. A point was scored if the frisbee hit the ground BEYOND your opponents line, either by throwing it over his head and keeping it in bounds or by throwing a steep-angled shot that was hard to catch. The “defense” scored a point if they caught the frisbee out of bounds. Out of bounds was a steep hill covered by weeds. A frisbee caught in bounds scored no points. High-intensity. Lots of running. Needed to be able to throw and catch and exploit weaknesses in your opponent’s game.

12

Our game didn’t have a name, but I’ll call it Bike Tag. We lived in a circle (a.k.a. cul-de-sac, a.k.a. court), so there wasn’t much traffic to be worried about. We would hop on our bikes, grab three tennis balls apiece, and go at it. The objective? To “tag” other players by chucking tennis balls at them. The only prohibitions were: 1) you couldn’t leave the circle; 2) you couldn’t get off your bike except to gather up tennis balls; and 3) you couldn’t hit anybody in the head.

I can’t believe we didn’t kill ourselves. The game was a lot more dangerous than we liked to admit, and we all ended up with some pretty good injuries from time to time. And we didn’t wear any safety equipment, of course. Probably the best moment was when one friend chucked a ball at me (and somehow hit me in the “sensitive parts”), then slammed into a parked car and flipped over the hood. He was sprawled out, I was bent over in pain, and his bike was in sorry shape. That event pretty much summed up Bike Tag.

13

Yes, it sounds pretty dumb. It’s surprisingly competitive and very amusing, particularly when consuming substances both licit and il-.

I was camping with one of my bands in Black River Falls, WI. We were at a festival, having played the night prior and awaiting the performance of a friend’s band later that evening. We were drinking and smoking heavily and were well into that period of false lucidity that only seems to come about after many hours of slow, steady consumption.

Our roadie, Johnny Five was leaning up against a tree with a smoke and a beer. So was Cory, one of the guitar players. At some point the rest of us noticed that both were holding the cigarette and the beer in one hand, while using the other arm to lean against the tree. After encouragement, they both began to lean at a more severe angle. Inspiration struck.

As several of the rest of us started to lean, we began to codify the rules. It eventually (over the course of three or four hours) evolved into a complete tournament, with seconds, coaches, judges and lots of spectators from other campsites. We even got a multi-campsite tourney going, with members of three other bands competing for the title of Ultimate Leaner. Of course, being from another group, they were in a different division, and later we had a multi-division lean-off.

The Rules:

Location You need to find an area with a fair amount of trees, but not too close together. For a sanctioned event, you’ll need to create a designated judging area with a clear view of the entire competitive area and an on-deck circle/ready room that contains coolers of beer and lots of smokes. You’ll understand why in a minute.

The Basic Lean Select a good tree. Some competitors like a broad trunk to lay the entire hand on, other a trunk thin enough to grab around it. Either hand may be your lean hand. The other hand holds a beer and cigarette (or joint.) Start your lean at an approximate 45* angle. Upon the head judge’s mark, both leaners begin to lean in earnest.

Each time the head judge calls out “Shift!”, both leaners slide (NOT STEP) their feet out a bit and slides the hand down the trunk. Each competitor must also take a drink of beer and a drag of a cigarette before the shift is ruled complete. The shift must be done before the head judge calls the next Shift. The Shift commands are called at the judges discretion, but the judge must allow at least 5 seconds of time for the shifting. Longer shift periods are allowed, but it is up to the judge, not the competitor or coach.

Continue shifting down the trunk as far as you can. As you lean at a more severe angle, this gets very difficult. At some point, one competitor will fall.

To win the match outright, the remaining leaner must complete one futher shift down the tree without falling, ending at an angle equal to or greater than the fallen leaner.

Should the remaining leaner also fall in attempting to complete this shift, the winner shall be decided by the judging panel, who will weigh the merits of the lean: angle of lean, endurance in the postions, and overall aesthetic qualities of the lean in general.

The Coach

The Coach is responsible for advising the Leaner on tree selection, encouragement, and assuring the leaner starts the match with adequate beer and smoke to complete the lean. A leaner that runs out of either is disqualified.

The Agent

The Agent represent the leaner and negotiates matches and title bouts. The agent is responsible for attracting leaners into their stable with promises of title matches, rematches, etc. It is permitted, nay, encouraged, for every participant to be a leaner themself, a coach for another, and an agent for yet another. Shifting alliances and last minute changes in representation make for an amusing subtext, particularly if you are gambling. The agent handles gambling related to their client’s matches - laying odds and brokering the bets. Conflicts of interest occur frequently and require temporary alliances with other agents to cover the gambling for particular matches.

This game is very stupid and surprisingly fun if you are drunk in the woods.

We tried an urban version - Street Leaning - using cars and light poles, but the pavement hurts a lot more when you lose your lean, and the police took a dim view of us using random cars for competitive leaning. YMMV.

Lean on!
P.S. We will be publishing a complete set of rules with diagrams and a sticker for the NLA (National Leaning Association) in our next album. Yeah, we’re morons. But damn can we lean on things!

14

“path tag”

We just called it line tag though, but path is more accurate.

Our building had stone walkways forming a giant X within a box. The person who was “it” started in the centre and could move any direction on any path. The key is that all the runners could not change direction except when at a “fork” on the path. The key to the game was to run around until someone made a mistake and took the wrong path that they couldn’t turn around on and get caught.

I’d cheat a little since I was able to jump most of the way between paths.

15

Sure! There’s 7-Card Prabbleship Pursuit, Doperball, and the NFL One-On-One Pool.

Then there was a game called “Deformer” a buddy and I invented when we were kids. But it wasn’t so much a game as it was an excuse to put a big cardboard box over someone and whallop the crap out of it with very large sticks.

16

Throw the Jew Down the Well

The rules of this one are pretty self-explanatory.

yeah, i know i didn’t make it up.

17

At little off-topic, but…

I’ve always had this vision of a bunch of villagers in some frozen northern wasteland, cut off from the rest of the world during the winter, sitting around in their huts bored out of their skulls, looking around at the desolate landscape wondering whatinhell they can do for amusement until spring comes.

Finally one guy takes inventory, and concludes: “Hey, we’ve got this ice, we’ve got these rocks, and we’ve got these brooms. What can we do with them?”

And that’s how Curling was born…

18

We invented a game back in college called “moonball”. Two or more people lie down on the floor in the lobby of the dorm and roll a ball back and forth. If a player rolls the ball out of reach of the other player(s), the player who rolled the ball cannot get up and get the ball, but rather must wait until someone comes into the lobby and ask the person to retrieve the ball. There is no scoring.

Moonball is an example of a sport that should not be in the Olympics .

19

I don’t remember the particulars, but elementary school, there were two games:

  1. Chance - chance was played with a tennis ball or rubber ball and a wall. It was vaguely similar to raquet ball, but not really. I don’t remember the fine points of the rules. You threw the ball as hard as you could, there could be only one bounce (either hitting the ground before the wall, or the wall then the ground). One game could accommodate any number of players – is was not one-on-one, although more than six was unmanageable. There wasn’t really any point system, the idea was to get teh ball to bounce twice and you’d be a Really Cool Chance Player. It became such a highly competitive game that only the elite players ended up playing at recess.

  2. *Tire Races - for some reason, in the first grade, we had a lot of old tires as part of the “equipment” in the school yard. A game was invented by the first graders that involved racing the tires across the schoolyard and back again, with a handful of gravel in the tires. You had to try to be the fastest and most agile, yet still lose the least amount of gravel. The first graders got so good at it, that they could rolll those tires as adeptly as an NBA star can dribble a ball!

Eventually, a photograph of some of my first grade classmates made the front page of the newspaper as they were rolling old tires across the snow-covered schoolyard.

20

I am the proud inventor of Black Hole Ball.

The game is similar to dodge ball. A ball is placed in the center of the yard. Everyone goes to the fences. At the signal, you race to get the ball. When you get the ball, you throw it at the other competitors. Except, the ball is a black hole. If it hits a player it instantly destroys that part of their body. So if the ball hits your arm, your arm is out of play. If it hits your leg, you have to hop on one foot. If it hits your back, everything below where it hits is destroyed, and you have to crawl using only your arms. If you have no arms or legs left, you have to roll and wriggle to get away. If you are hit in the neck you are just a head and can only roll.

However, each player is equipped with force-field gloves…if you catch the ball, your gloves protect you. But if you try to catch the ball screw up and drop it, the feedback will destroy your hands. And if the ball is on the ground anyone can pick it up safely with their hands or forearms. The only way to kill another player is to hit them in the head. So the typical ending for a round was for someone with the ball in one hand hopping around on one foot after someone reduced to just a head trying to roll away, and then pegging them as hard as possible in the head to put them out of the game. When there is a single survivor left a new round of the game starts.

Draws are theoretically possible if no one had any arms left and so no one could throw the ball anymore, but this only happened once or twice in the years we played the game. By the pitiless rules of preteen males if this happened it was accepted that the black hole would eventually overload and explode, killing all surviving players.

Good times, good times…