We normally had two goal lines on out field and the kid with the ball would run towards one once the ball was ripped from his hands whoever ended up with it would then run toward which ever goal was farthest away. I don’t think anyone ever made it to a goal I’m not sure what would have happened if they had.
For me and my friends, on an air force base in South Korea, this ended up evolving into three flys up. Where one person throws the ball up and yells out a point value based on how hard to catch the ball would be, normally the really high throws were worth the most because more people would be able to get under it and fight for the ball. Once you reached whatever the number of points was you were the one who threw the ball.
We still played this game along with smear the queer in college when we got into a pool without supervision. Further proof just because you grow up you doesn’t mean you have to grow up.
Another one that we played quite a bit we called “Don’t Flinch”. You stood up against a wall (like dodgeball) and a thrower threw one of those small pink rubber balls (or tennis ball) at people as hard as he could. The idea being to not hit them, but come close enough so they flinched. If you flinched, you were out. Last standing is the new thrower.
The holy grail was to hit the material of someone’s shorts that hung down between their legs, without hitting their body.
You can imagine that not all throws were surgically precise.
At one school we called it “Smear the Queer with the Ball.” When I switched schools in second grade we played a *slightly * more structured version we called “Throw Back Smear.” Once you got tackled there was some sort of overhead backwards hike (hence the name)
I’m thinking I had some inkling that “queer” was something a little more than just the guy with the ball. After all, one of the common insults the boys threw around was “Fag!” At that age I didn’t know exactly what a fag was, just that you didn’t want to be one!
That game was an emulation of life, where it is rare to be “queer,” but the people who secretly deeply wish to be will viciously attack anyone who is.
The way I played was to act as though I was trying to get the ball, but, damned if it didn’t seem to slip out of my hands every time and roll toward a kid I didn’t like.
Similar story here (or actually in suburban Cleveland in the late '60’s-early '70’s). Local names included “kill the guy”, “kill the guy with the ball”, and “smear the queer”. Variations on the last-mentioned included the occasional “bag the fag” and the once-only-heard “flay the gay”.
SW Chicago 'burbs, late 60’s. We played kill the guy with the ball, but the catholic school kids from St. Andrews called it smear the queer. Take from that what you will.
And a ‘nigger pile’ wasn’t restricted to happening during a game. Occasionally, just out of the blue, someone could yell ‘nigger pile on insert name here!!’, and everybody would tackle one guy and just pile on.
Hmmm - in 70’s NZ we did not have any ball game variant of Smear. We just played freeform rugby. We did have Bullrush (what you call British Bulldog) - our version started with one person in the middle. They would call out someone who had to make a run for the other line. If they were tackled, they stayed in the middle. If they made the other side, it was a bullrush, and everybody ran. My greatest primary school memory is being last man running, avoiding the basic tackles, then being ankle tapped by the quickest guy in the school (his lethal specialty). I stumbled, and launched myself into a highspeed forward roll back on to my feet, and sprinted for the line. No-one could quite believe it. Nor could I for that matter.
Games we did play included MurderBall - tag with high speed tennis balls. There was a Dodgeball variant, with one team running side to side along a wall being pelted with tennis balls as hard as possible. Both of these had branding as a goal - imprinting the pattern of the tennis ball on to someone elses thigh that would be bright red for hours and a purple bruise the next day. I spent a good part of my childhood limping. Pool ball was a sort of waterpolo with tackling - if someone did not release the ball, just hold them under until they let go (or drowned).
I am quite proud to say that I forced all the neighborhood kids who played with me and my three brothers to call it “Kill the Person With the Ball.” I objected to “Man” and “Queer” for obvious reasons. Yes, I was pretty politically correct for an 11-year-old. And bloodthirsty.
We called it the far less offensive Cream the Carrier.
I usually didn’t play, though, as my group had invented our own game, Full Contact Chinese Baseball. I don’t know what was particularly “Chinese” about it, but it was only possible to play in the uniquely shaped blacktop area of our school. It was a kind of cross between kickball and Butt’s Up. Remember Butt’s Up? That shit was awesome.
Or when you’re the only girl in the neighborhood, you’re sure not giving in and letting them think you girly. What worse offense could there have been?
It was a really fun game, though.
My thoughts exactly. By the time I was at the age of wanting to be tackled by the boys (12? 13?), we’d pretty much outgrown the game.
As an 9-year-old tomboy, there was no way I’d give in and let them think I was girly. The girly-girls sat on the benches and talked about dolls and were afraid of getting their dresses dirty.
JFTR, we also called it ‘Smear the Queer.’ Played it in elementary school, Mid-Atlantic US, early 70s.
It was definitely a recess game; gym class was much more structured.
Late 70s in the Deep South, and we must have been an uncreative lot because we called it Tackle the Man with the Ball–perhaps sexist, but neither racist nor homophobic:)
A while back, DeathLlama mentioned playing this game with friends when he was a kid. My reaction was a brake-screeching, Scooby-Doo imitating, “Errhhhhh? Say whut? ‘Smear the queer’? THAT’S what it’s called? Seriously?”
His reaction was along the lines of, “Well, yeah,” but I remained incredulous. Seems as innocent (for the kids who played), ignorant, and blatantly offensive as the previously mentioned “nigger pile.” I’d never heard of it before.
You’re supposed to run for a touchdown when you get the ball.
We always called it “Tackle the Man.” But we Texans are always far ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to sensitivity regarding issues of gender and sexuality.
Oh, and I mostly played in elementary school, which was probably 40-50% black, so it’s safe to assume we didn’t call the pile a ‘nigger pile.’
We had that in Auckland in the 90s, but we called it StingBall. Throw the tennis ball hard enough and you ‘sting’ them. And if that happened to you, you hadn’t been stung, you’d been stinged
I vote we rename “Smear the Queer” with “Target the Effeminate Cocksucker for Destruction.” except it should be shortened to “Tec D” so it sounds edgier and cool and updated for the 2000’s.
Kid 1: Hey you guys wanna play some “Tec D”?
Kid 2: Hells yeah bitch. Your going down cocksucker.
I too rememebr Butt’s Up. That game was awesome. There was this one time in 6th grade where I had the chance to nail some punk kid who had picked on me in the 5th grade. I nailed his ass good. I heard from others that he was sore and bruised for several days. Sanctioned revenge is sweet.
