I sure do, and IMHO it’s one of the most fun sports out there.
I remember always preferring to be a pitcher because I was big and could throw the ball pretty damn fast. I was also able to catch all those kicks directly to the pitcher without being hurt.
I used to be a sucky kicker, until one day my right foot was hurting too much. I decided to try a gimpy kick with my left…and what do you, I got a home run. After that, I became one of the most wanted MVP’s in my elementary school (The 4th graders would buy me free chocolate milk if I played for their team against the my own 5th grade classmates).
Who else remembers this wonderful childhood sport? What were some of your favorite experiences with it?
Of course, there was always such shame when I swung my foot back to boot that ball with all my might, only to mis-kick and have it dribble away pathetically.
How could I forget kickball? We had a neighbor who had a bigger yard than the rest of us, so we used to play there. My kids play kickball now; in fact, one of them was describing a kickball game at school just the other day.
Heembo, there were two types of dodge we played - greek dodge, with or without enders, and crazy dodge, where there were no lines.
Did anyone ever play modified softball? You played it with a kickball sized ball. We played in the big neighborhood yard (see above), and I used to get home runs all the time because I was a dead pul hitter and there was a short left field fence.
There are 3 elementary schools in my hometown, and unfortunately the one I went didn’t play the kickball like you described. However, of course the other two did. My schools version of kickball was 2 teams that kicked 4 balls back and forth to each other. There was no objective or rules. I know you pity me don’t you?
In the 4th grade our class was undefeated. We had this one slow lumbering girl in our class that could boot the hell out of that ball.
All we had to do was load up the bases and she would bring us all in. As a young boy I never could understand why I couldn’t kick better than a “girl” but a win is a win.
Remember it? Hell, the way I see it, kickball ought to be an Olympic sport.
Were we the only ones who could call the kind of roll you wanted to kick from and, if the roll didn’t look right, you could roll the ball back to the pitcher? I can remember it now “Roll it slow and bouncy. Slow and bouncy.”
We played all the way to 8th grade. I didn’t like the game too much as I was usually the last person picked. I play as well as anybody else I just had no friends. (aawwwww) Any way on the last day of school at the end of my 8th year we did play.
This was actually my classes last day at this school because it only went up to grade eight and we were totally done for the year. We were playing our last recess as next year we went to high school and there is no recess there. So we are playing and the boy who has made most of the hell in my life for the last 3 years is pitching for the opposing team. Recess is near the end (and we were only doing a half day) and I come up to kick. He takes the oppurtunity to insult me a few more times in front of the class but he has no idea of the humilation I have in store for him.
He pitches. I kicked it to a hole in left center. He turns to watch the ball. I don’t run to first. I run straight at him. He turns to me a s;lit second befor impact and I see the fear on his face. I tackle him on the parking lot and sit on his chest and punch his face over and over again. Some other boys pull me off him and a Nun showed up. My mom had just arrived to pick me up and the Nun told me to sit in the car.
They talked to my mom about it and she told them ‘So what! He (the other boy) has had this coming for a long time and you turned you head the other way all the times he’s been picking on my son’ and walked out.
Ah, memories. That red ball always had the ability to deliver a whollop out of proportion to it’s weight. I still remember the time I got one right in the face when I was pitching. Damn thing bounced clear back to home plate without even touching the ground.
My school had a rainy day version of kickball called matball. It was played inside using those huge gymnastics floor mats for the bases and runners on base were not required to run when the person at the plate made a kick. They could wait on base if they didn’t think it was safe to run. That ended up with hilarious situations where you had 25 people on first base, 15 or 20 of whom would make a mad race to second when the ball was kicked. When the ball was caught & thrown at the mass of base runners, it might strike 3 or four of them and they’d be out.
With 10-20 runners crossing hime plate on every kick, we ended up with scores like 375-420, but it was loads of fun.
Remember kickball?! I just played kickball about a year ago! It was fabulous. A group of friends and I played right by the lake up in Chicago. It was beautiful.
I highly recommend going out and buying a playground ball and having a stroll down memory lane. It is truly a great game.
Nothing better than a Catholic girls’ school dodgeball game! Recently I heard that some parents were suing to have it banned in a local public school. Couldn’t find the cite but found another:
Cindy Weisman, Program Administrator for Physical Education for the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, says her organization does not support dodgeball as an appropriate practice for PE classes “because it uses children as human targets.”
“There are other activities that can teach children the same skills gained from playing dodgeball,” she points out.
Kaplan says the main problem with dodgeball is finding a ball that is heavy enough to be thrown with accuracy yet soft and light enough to not injure anyone. If thrown at high velocity, rubber playground balls, volleyballs, and soccer balls can sting the skin or cause a more serious injury. Sponge balls tend to be so light that they can cause the thrower to sustain a rotator cuff injury if thrown too hard. One possible solution is a vinyl-covered foam rubber ball, but even these could potentially cause injury if thrown hard enough at the face or another vulnerable body part.
Children can literally be knocked off their feet in dodgeball. Or they can get the wind knocked out of them if hit in the chest while attempting to catch the ball. A child could also get whacked in the head or face by ducking in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It can be hard to keep certain children from whaling the ball like a grenade during dodgeball. The risk for injury is increased when the thrower is bigger and stronger than the dodger. The importance of adult supervision during dodgeball–and strict enforcement of safety rules–cannot be overemphasized."
Am so glad I grew up before everything fun was banned.
They’re scared of dodgeball? Are they going to ban ALL of the really fun games? I swear that our society is getty all sissy-ish. Okay I know I sound like a pathetic, whiney valley girl, forgive me I haven’t gotten much sleep lately. But seriously, you can get hurt just sitting at your desk, you can get hurt doing anything, so why ban something due to the possibility of injury? I got quite a few black eyes from softball as a kid, all sorts of bruises, injuries and scrapes from soccer, scraped knees just running around on the blacktop… you all know that kids are bound to get hurt. If we keep them all “safe” and away from any possible danger how are they ever going to learn anything? Grrrr! I wanna see one of those kids that got over protected when they were young to come out and play highschool soccer, even at my “nerdy” school, they’ll die out in the real world. They’re just gonna screw the kids over in the long run.
Kickball was the only elementary school sport we played that I actually enjoyed. It was the only school sport I ever enjoyed, period, until team handball (we played it rough!) and billiards came along in high school.
Kickball was good. Nothing quite like the memory of kicking your first homerun, or making your first catch.
The fate of dodgeball that I hear about these days makes me a little sad. The ironic thing with the reasons I generally hear for banning it, I was an uncoordinated scrawny weakling with glasses–and I loved dodgeball.
