Sports > November 18, 2004

By Gerard McMahon

Old Gold & Black Reporter

Admit it. As much enjoyment as you got from those relay races and kickball games and whatever that parachute thing was, all you ever wanted to do growing up in gym class was peg people as hard as you could with those rubber playground balls.

Now you are in college, and we all know what that means.

You can now throw the ball so much harder than you could in grade school.

Thanks to the movie “Dodgeball,” starring Ben Stiller, the sport is making a comeback on college campuses across America, including a 28-team intramural league at Wake Forest.

“The first night, nobody knew what to expect,” said junior Dan Connors, who runs the league. “The league has grown tremendously. It’s been more than we could ever hope for.”

While no one quite knows in which gym class dodgeball first originated, the concept of dodgeball has been passed down from generation to generation.

Several dodgeball athletes believed their forefathers were nothing more than cavemen hurling rocks at each other, but one athlete’s philosophy would certainly make Charles Darwin smile.

“Fundamentally, dodgeball is a metaphor of life,” sophomore Louis Fiorilla said. “The strong eliminate the weak by pelting them with rubber balls. It’s natural selection in its purest form.”

Fighting to the death on the basketball courts outside of Collins Residence Hall, intramural dodgeball has taken the school by storm, not to mention a certain national publication as well.

Sports Illustrated recently signed on to sponsor the intramural playoff tournament, agreeing to donate shirts and DVDs to the champions. 

The magazine is planning on sending a photographer to campus Dec. 2 to photograph the semifinals and finals for Sports Illustrated’s feature on dodgeball’s growing popularity on college campuses.

“I think it’s great that Sports Illustrated is coming all the way to Wake Forest to scout our team, because the Downtown Denny-Browns are one of the premier teams in the nation right now,” sophomore Sinan Denny-Brown said.

The pre-game trash talk notwithstanding, the beauty of dodgeball comes in the ability to take out all your pain and anger from that failed test on the scrimpy kid across the court from you with the huge glasses and no athletic ability to speak of.

So maybe that kid does not actually exist in Wake Forest’s intramural dodgeball, but we can all at least pretend.

From the battle cries as the two teams charge midcourt to pick up the balls to the elaborate jump-throws made on the dead sprint up to midcourt to the all-too-embarrassing dropped catch, dodgeball has a little something in it for everyone.

The rules are simple and traditional: six players per team throw the ball at each other; if you get hit, you’re out and if you catch it, the person who threw it is out and one player from your team can come back in.

The last team standing wins.

There is endless strategy in which dodgeball athletes will rush midcourt to capture the balls; does the team try to catch balls or let them fall? Does the team send one man sprinting to midcourt to fake a jump throw, only to have two players weave out behind him to fire balls at their unsuspecting foes?

The infinite possibilities boggle the mind.

“The strategy and quality of play have progressed every game,” said freshman Brad Matthews, who helps Connors run the league and officiate games.

Whether you are one of the fine athletes scampering across the court eluding flying balls or one of the many fans in the standing-room only crowd, we can all agree on one thing: Dodgeball is still the greatest gym game of all time.