May 1st / 3rd
"Dodge Ball Bans are Ludicrous"
I played organized sports as a youth, including baseball which I dearly
loved.
But my favorite disorganized sport was what we called Battle Ball. It
was a little rougher version of dodge ball, and consisted of two groups of
guys lined up across from each other on a basketball court. Combatants would
attempt to drill every player on the opposing side with a light weight
rubber ball. It was exhilarating and fun, and it was the most popular part of
physical education classes.
That was then, and this is now.
Somewhere along the way, the PC mongers began looking to ban or regulate
everything that remotely resembled anything aggressive in speech or in
action.
One of their targets was dodge ball.
By May of 2001, TIME magazine reported that a growing number of school
districts had banned Dodge Ball in states like Texas, Virginia, Maine, and
Massachusetts. And, today, the anti Dodge Ball movement is stronger than
ever.
Combatants on both sides of the issue were interviewed recently on HBO’s “
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel”. One was Physical Education scholar Neil
Williams from Eastern Connecticut State University. Williams, considered
by some PE pacifists to be the guru of the ban Dodge Ball revolution, told “
Real Sports”,
“Dodge Ball is like going hunting. It brings out the worst in kids.
Kids are human targets. It’s not a game that has values we should be teaching
our children”.
Paul Zintarski, a PE Director at Naperville Central high school in
Illinois was even more emphatic, saying, “Anybody who teaches Dodge Ball in this
day and age should be fired”.
But if Williams and Zintarski are the leaders of the movement, then
Christine Hollingsworth is the poster girl. Hollingsworth is principal of an
elementary school in Phoenix, Arizona, where she has adapted a number of
athletic activities so as to be played without any physical contact whatsoever.
For example, her studentsplay tag, buty instead of tapping the person who
is “it”, she requires her kids to step on the shadow of the intended
target ( I guess they can’t play tag at high noon). And when Hollingsworth’
s students make a good play, they give each other “air fives”. It’s like
a high five, except with no touching.
Fortunately there are a few sane people left in this country who have been
willing to stand up to the anti Dodge Ball forces. One is Matt Laybash, a
writer for the Weekly Standard. He calls the movement to ban Dodge Ball
the “wussification of America”. Laybash claims that people who want to
take competition out of Phys Ed altogether are, in fact, cheating our kids.
Liddie McNutty agrees. She has been a physical education teacher in
Maryland for over 30 years, and has continued to fight for the right to include
Dodge Ball in her classes. She believes that Dodge Ball teaches kids life
lessons, and she also points out that, “not a single student has ever been
injured playing Dodge Ball”.
But opponents of Dodge Ball don’t let facts get in the way of a good
story, and in today’s PC society, banning Dodge Ball is a good story.
In spite of that, there are organizations working hard to preserve the
controversial sport. One such group is the International Dodge Ball
Federation. Another is the National Amateur Dodge Ball Association whose press
release now promotes their beloved sport as a “more safe and enjoyable sport”.
They cite the use of rubber-coated balls and safety-conscious rules.
Returning to “Real Sports”, I couldn’t help but notice an ironic twist to
Gumbel’s program line-up that day. The show began with a report on seven
outstanding high school athletes in Virginia Beach who had been shot over
the past year. All of them were innocent victims of senseless violence by
young men with too much time on their hands, and no outlet for letting off
steam. It made me wonder if such violence could have been prevented early
on had the murderous punks been too tired to pull a trigger because they
had been playing Dodge Ball all day.
I exaggerate, of course, but the point cannot be denied that activities
like Dodge Ball give young people an outlet in which to act out their
aggressions in a safe environment.
Beyond that, it is important for kids to know what failure is. Laybash
lamented that banning Dodge Ball actually cheats kids. Clearly, not
everyone can be the winner in Dodge Ball, and so it is in life. What happens to
a young man who is shielded from losing, then, one day experiences an
embarrassing loss of a job, scholarship, or promotion? What happens when he
is rejected by a girl he really likes? How will he handle coming in second
place if he’s never been prepared for that scenario? Chances are he might
become violent or aggressive in manner or in deed, and that makes lack of
life skills far more dangerous than getting hit with a Dodge Ball.
Balls are easier to dodge than bullets, so it’s time for these do-gooder
activists to bite the bullet, and just let the kids play. It might save
us all a lot of problems later on.
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