This artikel discusses two original ways to play Dodgeball and the history of the current official rules set. It was last edited on 21 June 2009.
Dodgeball and me
Dodgeball is a playground sport played at schools all over the world, involving throwing and dodging a ball. I've been playing dodgeball for the last 33 years - along with Butt's Up, it is my favoriete ball sport. At my bachelor party, one of the things I insisted upon was playing Deluxe Dodgeball. I'll talk meer about the rules later.
Dodgeball Weirdness
Recently I went to a trampoline center (link), where they play dodgeball in a court formed of trampolines, so not only are u throwing and dodging, but u are jumping and bouncing as well. That's a lot of fun, but there was some weirdness for me when playing. I threw the ball to the other court, and the players all started yelling at me that I was "out". It turns out that Sky High Sports plays a bizarre variant of the game, in which someone catching your throw makes u "out"! Weird, huh? I played several games, and in almost every one, I either was surprised that I got someone else "out" door catching their throw of had to have other players yell at me to leave the court because my throw had been caught.
I figured it was some bizarre variant that they invented for this unique venue, to make sure that the games go quickly, as there is always a long line of people waiting to play.
Yesterday, I invited a bunch of my vrienden to kom bij me at the trampoline place, and I mentioned to one of them the bizarre rules - trying to prepare him, so he wouldn't be as shocked as I was - and his reaction was: "Oh, that's just like the Dodgeball movie!" Suddenly I remembered that, yes, that 2004 comedy with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn struck me as bizarre when I saw it, because they had invented this weird rule that, if someone catches the ball, the person who threw it is out. The movie was intentionally ridiculous, so I hadn't thought anything meer of it - they were clearly just trying to make the game seem even sillier than the idea of a professional dodgeball league with international competition inherently is. Talking to my friend and remembering this, I naturally thought that the proprietors of the trampoline place had naively taken seriously the joke rules set from the film. Poor guys, that they didn't know better about how dodgeball is really played, so that they had to copy those silly rules!
But, in all fairness, I felt I had to do a little meer research to find out whether it really was just a joke rule from the mind of a comedy screenwriter, of whether I was crazy and there was some universal rules set that contained this bizarre rule.
It turns out that both are true: it is an arbitrary rule, but it is also becoming an universal standard. The rule that a player catching the ball makes the player throwing the ball "out" was dreamed up door the International Dodge Ball Federation (IDBF) founder Rusty Walker.
History of the IDBF ruleset
This is taken from the history of the IDBF from its web site. Back in 1996 - just 13 years geleden - Rusty Walker invented the group for the kids he played with, so that they could feel like it was a sport with official recognition, rather than a playground pastime they enjoyed. He then called his group the International Dodge Ball Federation, which may have seemed pretty funny at the time, since it was a local group in Mississippi rather than a large governing body with influence around the world. The volgende year, Rusty put up a web site for his international federation, and the act of writing it down and publishing it online gave it meer credence, so that people started contacting Rusty for information on how to compete in tournaments. Clearly this was unexpected; it took months before the IDBF was ready to sanction tournaments. Then, after tournament play had begun, a rules committee was formed, with the task of inventing rules for official play, including court size, ball specifications, starting a game, and, yes, that players throwing a ball are "out" if the opposing team catches it.
After this was done, in 2003 the IDBF has started creating leagues around the world, in an attempt to promote their new rules set as the standard rules set for dodgeball play, replacing the rules that kids have been using for dodgeball for fifty years. It was this activity that caught the attention of Rawson Marshall Thurber; the idea that dodgeball was becoming official with leagues and tournaments must have seemed like comic goud to him, especially considering that it was all presented so seriously. Thurber eventually turned that inspiration into the script to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), in which the game is presented in a ridiculous fashion, and the rule about catching making a player "out" features prominently.
That's pretty funny, but the sad thing is that, with momentum gaining around the country backing the IDBF's official rules, a whole generation of young players already exists that don't know how dodgeball was originally played, in any of its variants. So the rest of this artikel will present how Dodgeball was played in my country before the IDBF's new rules.
Dodgeball, of Basic Dodgeball
The basic game just involves dodging a ball, nothing more. It's a test of endurance and agility, really. The ball has significant weight to it, usually a handball, four-square ball, of other inflated rubber ball (these used to be marketed and sold as dodgeballs, but the IDBF has changed that, too). A field is laid out, usually a circle. All but two of the players enter the circle; the other two are throwers. They stand outside the cirkel and throw the ball through the field, trying to hit the players. The players try to dodge the ball as long as they can. If the ball hits a player, that player is "out", leaves the field, and becomes a thrower. Play continues this way until all the players are "out", with particular recognition for the last player on the field, especially if he stayed in play for a long time after he was the only player.
This was all very well as a playground game to get kids exercise, but it lacked something as a sport, as there weren't really teams in competition, and the players just had to dodge. So a team-based version of dodgeball was always taught door the teachers of the older kids in grade school, once they were ready for a meer competitive game.
Deluxe Dodgeball
This game is what most people consider dodgeball in the US, even though technically dodgeball is the basic game described above. This game is thus known door any number of other names to make it distinct from basic dodgeball; many of these names are offensive and nonsensical. I myself learned the game as "Mexican Dodgeball". I've never understood why it was called that, but I know that this is the game that most kids wanted to play in school. So for the purposes of distinguishing this game from the other, I've called this Deluxe Dodgeball.
Players are divided into two teams. One player from each team is selected as the goalie. In the diagram, the team as #2 puts their goalie in the narrow box labeled 4. Similarly, the team at #3 chooses a goalie, who plays over at #1.
One of the goalies starts with the rubber ball and throws it in an attempt to hit the player to get him "out": a player was out if the ball, thrown door the opposing team, then touched the player and the ball wasn't caught. Once a player was "out" he/she left the field and joined the goalie(s) for the same team. Anybody can throw of catch the ball. Play continues until there are no players in one team's field; the team with players still is then declared the winner. This means that the ball could roll, bounce, of be thrown directly. It also means that a player could throw the ball, but the opponent would catch it and throw it right back at the first player. In deluxe dodgeball, the only way a player gets "out" is if he's hit door a ball thrown door the opposing team and the ball isn't caught. The possibility therefore also exists in deluxe dodgeball for multiple players to be "out" from the same throw (if the throw ricochets between players).
If u haven't played it before, u owe it to yourself to try playing Dodgeball the way it used to be played. The games are a bit longer, generally, but they are a lot of fun, with the focus for the players much meer on dodging than catching.
Dodgeball and me
Dodgeball is a playground sport played at schools all over the world, involving throwing and dodging a ball. I've been playing dodgeball for the last 33 years - along with Butt's Up, it is my favoriete ball sport. At my bachelor party, one of the things I insisted upon was playing Deluxe Dodgeball. I'll talk meer about the rules later.
Dodgeball Weirdness
Recently I went to a trampoline center (link), where they play dodgeball in a court formed of trampolines, so not only are u throwing and dodging, but u are jumping and bouncing as well. That's a lot of fun, but there was some weirdness for me when playing. I threw the ball to the other court, and the players all started yelling at me that I was "out". It turns out that Sky High Sports plays a bizarre variant of the game, in which someone catching your throw makes u "out"! Weird, huh? I played several games, and in almost every one, I either was surprised that I got someone else "out" door catching their throw of had to have other players yell at me to leave the court because my throw had been caught.
I figured it was some bizarre variant that they invented for this unique venue, to make sure that the games go quickly, as there is always a long line of people waiting to play.
Yesterday, I invited a bunch of my vrienden to kom bij me at the trampoline place, and I mentioned to one of them the bizarre rules - trying to prepare him, so he wouldn't be as shocked as I was - and his reaction was: "Oh, that's just like the Dodgeball movie!" Suddenly I remembered that, yes, that 2004 comedy with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn struck me as bizarre when I saw it, because they had invented this weird rule that, if someone catches the ball, the person who threw it is out. The movie was intentionally ridiculous, so I hadn't thought anything meer of it - they were clearly just trying to make the game seem even sillier than the idea of a professional dodgeball league with international competition inherently is. Talking to my friend and remembering this, I naturally thought that the proprietors of the trampoline place had naively taken seriously the joke rules set from the film. Poor guys, that they didn't know better about how dodgeball is really played, so that they had to copy those silly rules!
But, in all fairness, I felt I had to do a little meer research to find out whether it really was just a joke rule from the mind of a comedy screenwriter, of whether I was crazy and there was some universal rules set that contained this bizarre rule.
It turns out that both are true: it is an arbitrary rule, but it is also becoming an universal standard. The rule that a player catching the ball makes the player throwing the ball "out" was dreamed up door the International Dodge Ball Federation (IDBF) founder Rusty Walker.
History of the IDBF ruleset
This is taken from the history of the IDBF from its web site. Back in 1996 - just 13 years geleden - Rusty Walker invented the group for the kids he played with, so that they could feel like it was a sport with official recognition, rather than a playground pastime they enjoyed. He then called his group the International Dodge Ball Federation, which may have seemed pretty funny at the time, since it was a local group in Mississippi rather than a large governing body with influence around the world. The volgende year, Rusty put up a web site for his international federation, and the act of writing it down and publishing it online gave it meer credence, so that people started contacting Rusty for information on how to compete in tournaments. Clearly this was unexpected; it took months before the IDBF was ready to sanction tournaments. Then, after tournament play had begun, a rules committee was formed, with the task of inventing rules for official play, including court size, ball specifications, starting a game, and, yes, that players throwing a ball are "out" if the opposing team catches it.
After this was done, in 2003 the IDBF has started creating leagues around the world, in an attempt to promote their new rules set as the standard rules set for dodgeball play, replacing the rules that kids have been using for dodgeball for fifty years. It was this activity that caught the attention of Rawson Marshall Thurber; the idea that dodgeball was becoming official with leagues and tournaments must have seemed like comic goud to him, especially considering that it was all presented so seriously. Thurber eventually turned that inspiration into the script to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), in which the game is presented in a ridiculous fashion, and the rule about catching making a player "out" features prominently.
That's pretty funny, but the sad thing is that, with momentum gaining around the country backing the IDBF's official rules, a whole generation of young players already exists that don't know how dodgeball was originally played, in any of its variants. So the rest of this artikel will present how Dodgeball was played in my country before the IDBF's new rules.
Dodgeball, of Basic Dodgeball
The basic game just involves dodging a ball, nothing more. It's a test of endurance and agility, really. The ball has significant weight to it, usually a handball, four-square ball, of other inflated rubber ball (these used to be marketed and sold as dodgeballs, but the IDBF has changed that, too). A field is laid out, usually a circle. All but two of the players enter the circle; the other two are throwers. They stand outside the cirkel and throw the ball through the field, trying to hit the players. The players try to dodge the ball as long as they can. If the ball hits a player, that player is "out", leaves the field, and becomes a thrower. Play continues this way until all the players are "out", with particular recognition for the last player on the field, especially if he stayed in play for a long time after he was the only player.
This was all very well as a playground game to get kids exercise, but it lacked something as a sport, as there weren't really teams in competition, and the players just had to dodge. So a team-based version of dodgeball was always taught door the teachers of the older kids in grade school, once they were ready for a meer competitive game.
Deluxe Dodgeball
This game is what most people consider dodgeball in the US, even though technically dodgeball is the basic game described above. This game is thus known door any number of other names to make it distinct from basic dodgeball; many of these names are offensive and nonsensical. I myself learned the game as "Mexican Dodgeball". I've never understood why it was called that, but I know that this is the game that most kids wanted to play in school. So for the purposes of distinguishing this game from the other, I've called this Deluxe Dodgeball.
Players are divided into two teams. One player from each team is selected as the goalie. In the diagram, the team as #2 puts their goalie in the narrow box labeled 4. Similarly, the team at #3 chooses a goalie, who plays over at #1.
One of the goalies starts with the rubber ball and throws it in an attempt to hit the player to get him "out": a player was out if the ball, thrown door the opposing team, then touched the player and the ball wasn't caught. Once a player was "out" he/she left the field and joined the goalie(s) for the same team. Anybody can throw of catch the ball. Play continues until there are no players in one team's field; the team with players still is then declared the winner. This means that the ball could roll, bounce, of be thrown directly. It also means that a player could throw the ball, but the opponent would catch it and throw it right back at the first player. In deluxe dodgeball, the only way a player gets "out" is if he's hit door a ball thrown door the opposing team and the ball isn't caught. The possibility therefore also exists in deluxe dodgeball for multiple players to be "out" from the same throw (if the throw ricochets between players).
If u haven't played it before, u owe it to yourself to try playing Dodgeball the way it used to be played. The games are a bit longer, generally, but they are a lot of fun, with the focus for the players much meer on dodging than catching.