How Dodgeball Became America's Most Demonized Sport
priceonomics.com
priceonomics.com
I'm not a fan of the hard rubber balls or volleyballs that are used sometimes, foam balls won't give you a bloody nose if you are hit in the face with one.
Would it be an issue to separate children and let parents choose which sports they play in gym class? I remember we had to play with scarves in elementary school because dodgeball was too "dangerous". SCARVES. THROWING SCARVES UP IN THE AIR, WTF.
If fun activities are taken out of gym class then kids will not want to be active, and that's much more dangerous than the occasional bloody nose or busted lip.
No, dodgeball is no fun at all when the stakes are higher and you aren't yet well coordinated (this was high school; for some reason, I didn't get coordinated until my college years, perhaps when I stopped growing...).
There's also the minor detail of it being involuntary. I should have told the coaches to f--- off and that I'd get a GED when the time came to graduate....
Dodgeball is a tremendously fun game. The danger is that some children use it as an excuse to gang up on a child on the opposite side. Classic rubber dodge balls essentially allow students to deliver a pretty severe beating to that child, in a school sanctioned fashion.
This is why most adult dodgeball leagues used weighted heavily padded balls in lieu of the standard rubber playground ball. They suck to throw, but they won't hurt anyone.
We need a dodgeball that strikes a happy medium, in order to restore what I think is one of the most fun activities as kids. When we voted what to play in elementary gym class, dodge ball won overwhelming every time.
A safe properly throwable ball would do wonders for dodgeball.
Maybe if the kid dealing with his parents divorce got to play dodgeball in second period he'd be able to calmly sit and pay attention in third and fourth.
Maybe if the victim could punch his bully once without fear of zero-tolerance policies suspending/expelling him, the problem wouldn't continue to build until they snap and do something drastic or more often, just develop lasting social/emotional issues.
Dodgeball was a fun part of grade school. We had a rule that you couldn't throw the ball at someone's head. I never saw an injury and the best players on the opposite team were more likely to be targeted than the weakest.
The fact that some young people stress out over dodgeball doesn't mean its evil; it means they need to work through that fear. Much more valuable than just avoiding it.
They're not aggro-competitive and most of their leagues use very throwable, virtually pain-free foam balls.