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Comment by dm2 | Hacker News Reader

Dodgeball is very fun.

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.

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While i'd agree that it's not fun to get hit in the face with a hard rubber ball, all the foam balls I've ever used have a considerable amount of drag and are impossible to throw well.

Agreed, I'd like to see a kickstarter for a proper dodgeball (proper ballistic profile without risk of injury.)

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.

Children being bullies feels like something to do with teaching and supervision, and not with the activity.

For those of us who wear glasses, dodge ball presented some significant additional dangers.

Eh.. it's not too bad. A scratch here and there, and the odd glasses flying off. It's way more fun than it is dangerous :)

Yeah, well, I avoided an event of this general nature until quite recently, a decade or so ago. I was very glad Dermabond was in common use to suture up the gash above my eye, I hate to think what the alternatives were back in the '70s.

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....

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