We here in Singapore had never even played that game. We only see it in American cartoons and shows we watched that’s usually based in a School or the main character is attending at a school. Is it really that common there or it’s just cartoons and movies putting dodgeball in to make the film more interesting?
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We played it in middle school when I was growing up. They eventually took away the famous red rubber ball. I’m assuming due to injury concerns and we had these other softer balls.
Yeah it was generally everyone’s favorite game. By the time I came through the system (mid 2000s) they had gone soft, though, and we could only play with small plush balls (rather than the rubber and metal utility balls you see in shows and movies) and only under adult supervision.
Not sure if it’s still played today but it was definitely part of my experience in the 80s and 90s. Both the wall version and open version.
Yes, all throughout high school the best day in PE class was dodgeball day…
…unless you were the unpopular fat kid like me.
We played it once or twice a year when I was in elementary and middle school.
Cartoons/movies are just picking out interesting things about American culture, they’re not representative of real life in most cases.
Played it in school growing up, mostly during PE (physical education) which is like a gym class that everyone has to take. It was one sport out of many that was rotated like basketball, flag football, etc.
I don’t remember any organized dodgeball teams so it fell out of favor once you hit high school and the more traditional American sports were emphasized.
Absolutely a staple of gym class and recess games. My kids still play versions of it today.
That said, the balls used these days are much lighter and less likely to cause injury. Which is probably for the best.
Probably played in every gym class in America
Popular? It’s not something I’ve ever seen kids choose to do on their own on a playground. But there are tournaments and it is sometimes played in school in gym class.
It’s a bit (in)famous for it’s perceived brutality (and disparity) when you are a kid. When you are the nerdy girl in gym class and a dude on the football team is hurling balls at you with all his might — it’s memorable. Also, the not athletic boys can feel a bit humiliated since it not only highlights their lack of athleticism but they actually are getting beaned in the head due to it.
This past year a high school boy I know got a concussion and a broken wrist. He went to block the ball with his hand in front of his face (he’s a skinny, small kid) the hand/ball combo knocked him unconscious and he got a broken wrist.
Since gym is mandatory, dodge ball can cause a bit of dread for those who aren’t willing participants.
Yes, I loved dodgeball. Dodgeball and Kickball were by far my favorite school games. We didn’t play it every single day, but often enough. Getting knocked in the head with that red rubber ball at least once in your life is part of the experience.
Kids nowadays don’t play it at school and it shows
I graduated in 2016.
We definitely played modified versions of dodgeball all through middle school and into high school. It was really fun and I do kind of miss it.
“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. ”
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– Patches O’Houlihan
We definitely did. I was small but agile. It’s great when a guy with a strong arm whips it at you and it seems like a sure hit and then you get out of the way and you see the disappointment on his face.
Did girls play it, too?
We absolutely played dodgeball in gym class. We had little 6″ foam balls that you could beam 100 miles an hours. Made for some intense games. If you threw the ball as hard as you could and missed, the ball would fly to the back gym wall with a force so hard, it would sound like a gun going off, haha.
We played it through school and it was my personal favorite and I think most others in my classes. In high school they added bowling pins to it where you had to knock the pins down to win.
Not anymore. Our society has become too soft for dodgeball so it’s basically banned in schools.
It was widespread in the ’70s when I was in elementary school and I always thought it was fun. Unfortunately, it’s become far less common, to the point of being extinct in some areas over concerns over litigation, “fairness,” and “bullying.”
(yes, I expect criticism over the use of scare quotes, but don’t care to have a debate over my opinion)
I have great memories of middle school dodgeball but one in particular our PE teacher in the late 90s setting up dodgeball and the CRANKING newly released BAWITDABA. This is when I realized I had a crazy switch playing competitive sports. No one ever went to the nurse from playing and those kids who probably would never took part in the game. RIP character building school games.
We didn’t play it nearly enough in school. We had it for, like, a week in PE every year. My kids didn’t get it in PE but they join games at the local trampoline/ indoor sports place.
only if you know five D’s of dodgeball which are: “Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge.”
I loved playing dodgeball but only after the teacher made changes to make it safe. Early on we used the heavy rubber balls. The bigger boys would throw the ball hard at girls and hit us in the face. They’d get in trouble for it, but it didn’t stop them. I think I was in 1st or 2nd grade then. Then over time they got lighter rubber balls that weren’t as heavy and started separating us so that if the bigger boys wanted to play rough they could play their own game and the less athletic could play our own game. And if you didn’t want to play you could jump rope. This was between like 1986-1992 maybe. You should watch the film Dodgeball. It’s one of my favorites.
Yes we play Dodge ball. Usually with softer balls though
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball…
I mean at my school, we played it almost every day in gym. I hated it. If you think being blind was a good excuse to not have balls thrown at you, your wrong. They just tied me to another person and made an even bigger, slower moving target.
Bruh they made an awesome documentary on it a few years back. It’s called Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. The best dodgeball coach has a great philosophy on the sport and his favorite quote is “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”
Best PE game ever
I think you meant the sport which is always singular(dodgeball). If I heard dodgeballs I’d think of several balls of the type used for playing dodgeball(Wikipedia refers to it as a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_ball but I think of it as a dodgeball or kickball).
I’ll add that these balls are used for several popular playground games including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickball (sort of like baseball but you kick a ball) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_square. (Also the less well known game of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaga which is growing in popularity these days)
I met my husband at a company dodgeball tournament in 2017 (we were 25 and 31, though, so not in school)
I was homeschooled and even we played dodgeball with our neighborhood homeschool PE group. With the ubiquitous red ball.