Dodgeball

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Most of us remember the sport as the scourge of gym students around the country. It seemed a sport designed by sadists to allow the strong to prey upon the weak, naturally making it the nightmare of every kid with more brains than brawn. Very recently, dodgeball has been banned in schools on the grounds that it's too dangerous and breeds aggression.It seems like just a distant memory that we were all on the playground hoping not to be nailed in the head by that big red ball. Well, adults are bringing this elementary school game back in a big way! Proving we are never too old to partake in a good ole' game of dodgeball.The rules haven't changed much. Two teams battle it out on the court by throwing up to eight rubber balls at each other. If a player gets hit by a ball then that person is out, and if a player catches a ball that another player threw then he/she is out. The last team with a player left wins the game.A Los Angeles dodgeball league attracts as may as 400 people to weekly games. Even Ben Affleck has been spotted on the dodgeball courts of L.A. Most recently, the Los Angeles Dodgeball Society held the Burt Reynolds Dodgeball 6 on 6 tournament where girls and guys alike were required to wear a mustache.Dodgeball entered the popular consciousness a few years ago when a high profile movie starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller came out touting the sport. Although the movie featured only male-identified characters and low-brow comedy standbys such homosexual panic, fat girls and racial caricatures, the movie put the sport of Dodgeball on the map.While that movie can be partially attributed to the rebirth of the sport, the resurgence of dodgeball was already well underway. Leagues such as the National Amateur Dodgeball Association (formed in 2000), the International Dodgeball Federation (formed in 1996), and other emerging entities such as the National Dodgeball League, National Dodgeball Association, and others have all existed since before the popularization of the sport through the media.