Game you loved (or hated) as a kid has found a new home at the YMCA

By Patrick Foose
Dayton Daily News

KETTERING -- Matt Rauch held the grapefruit-sized ''stinger" in his hand. "This is what dodge ball's all about — lighting someone up with this."

Rauch and five other men, most in their 30s and 40s, on this night are challenging a team of twentysomethings in a battle of the only two unbeatens in the South Community YMCA adult dodge ball league.

On a referee's command, the 12 men surge to the center of the court to grab one of the five rubber balls and the "stinger," prized because it inflicts pain and is so hard to catch.

The lucky ones get to fire the first shots, charging up to the line, picking their targets and letting fly.

For 45 minutes, they are 10 years old again.

The six-week league, which concluded play in mid-February, was the second time the YMCA at Marshall and East David roads in Kettering sponsored adult dodge ball.

The YMCA will hold an open tournament for teams from the community next Saturday and a new six-week league will begin soon after that.

Renee Haywiser, program director for the South Community YMCA, said the dodge ball league is part of an effort to get more adults involved in Y athletic programs.

"It all kind of goes back to when we were kids playing pickup games like kick ball, dodge ball and whiffle ball with the neighborhood kids in the back yard. We call them 'wacky sports,' '' she said, "games that don't take a lot of skill that a few friends can put a team together and just have fun."

Haywiser also is organizing an adult indoor kick ball league for early this spring.

It has been an up and down couple years for the dodge ball.

School districts in several states have banned or curtailed its role in physical education, saying it "glorifies picking on the weak."

Other districts report that it is among the most popular games, when students are given a choice.

But one of the biggest factors in dodge ball's resurgence may be the 2004 DodgeBall movie starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. The comedy was about the struggle of a band of misfits trying to save their run-down neighborhood gym from being taken over by a mega fitness center — with predictable results.

The men of the Thursday night YMCA league easily quote dialog from the movie. They speak of the "two-man swing" when a ball is caught and the "five D's of dodge ball" ("dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge").

The movie gave the game cult-hit status, but the lack of unified rules is one of the factors keeping dodge ball on the fringes of U.S. sport, said Rusty Walker, chief executive officer of the International Dodge Ball Federation Inc., based in Gulfport, Miss.

A hurdle for dodge ball could be in how many officials the federation says are needed to ensure the integrity of a match. The IDBF guidelines are for six referees and four linesmen to call a game.

"You can't truly call something a sport if it cannot be officiated in a consistent way."

Jason Hypes, adult sports coordinator for the South Community YMCA, said the games used only one official for the fall and winter dodge ball leagues.

"We basically let the teams officiate themselves, but for the (March 18) tournament, we'll probably have one referee on each side to keep an eye on things," Hypes said.

David and Nancy Brown and their friends in the neighborhood around Alter High School in Kettering fielded the only coed team in the South Community YMCA winter dodge ball league.

"I think I pulled every muscle imaginable, but it was a good time. I looked forward to it every Thursday," David Brown said.

"The whole reason we signed up was just to get out of the house and shake the winter rust off and maybe get a little exercise."

Brown said if standings were kept in the league, his group would have finished at the bottom against the three other all-male teams.

His fortysomething neighbors were always outmuscled. But as the season progressed, the other teams got to know them better and didn't play them so hard.

"It's like softball, sometimes people go over the top," Brown said. "But let's be serious, this is dodge ball."

He said the game has the ability to turn back, to a point.

"You think like a kid when you're out there, but your body doesn't react in the same way it used to. I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"We kept the pharmaceutical companies in business. Advil, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, you name it."