Alvaro Yepes / Scroll

Dodgeball: another ball in the sky this summer

Allison Walker WAL04015@BYUI.EDU sports asst. editor

The smell of the rubber, the high-pitched hollow bounce or the deep “thwack” of a dodgeball will be back again for the first block of RecSports this summer.

After a semester, dodgeball players decided to continue to use the new regulation size dodgeballs, said Katie Rhoades, a senior from Pocatello, Idaho, and RecSports event coordinator. Previously, dodgeball was played with smaller balls. Rhoades said the feedback at the end of last fall semester’s trial runs was positive, and therefore, they switched over permanently this semester.

“Some girls complained that they hurt more when they got hit,” Rhoades said. “But the guys liked the bigger one because they could leave bigger welts.”

Chris Gilmore, a freshman from Visalia, Calif., said he enjoyed hitting people with the new balls. “These are better because they are actually dodgeballs and they really pack a punch.”

How does the ball feel about these packed punches and frenzied, multiple hurls across the court? “I’d probably be really dizzy,” Gilmore said, but Paul Leatham, a senior from Logandale, Calif., thought the ball would say, “Finally, a little attention.”

This human/ball interaction draws people for several reasons. Some came for the love of the game or a new experience, some came just because.

“I came because my ward passed around a sign up sheet,” Leatham said. “I needed to get busy living or else get busy dying,” he said.

One may wonder how players can get over their instincts to throw objects as hard as they can at other people, when their mothers most likely taught them throwing things wasn’t nice.

“Actually, my mom was the one who taught me to play,” Gilmore said.

Of the overall experience, Gilmore thought his days in elementary school dodgeball were more intense and brutal.

“People didn’t cry about getting hit in the face like they do here,” he said.