Duck or die, sucker
NLR’s Adult Dodgeball League lets grownups play like kids again
The volleyball court at the North Little Rock Community Center has been transformed into a battlefield, and the combatants are in a fight for dodgeball supremacy.
Rubber balls sail through the air on a recent chilly night as players duck and dance in an effort to not be hit, while seeking a target on the opposing team to strike with an accurate throw. Players shout encouragement, fling good-natured taunts and devise strategy as the six-member teams duel in a sport that many remember — not always fondly — from physical education class.
Welcome to the North Little Rock Parks and Recreation’s Adult Dodgeball League, where grown men and women hurl rubber balls at one another with unrestrained zeal for about an hour each Thursday starting at 7:30 p.m.
“It’s fun, intense, fast-paced,” says a slightly winded D.J. Newsom, of Sherwood, after his team, Dem Boyz, dropped a match to a team called PU. “I like that you can get a bunch of people together that have probably never met before and have a good time.”
For Tameka Martin, assistant community and fitness center director, dodgeball seemed like the perfect alternative to traditional, gym-based, adult league sports.
“It’s an old sport and I wanted to bring it back,” she says in her community center office before the games get underway. “It’s something different. We have basketball, we have volleyball. And I said, ‘I think I’m going to bring back dodgeball.’”
She makes a face and shakes her head “no” when asked if she was inspired by the 2004 Ben Stiller comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, foiling a reporter’s plan to gratuitously toss about quotes from the film. League play began at the community center in October. The current season started Jan. 19, with the league tournament set for 7:30 p.m. March 2.
Martin says six-week sessions will also be held in the summer — beginning in June — and the fall.
No special uniforms or equipment are required. Just wear something comfortable, says Martin, a Magnolia native who has worked for North Little Rock for 13 years. Harvey Harris is in trouble. The 52-year-old from North Little Rock, a member of the Knuckleballs, is all alone on his team’s side of the court, facing three members of the opposing team, all determined to put him out — as they have his five teammates.
This game, part of a bestout-of-three match, starts like all dodgeball games at the community center: Six rubber balls are lined up in the neutral zone across the center of the court. On the referee’s whistle, the six players on each team sprint to grab the balls, then retreat to their side of the court and commence throwing and dodging. Oh, and catching, but we’ll get to that.
The first few seconds, when all 12 players are still in play, are often hectic, like something from a preschool playground, with dodgeballers throwing while ducking, diving and contorting themselves to avoid being hit.
Getting hit, of course, means a player is out. Gone. Banished. Through.
But if a player catches a ball thrown at him, then the opposing thrower finds himself relegated to the sidelines, and the catcher can bring one of his eliminated teammates back into play.
This is Harris’ best chance for survival. The game grinds
ONE VS. THREE
to a crawl as he blithely dodges balls tossed his way, sometimes catching them on a bounce and rolling them back, eyeing his opponents, waiting for his chance to snag the perfectly thrown one out of the air, which would be a blow to his rivals and allow him to refortify his side of the court.
Alas, it is not to be. A coordinated effort by the opposing team catches him off guard, and he’s hit, ending the game.
A GAME FOR MOST EVERYBODY
Harris and his team likely have the highest average age of the five teams playing in the league, but that hasn’t slowed them down.
“Half our team is over 50,” Harris says. “We’d heard about this league. We play in a basketball league and thought we’d give this a try. It’s fun and good exercise. And we go eat at IHOP afterwards.”
Harris’ teammate, Terry Horton of North Little Rock, says the squad has improved considerably since its first games.
“The first Thursday, we were horrible,” says Horton, 63. “We didn’t know the rules or anything like that. The next week, we had three matches and won all three. We’re the oldest ones out here, but we probably have more fun than anybody else.”
Horton says the game is fun, but not wildly taxing.
“You don’t have to jump real high, you don’t have to run really fast, you just have to kind of dance, and you have to use strategy. There really is a strategy involved.”
Defeating players half his age is also pretty cool.
“There’s a real satisfaction when you’re older and you beat ’em,” Horton says with a smile.
Jayla Whitley, 20, who works at the community center, is enjoying her first outing in the league.
“I didn’t think it would be that much fun,” she says, between matches with friends on team PU. She adds that the game turned out to be quite enjoyable.
STORIED PAST
Some online digging turns up a few websites and blogs that trace the sport’s roots to Africa, where it was played with rocks. An English missionary brought the sport to England, where he replaced rocks with leather balls. Americans saw the game being played in 1884, and it eventually crossed the Atlantic, with a formal set of rules resembling today’s game drawn up in 1905.
Schoolkids and college students took it up, and dodgeball became a playground staple that crossed over into pop culture in the new century with not only the Dodgeball film, but frequent references on that satirical staple The Simpsons, where the drill sergeant-like PE teacher yells “Duck or die” and “Bombardment,” before pummeling his helpless charges (there was even a dodgeball tournament between the fourth and fifth grades featuring Bart Simpson, with the winner not having to play dodgeball the next year).
The savagery of those old PE class dodgeball games is nowhere to be found among the members of the North Little Rock league.
“We don’t allow any head
shots,” Martin says. “Nobody’s out there to kill anybody. This is really for fun.”
Indeed, getting smacked by a ball isn’t often the most painful part of the game.
Getting hit “never really hurts,” says Marty Mcnally, 28, of team Catch This. “It’s just rubber balls.”
Too much throwing, though, and your arm starts to feel like a soggy string bean.
“One time, I just had to quit throwing,” Mcnally says of a game that had him tossing more than normal. “The next day my arm was so tired.”
“That’s the hardest thing,” agrees Horton. “Your arm gets tired from all that throwing.”
Mcnally and his teammates, defending league champs, make short work of their rivals, winning four straight matches, including a thriller with Devin Hurt facing off against the hard-throwing Taydrick Willis of team PU in a one-on-one showdown eventually won by Hurt.
Like the Knuckleballs, Catch This hangs together away from the dodgeball.
“We have a kickball team,” says DeAndre Fitzgerald, 32, of Little Rock, who found out about the dodgeball league when he saw a flier advertising it. He recruited his fellow kickballers to come play.
He likes dodgeball because “it’s a kid’s game,” he says. “It’s like letting you be a kid again.”
To sign up for the summer season, visit nlr.ar.gov or call (501) 791-8541. Cost is $5 per player or $30 per team.