I was not at all aware of the controversy surrounding dodge ball when some friends and I (and our children) started playing dodge ball every other Friday. I did not realize we were potentially scarring the children for life, and only further enforcing our own lack of enlightenment. For in our ignorance, we enjoyed, nay loved, dodge ball.

Dodge ball occupies at least a small place in the lexicon of pop culture reserved for only those things that inspire true love, and perhaps deep misery. There is an 8-bit Nintendo "dodge ball" game that will soon be resurrected on the Game Boy Advanced. Dodge ball has been a staple of the South Park world for quite some time. Dodge ball and dodge ball allusions have popped up in a variety of television shows from King of the Hill's reference to "dodge ball sized hail" to entire episodes built around it on shows like Dexter's Laboratory. Okay, maybe I watch too many cartoons, but Vanity Fair listed dodge ball on its list of "in" items several months after we got our games going. Is that cool? (No, really, I don't know).

But before long, I learned that any attention focused on dodge ball was not all as glamorous as making it onto "in" lists compiled by people who may be bigger dorks than I am. As we tried to recruit players, more often than not the reaction was "Dodge ball!?! I hate that game!" Before long, I realized that this sentiment was more mainstream than the humorous and loving references to dodge ball in pop culture, and my own delight in the game.

There are actually organizations trying to ban dodge ball from gym classes. Why? To free up more time for running? The complaints against it seem to be less about dodge ball specifically than about competition in general. And the alternatives to dodge ball hardly seem to get around the core problem that gym classes—and life—are often made up of things that suck for some people, but are enjoyable for others.

It took me a great deal of struggle (a two-second search on Google.com to be exact) to get to the bottom of this controversy. I clicked on the first search item to access Lee Sherman's article "The Death of Dodge Ball" from the Fall 2000 issue of Northwest Education Magazine. I soon discovered that dodge ball is so wicked that it has made the (gasp) Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance's "Physical Education Hall of Shame." In fact, dodge ball is the "charter inductee" of this organization, number one on their list of public enemies. Right up there with dodge ball are other vicious "elimination games" like musical chairs. And who hasn't been damaged by some crushing defeat in musical chairs? The music stopping and starting without reason, the endless circling, the lunge for chairs--the horror!

One factor that will land a game in the Hall of Shame is the aforementioned "Focus on eliminating students from participation." Playing dodge ball results in less-skilled players getting out early, and spending time on the sidelines, when the less-skilled players are really the ones who need to be participating more. But what games are there where the less-skilled players get included a great deal, or are made to feel competent? Rock, scissors, paper? Tic tac toe? Sherman mentions several activities that are apparently acceptable, including trout fishing. Obviously, such an activity gives every kid equal access and equal opportunity for success because of the fair principles exercised by the trout. Fortunately for humans, trout aren't upset when they get eliminated.

Another shame criterion is the "potential to embarrass a student in front of the rest of the class." This problem will be completely eliminated if we can experience childhood from inside a pod. In the mean time, classrooms can be structured to be embarrassment-free or embarrassment-reduced. Teachers can stop asking questions. Giving speeches is definitely out. Students can be separated by gender to eliminate large categories of potentially embarrassing situations. According the Sherman, some acceptable P.E. activities include juggling plastic bowling pins, doing "intricate dance moves," and "mastering cool moves on in-line skates." Nope, there's no way anybody could be embarrassed while doing any of those.

"Overemphasis on and concern about the students having 'fun'" and "Extremely high likelihood for danger, injury, and harm" tied for my favorite shame criteria. As for fun, why let any of the kids have fun in gym class? That only leads to trouble. Danger, of course, is completely eliminated in the acceptable activities like kayaking, archery, and rock-climbing. We've all heard the stories of dodge ball comas, but who has ever heard of anybody drowning while kayaking, or plunging to their death while rock climbing? And arrows are obviously much safer than playground balls.

At any rate, the core of the complaint seems to be that kids who suck at dodge ball won't like it, and that some kids will be made to feel bad because they suck at it. But kids who suck at anything won't like it. This goes for dodge ball, basketball, gymnastics, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Can you keep kids so protected from things they dislike, that they can live a trauma-free life? (And I'm defining trauma here as anything that causes any kind of short-term negative feelings). By trying to eliminate all negative experiences, even marginally negative ones, aren't we just setting kids up for a big fall when they have to, say, get a job, or compete for a spot in a college, a position on a team, or anything else that is built (at least allegedly) on skill?

Those people I know who have an aversion to dodge ball seem to be much better adjusted than I and several of my dodge ball cronies are. They survived the trauma and came out on top. But maybe that's how this all works out. People who like dodge ball are clearly deranged, while those who dislike it are much better equipped socially. However, I am not sure where that leaves people who are so strongly opposed to dodge ball that they would actually seek to eliminate it entirely. They must be the ones with the really big problems.

Copyright © 2001 Jonathan Schildbach. All Rights Reserved.

Jonathan Schildbach is *spark-online's regular insight into the world of minutiae.