Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosRoyce Nelson of Smolich Snipers hurls a ball for a hit during dodgeball action last week at Morning Star Christian School in Bend. There are five teams taking part in the Spring 2010 Coed Dodgeball League.
Photos by Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
Ready, aim — dodgeball
New league allows players to take the court and let go
By Katie Brauns / The Bulletin
Published: March 09. 2010 4:00AM PSTLet’s face it. Dodgeball is brutal.
Though many of us can recall visions of fifth-grade gym class, where the slam jam resulted in only a few casualties, adult dodgeball looks a lot different.
When 150 to 200 pounds of muscle launches a heavy 8.5-inch-diameter rubber ball through the air and that ball connects with a body part, it’s going to hurt a little.
“It’s painful,” says Joseph Shinn, 36, of Bend, during the first night of the Spring 2010 Coed Dodgeball League at the Morning Star Christian School in southeast Bend.
“I got hit in the face and shot in the back by somebody,” says Shinn, who plays for the Smolich Snipers, a team made up of employees of Smolich Motors of Bend. “It was a good time.”
“All I gotta say is, ‘Ouch!’ ” exclaims Smolich teammate Michael Ivens, 34, of Bend. “I skinned my knee and took one in the jimmy. It’s definitely not a smoker’s sport,” he adds, admitting that he smokes.
“Guys are intense about everything,” says Kaila Brothers, 25, of Bend, who plays for the Subaru of Bend team. “You can take the easiest sport and they make it a conquest. They’re crazy.”
Dodgeball is typically played with six players on each team (eight in the Central Oregon league, two of whom have to be female).
The objective for both teams is to eliminate all players from the opposing team.
Picture a basketball court. Six balls are lined up at the center of the court and the two teams line up facing each other along the baselines at the opposite ends of the floor. When the first game starts, players from both teams run to the center of the court and grab balls and start chucking them at their opponents. Players who get hit by a ball thrown by an opposing player are out and must then step to the sidelines. If a player catches the ball, the opponent who threw the ball is out. Players who are out may resume play if a teammate catches the ball. No outs for hits in the head or below the knees. Several games are played within a 45-minute time frame (the time allotted for each match in the Central Oregon league). The team that has won the most games wins the match.
Five teams currently make up the 2010 Winter Dodgeball League, hosted by All-Stars Basketball Academy, a local youth basketball training organization offered at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Oregon and other locations around the area. Organizers Jared Webb and Danny Makepeace say the league has room to grow, and they welcome more teams to sign up.
“It will catch on,” says Webb, who moved to Bend from Seattle a few months ago. “We used to play in downtown Seattle in the parks on tennis courts, and there were leagues all over the place. And I got here and there was nothing.”
Webb and Makepeace, also of Bend, run All-Stars Basketball Academy. They decided to offer other sports for adults to raise money for the basketball academy, and part of the proceeds from the adult leagues go to partners Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Oregon. The organizers say they plan to host another dodgeball session in the summer.
“How could you NOT want to come out on a weekday and play dodgeball?” Webb asks. “Everybody has played dodgeball at one point in their life, and everybody can associate dodgeball with when they were a kid. It’s such a great opportunity to relive childhood memories.”
The 45-minute dodgeball sessions take a toll on the players.
“Forty-five minutes felt like two hours,” says Redmond’s Jesse Grover, 30, of the Smolich team as sweat drips off his face.
Some of the players liken dodgeball to therapy.
“It helps with aggression and stress. It’s good stress relief,” says Greg Thiessen, 40, of Bend, shortly after his Smolich Snipers team steps off the court following a 10-9 win against the Old Dodgers.
In the background, a new match is starting between teams called Subaru of Bend and the Blacked-out Bank Robbers.
Webb shouts “Dodgeball!” and throws down his arms.
Bass-heavy music fills the well-lit school gym, and the game is on.
Blacked-out Bank Robbers, a team of employees from Bend’s Powder House ski shop, is dressed in various denim attire for a 1950s street-gang effect. And Subaru of Bend team members are all wearing white and black T-shirts with the letters SOB printed on them. The teams ease into play and at first all the throwing seems random. But after several games, the team members are attacking together. They wait for the right moment, then all fling balls at the same time.
“It’s a lot of work,” says SOB’s Bob Tippet, 50, of Bend, moments after getting slammed in the face with a ball. “It’s physical: running, jumping — and making sure the ball doesn’t hit you in the face like it did me. I was out by myself and three balls came at one time; it’s hard to watch all three of them. It kind of upset me for a second, but it’s all in good fun.”
After the game is over, players come off the court a bit battered and bruised, some limping. But every one of them is smiling. After all, it is just dodgeball.
“It’s one of those old school-ground sports you played when you were 8, 9, 10 years old,” says Ray Chapa, 54, of Bend, who plays for the Subaru team. “And at that time you had no worries at all. ... And your future was bright and rosy. It kind of brings that feeling back when you are out here. You just forget everything.
“All you do is take your opponent’s head off.”
Katie Brauns can be reached at 541-383-0393 or at kbrauns@bendbulletin.com.
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