In the film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, noted thespian Rip Torn proclaimed, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.” Perhaps he should have gone with “If you can dodge your bleak, crushing and soulless reality for even for a moment by reverting to childhood activities that induce sweet nostalgia to blunt the pain, you can be a Puget Sound student.”
The intramural dodgeball league at Puget Sound is equal parts middle school PE class and war zone. There are four total teams for this season’s section. Every Monday and Wednesday, these gym class heroes duke it out, tooth and nail. Their weapons are seven or so foamy balls. The battles are intense. The weakest links are revealed early and head to the sidelines to let the alpha dogs go to work. These bouts often end with slurred cursing and threats of impending disembowelment.
Sound fun? Freshman roommates Alicia Cohn and Sarah Rissberger think so.
“It’s a great way to blow off steam. My poor grades and cocaine habit fade into the background for at least a few minutes,” Cohn said. “There’s nothing like it.”
“I like to kick people,” Rissberger added.
We can all recall dodgeball from when we were young. For some, it was a triumph, cutting down enemies left and right, laughing maniacally.
Others remember it better for the hazy view of the nurse’s office after that huge kid who got held back did a number on your face. Either way, dodgeball was the quintessential game of our youth. But taking it back up in college is no surprise.
Whereas high school is the time to pretend you never liked Harry Potter and experiment with drugs, college has become a place to reconnect with one’s childhood and experiment sexually. The last hurrah before entering the real world often leaves students wishing to revisit a simpler time. YouTubing old cartoons, bragging about your N64, and engaging in Disney sing-alongs. The older we get, the younger we wish we were.
Occasionally, childhood and adulthood occupy the same space. Students love dodgeball, but as with prescription drugs, they like it better when combined with alcohol. Pre-gaming dodgeball is a ritual observed without fail for most.
Dodgeball player and consistently easy-out Reke “Not Again” Zosenberg said, “DODGEBALLLLL! GYRRAAAAAAAAAAGHHYAAAA.”
College is a special time in our lives. The mesh point between our beloved and unrealistic childhood and bright future, it is unique in blending the days before with the days ahead and who we think we are and who we will become. Revisiting our childhood is an integral phase of this all-important stage.
Getting wasted and hurling shitty foam balls at each other sounds like a waste of time, as does reveling in the mindless cultural productions of childhood. But as Rip Torn said in Dodgeball, “I do it anyway because it’s sterile and I like the taste.”
PHOTO COURTESY/ELI SPEIGEL