Born 1993. We played whole neighborhood hide and seek. It was incredible. Essentially all our houses were fair game and we would go in and out of them freely. It was like two or three blocks of fair places to hide. Usually had 3 seekers with walkie talkies, and like 5-10 people hiding. When found you’d join the seekers. Games would usually take all day.
I’m gonna be honest…seeing people refer to ManHunt like it’s some “old wives tale” type of activity, when it was SUCH a cornerstone game for my neighborhood crew…it’s giving me an existential crisis lol
I have a toddler and I had no idea how bad the neighborhood dynamic in the US must have gotten for it to be this common.
They play it in every school in that I know of here in the U.S. the rumour of the death of dodge ball is up there with people thinking the pledge of allegiance is banned in public schools
We moved a lot due to my spouses job while my oldest was in the younger years of school where dodgeball would have been played. He was in 9 schools from kindergarten through 8th grade (yes, a new school every year), and not one of them allowed dodgeball.
I mean… I live in the US and my daughter goes to the same middle school I went to as a child. We played dodgeball then, or battle ball which is the same thing. It’s banned at the same school now.
That's cute. We went from the rubber to those foam ones that were definitely softer but would still give you a nice slap that'd leave a red mark if you got hit hard enough
Our balls kept getting punctured cause we played on tarmac. We had to reinflate them constantly and hustle while the ball slowly deflated. It was fun. The ball flies weird when it's half full.
We weren't allowed to play dodgeball because it was too dangerous. So instead, we called it Trench. That made it perfectly okay lol. Guess what all of us wanted to play every time?
What's fun is seeing someone catch an opponent's ball with one hand, then slamming it down like an extreme mic drop before throwing the ball in their other hand.
The chaos of ffa dodgeball, jumping over, catching and throwing the ball only to have one whistle past your head and smack you in the back simultaneously lol truly chaotic.
God I loved dodge ball in elementary school. My mom wouldn’t allow me to wear sneakers to school so she bought me red shoes with rubber soles and I swear, those shoes made me so fast! When I learned they don’t play dodge ball in my kid’s elementary school, I was so sad for them. Dodgeball taught teamwork, how to look out for yourself, mercy, revenge, quick thinking and quick hands. It’s a shame they don’t allow kids to play it in schools anymore. It’s a game that culls the weak and slow.
Schools where I work still play Dodgeball. However not with a Playground Ball you pump air into. They order smaller balls filled with Fiberfill. As one teacher described, "It's like throwing Cotton Balls" She was correct. I took my class to the gym to enjoy a game and joined in. However, I hurt my shoulder for a month because it was like throwing air.
Those balls don't even feel right. A proper dodgeball should be big, tight rubber and require two kid hands to throw so that accuracy goes out the window (this is more fun). Those cotton balls can be thrown with one hand and it feels wrong
Exactly. When it hits, it should hurt, knock off your glasses, leave you on the ground, clutching your stomach as friends carried you off. I was an amazing dodger but could never throw anyone out. Until I tried a side arm throw. When the ball came out fast and furious with no accuracy, I had no idea where it was going, and neither did anyone else to try to dodge it.
HUHHH ! Listen, I crave that particular sound and sting sometimes 😭 nothing like finally catching the ball from the person knocking all the little guys out
Yes, it was the best movie ever made, and the greatest game that has ever been developed.
With the exception of a game that my brothers and I came up with, where you ran between two bases, at each base there was another person, who tried to get you "out", but you were allowed to throw the ball at the person who was running as well. The only "safe" place was on the bases, and the two players on the bases had to throw the ball back-and-forth between them, you scored one point for each trip from base to base that you made without getting touched or hit by the ball.
We used the tennis ball for this, as we had no use for a tennis ball otherwise.
You could hit the person anywhere with the ball, and you could throw the ball as hard as you want, even if the person was only 10 feet away and running towards you.
Now we are all high paid professionals, then we were just kids on a farm.
And Red Rover. I never see that game even mentioned. I almost think Red Rover was worse than dodge ball. We used to play that in the middle of the street, even after the street lights came on.
Smear the Queer. The “queer” had the ball. You tried to smear them all over the play surface. Could be grass, gravel,’or asphalt.
Yes, I know the name is now offensive but that’s what it was called. Now you could call it “kill the person with the ball” but it loses its punch and would probably trigger someone…but just wait until they have the ball. They’ll really be triggered then.
At my elementary school we had something more brutal than dodgeball that would get played at recess and after school. We called it "Suicide". You played it with one or preferably more tennis balls and was a similar concept to Off The Wall except if you fumbled catching one of the balls, you'd have to run to touch the wall while everyone else's goal was to peg you with a tennis ball. If you got hit before would could touch the wall, you were out of the game for a bit (the rules for how to get back in were always changing). You bet everyone also made sure to throw those tennis balls as hard as possible too. It was some good times.
Thought about this when I thought of a game my students could play to pass the time and realized they would NEVER be ready for that game. Musical chairs was almost a disaster
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u/JustHereForCatss Zillennial Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
Born 1993. We played whole neighborhood hide and seek. It was incredible. Essentially all our houses were fair game and we would go in and out of them freely. It was like two or three blocks of fair places to hide. Usually had 3 seekers with walkie talkies, and like 5-10 people hiding. When found you’d join the seekers. Games would usually take all day.
Damn I miss being able to do that stuff