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Strollerderby
Kid Sues School for Dodgeball Injuries
Apparently using soccer balls for a game of dodgeball in the school gym was a bad idea. A twelve-year-old lost his teeth, and now his parents are suing the school.
Hasn’t he ever heard “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball?”
When I read the story of the lawsuit over at the NY Daily News, my first reaction wasn’t poor kid (I’m not heartless – that came next). All I could think was “wait, they still play dodgeball in schools?”
They’ve been steadily kicking it out of gym class since the early part of the millennium, and the movie Dodgeball didn’t do much to improve its image (hence the quote above if you missed it).
The most unathletic child in gym class (trust me), I’ve been a bit disappointed to see it go. Yes, the klutzy kid actually LIKED the sport everyone hates. Because unlike most sports, I didn’t have to try to catch the ball. That was the beauty of dodgeball. The exact mechanisms I’d developed to keep myself from becoming the object of everyone’s ridicule – aka avoiding contact with the ball at all costs, lest I look like an idiot – worked for me on a dodgeball court.
But somebody had to know using soccer balls was NOT a good idea. There’s a reason they’re generally limited to footwork.
Most unfortunate, the kid involved in the lawsuit, twelve-year-old Shane Reese, wasn’t even playing. He was sitting on the sidelines because he’d had dental work done recently. A misdirected ball hit him in the face and knocked out his teeth. Now his parents want the district to pay up.
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2 Comments
Bunny commented on Nov 19 09 at 1:28 pmI was also an expert at dodging. The problem is: if you’re that good at dodging and that poor at throwing/catching, eventually you will be the last person left – with your entire team hollering how much you suck from “jail” and the whole other team trying to nail you as hard as possible.
Oh, I do not miss dodgeball.
Tim commented on Nov 21 09 at 8:00 pmI can see where this would happen when I was in middle school, the gym teacher thought it would be a good idea to play dodge ball with volleyballs. I can remember the pain, and I’m 27 now.
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