I won a dodgeball game once.

kevinthestrangelogo4My friend Bradley Sands has a new book out about Dodgeball, called Dodgeball High (available on Amazon here). You should buy it because he’s a great writer and his books are hilarious.

Little known fact: I won a Dodgeball game in junior high once. I was a complete loser in school. I was one of the dorks who got picked on in class and generally looked at as nothing. So, if I wasn’t the last kid picked on the team, I was damn close. Maybe there was a fatter, less athletic kid nobody liked in class, but flip a coin and I could have easily been dead last choice. Likewise, nobody gave a shit to try to knock me out of the game.

The competitive jocks were out for each other, and the other talentless losers always made the mistake of girly tossing their ball directly at the jocks’ chests, letting the jocks catch their ball, which was a way to eliminate players, for you sad folks who’ve never played Dodgeball. So I used a different tactic. Being generally ignored, it was easy for me to creep around and nail guys in the leg while they were paying attention to someone else. The tricky part was getting a ball back. That’s how I usually lost games. I’d get a couple of dudes eliminated, and then not have a ball to attack or defend with, and I wasn’t athletic, so actually dodging or catching balls never really worked for me.

This time, though? Oh boy, was I on fire. When I’d knock someone out of the game by sniping their legs, I’d hit them just right and my ball would roll back across the center line right back to me. I didn’t knock out very many players because I always wanted to have my ball to deflect the Jocks’ fastballs that I could never catch. And indeed, once the players were eliminated down to less than 10, and our coach allowed us to start crossing the center line to a line deeper into the other team’s territory, I needed those deflector balls cause the jocks finally realized the little fat kid was somehow a threat.

It wasn’t uncommon for our gym class to play Dodgeball two or three times a week in the winter when we couldn’t go outside, so we got a lot of games in, back in Junior High. I’d made it to this point a few times in the past, using the same strategy, but even with a deflector ball, some jock would inevitably throw a fast ball hard enough to blast my ball out of my hand, eliminating me. But this match? It was the perfect storm. We were only one line away from an open court, and only 4 or 5 players remained. I had my ball and two or three others at my feet to defend with when the remaining jocks turned on each other and knocked out all the players except one!

The coach called open court and it’s just me and a wrestler kid who used to be my friend when we were kids. But, like all the jocks, once we got older, he didn’t want anything to do with a comic book nerdy. So we’re surrounded by balls and I’m standing there, letting him circle me while his friends all shout rude shit at me and make fun of him for being in a match against a loser like me, when I notice something critical. I’m walking around with my ball clutched in two hands waiting to deflect, while he’s bouncing his ball like a basketball. In true jock fashion, he’s not the least bit concerned about my attack, expecting me to just crumble at his aggressive posture.

I realize right then, that I can use my lameness to my advantage. He doesn’t expect me to strike. So I wait, and I time him as he slowly dribbles his dodgeball, grinning at me while his friends call me a loser and a fag. That’s when I pull a jock move. While his ball is mid-bounce. I fake like I’m going to throw, causing him to spazz and grab at his ball, giving me plenty of time to step into a nice hard overhand throw and spike him right in the shoulder, eliminating him, and winning my first and only sports game in my entire life.

So yeah, Dodgeball is cool, and you should buy Dodgeball High from Bradley Sands and Eraserhead Press.

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