Not just for kids

It’s a game Marlyn Donkersloot hadn’t played since high school. But even after all the years since his youth, graduating high school, starting a family and working in the area, reading that one word in a brief announcement calling for teams to join a new Post Falls Parks and Recreation adult sports league caught the 44-year-old’s attention: dodgeball.

“I haven’t played dodgeball since high school,” Donkersloot said, minutes before his Back of the Book team took to the court against the much-younger Snap Fitness team in the league’s first matchup Tuesday night. It looked like it would be fun, he said, adding that it didn’t take long to put a full roster together. “In fact, I’ve got a bunch more guys who want to play. Once they start hearing about it, everyone wants to play.”

So here he was, with about 10 other teammates in their 30s and over while many of their families watched from the sidelines, preparing to take on the high school students and recent graduates on the Snap Fitness squad in the gymnasium of West Ridge Elementary School earlier this week. As six players from each team lined up on opposite sides of the court, a handful of foam-coated balls aligned at center court, one of the game’s referees blew his whistle, the players dashed forward and the game was on.

When the Post Falls Parks and Recreation Department decided to test the publics’ openness to the amateur sport with a one-night-only tournament last November, what they got was nothing less than an enthusiastic welcome from the community. In a four-hour competition that saw dozens of players, eight teams and a gym packed with spectators, the parks and recreation staff knew they had found an original spring sport to add to the list of their more conventional recreational offerings.

“That was just to gauge the publics’ interest in dodgeball,” said Josh Oakes, a recreation coordinator with the city, which hosts other recreational sports such as volleyball, flag football, basketball and several youth leagues, who formed the dodgeball league. “It was a good time, so we decided we’d try it out in the spring season.”

The league officially got under way March 10, with games played Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the elementary school west of town. There are two leagues offered, men’s open and co-ed, and each team must have at least six players ages 16 and older, though they can have any number of people on the roster beyond that, Oakes said. A double-elimination tournament will be held in early May.

As for the actual matches, the parks and recreation department is following the nationally recognized rules outlined by the National Amateur Dodgeball Association.

Six players line up on opposite sides of the court, with six of the rubber-coated foam balls placed along the center line, three on either side of the middle. When the whistle is blown, each team rushes to grab the three balls to their right side of the court, and once a ball is retrieved it must be taken behind the attack line, or volleyball line, before it can be legally thrown. Then, it’s a mad dash to either peg the opposing players or catch a hurled projectile. “The balls get moving pretty fast,” Oakes said.

Even though each match goes by fast, through eight four-minute games, “you are wiped out after 45 minutes,” he continued.

Oakes attributes the rise in dodgeball’s popularity to its less physically demanding appeal, as well as to the 2004 movie “Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story.” Similar leagues have sprung up in Rathdrum and at North Idaho College.

“I think a lot of the playground sports are making a comeback,” he said, adding though that the movie starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn definitely played a big part.

According to the NADA’s Web site, the amateur activity arose as a “recreational pursuit for nontraditional sport enthusiasts. It is an alternative sport requiring minimal equipment, set up and playing experience. Teamwork and strategy are more valuable factors in dodgeball than athletic skill and individual competitiveness… Experience is countered by enthusiasm.”

For Post Falls participants such as Tyson Frantz who played in the November tournament, the night presented a nonathletic, yet-active competition with a family-friendly twist. In fact, Team Frantz was entirely made up of Frantz’s extended family in the area.

“We all had a great time. It’s just a goofy game that anyone can play,” the 27-year-old said. “It’s a sport you don’t have to have any talent for; you can be great at the game, or be terrible, and no one can tell the difference.”

And even though Team Frantz didn’t come out on top at the tournament, he added, “At the end of the day, no one got hurt and it was just fun.”

Back at West Ridge Elementary School, the Snap Fitness-Back of the Book matchup ended in a tie-game.

Donkersloot said that a draw was almost as good as a win.

“I think it was good,” he said. “Especially for a bunch of old guys against a bunch of high school kids.”