Dodgeball: The Sport of Pimps

Dodgeball might not be the sport of kings but it certainly is the sport of disgruntled third-grade gym teachers, so that's almost as good. I don't even think the word "sport" is the right description. Dodgeball is less like a sport and more like a perfectly legal method of physically abusing children.

You see, the gym teacher would like to say that he's hard at work raising a generation of fine athletes - he'd like to say that... but he can't because the students are loaded up on sugar and they're out of control. Instead of teaching, the gym teacher watches as The Kid Who Eats Bugs chomps down on the exposed ankle flesh of the boy who doesn't know how to wipe himself. The gym teacher's gut reaction to this constant, daily scene is to pummel the two snot nosed punks back inside their mothers' wombs by using nothing more than his bursting steroid muscles and good old American values. But he knows he can't do that. The government isn't going to be too understanding if he beats up his students: the police will take away his office (with all his favorite naked Arnold Schwarzenegger posters on the walls) and then they'll lock him up in prison, the land of ass rape and minorities.

For you see, there is stupid punishment and then there's smart punishment. So instead of risking arrest, the more clever gym teacher teaches kids a lesson in a whole different kind of way. He fakes a smile and says "All right gang! You worked hard during warm-ups, so let's play hard with a fun game of dodgeball!" Kids love games so they'll be all over this idea.

As soon as the game of dodgeball starts, the kids will pick up balls and start throwing them at each other... thus turning innocent looking balls into speeding projectiles. Eventually a few of the balls will end their sail through the air by forcefully colliding with the stomachs, groins and faces of the slowest moving children. So... even though nobody broke the law by physically brutalizing Snot Nosed George, Snot Nosed George still ended up with a bloody nose when a dodgeball innocently smashed into his face. And it was all legal. Nice.

Not only is dodgeball useful for keeping otherwise unruly students in line, it earns extra pimp points by being the one game that requires absolutely no brain cells to understand (making it a perfect spectator sport for all those women who love to show up on Sundays but can't understand how football works):

Even the name of the game is self-explanatory. Dodgeball: dodge the ball. Simple. I like that. Throw the ball and try to hit other people. If you get hit by the ball, you lose. After everyone else gets hit, the winner is the last man or last team standing.

By now you're probably lusting to play dodgeball yourself but before you play, you'll want some tips on how to get the edge on your competition. That's where I come in. You can trust my advice on how to win at dodgeball since as a kid I used to win at it all the time. That's because I was fast. These days I'm sort of fast but it's more like fast without the s (Give it time. It's a brain twister that one).

Tip 1:
Don't forget to use cover.

If you're playing dodgeball you ought to be playing dodgeball like a man. And by that I mean: grabbing and cowering behind competing players whenever the balls come your way. Operation Human Shield baby! Remember the mantra of the winner: there's no such thing as honor, there is only survival.

When you attempt to use this strategy, it's always best to find one of those fresh-off-the-boat foreign kids to hide behind. They may complain about your actions but you should remind them that they're in America now and this is how things are done in America. Suggest to them that if they can't handle it, maybe they should go audition for American Idol.

Tip 2:
Lie.

Sometimes the ball hits your leg with a loud thud and bounces off you so hard that it's obvious to anyone within a 30 mile radius that you got hit. Sometimes however, the ball just grazes past your leg, slightly hitting you. At times like this, the guy who threw the ball thinks he hit you, you know he hit you, but if you shrug it off by acting like nothing has happened and continue running, he'll start getting doubts: "Oh, I thought I hit him but since he's acting like he didn't feel it, I guess I never hit him after all." Sucker.

Tip 3:
Pick your strategy.

The interesting thing about dodgeball is that there are two very different strategies you can use to win. Strategy one entails grabbing all the balls you can find, staying your ground and whipping the balls at everyone who is near you. Strategy two consists of not grabbing the balls and just concentrating on running around and avoiding the downpour of flying projectiles. Eventually all the guys who are using strategy one will tire of trying to hit you (all that running you are doing makes you quite a hard target to hit) and they'll just eliminate each other instead since they are the easier, more motionless targets. And then you'll be the only one left, ergo, the winner. And that my friends, is how you defeat the jocks at the only thing they're any good at (other than bagging groceries of course):

On the bright side, he kept that positive attitude and star athlete smile all the way until the end. I can respect that. Meanwhile, dodgeball gets no respect. If you travel to the Great Kingdom of Sports you'll find dodgeball way out of sight, locked in the dungeon, kickin' it with all the reject sports like hacky sack and curling. What a shame.