When I was in high school, the worst possible word the Phys Ed teacher could bellow out across the gymnasium was Dodgeball!  Title IX had finally been enforced just as I entered ninth grade in the mid 70′s, so suddenly gym class was – I shudder to remember – coed. I have to assume it was an unintentional downside of equalizing the sexes. How could legislators have possibly known what they were about to unleash? As far as I could tell, all the boys took it as an opportunity to physically vent their repressed frustrations (good and bad) on us girls, many whom they had known since nursery school.

Of course back then we used the dense red gym balls (smelled like burnt rubber) for Dodgeball. And I think the only rule was to throw it as hard as you could with the ultimate goal of breaking a girl’s nose or, at the very least, making it bleed. (Wasn’t that the point of the game?) Consequently, as soon as the whistle blew I ambled to the front of the chaos and immediately sacrificed myself in order to sit on the bleachers and continue gabbing with my friends. And if I was lucky, I escaped with only a grapefruit-size welt on my thigh.

So you can imagine my shock the first time my tiny graceful daughter, M, came home from elementary school one day, gleefully announcing she had won Dodgeball in gym class.

“What does that mean that you won?” I wanted to know. “Did you break someone’s nose?”

She informed me that they play with much softer balls nowadays and that there are even rules. And, to my utter astonishment, M went on to become the queen of Dodgeball right through our large regional high school – often lamenting that an after-school club had never been formed.

Four years later I should not have been stunned when our son N annnounced he was the best at Dodgeball in his gym class and that it too was his favorite game. But I have to say, I was beginning to feel betrayed. It appeared neither of these kids had inherited one rebellious trait (even if it was the quit-before-the-game-starts DNA) from me??

Both of our children are currently finishing up their junior years (one in college, the other in high school) and, believe it or not, I recently came across a summer Dodgeball league for the two of them to join. And I think I’ve come to terms with it – as long as they don’t expect me to actually watch them play. Because I just know a dense red ball will rocket into the stands . . . right at my nose.