For our newest installment in the “My Dodgeball Story” series, we turn to Shadeed Drakeford, founder of the VCU Dodgeball Club. Here he tells his story about the creation of the team, his experiences while being the leader of the team, and the new role he has on the team.
By: Shadeed Q. Drakeford
Introduction
A long time ago after the annual Chick-fil-A dodgeball tournament in Richmond, VA, my best friend Micheal Tse and I were walking back to my apartment talking about dodgeball and the possibility of playing after our college days were done. This took place in October 2011, several months after the historical Final Four run by VCU in the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. The conversation started off very casually and jokingly with talks of playing semi-professionally along the East Coast with the potential of winning cash prizes or free food. After all, who doesn’t like free food? Yet, small talk created curiosity in me, and I stumbled across a hidden gem which has been around since 2004, the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association (NCDA).
In December 2011 as a Christmas present to myself, I completed all of the paperwork that was necessary to have the Dodgeball Club at VCU as an official student organization. Little did I know my life would never be the same again. When I first came to VCU, there was actually a very big showing for people who wanted to play. Back then, we exclusively played what we called “medic” dodgeball against other students and it would bring in large crowds of people. But over time, dodgeball at VCU was shrinking in size every single year. It started out strong with at least 100 people playing medic dodgeball every Friday from 2-4:30 p.m. in my freshman year to only 20 people playing medic dodgeball three times a week in my junior year. Once I made the club in those later years, the purpose of the club was to create some stability and a strong perception of the sport around VCU, so that we would have some gym time every week. For anyone who has ever attended VCU, dodgeball time was always cut short on a weekly basis due to soccer, and never really got the respect it deserved compared to the other sports.