Chronicling the NCDA’s Rise

Story by: Nick Wright & Aleks Bomis

The following is an excerpt from a message board post recounting the league’s history. A more detailed account may be available the near future.

From Wright:

First exhibition match in college dodgeball history (as far as we know): Ohio State at Kent State. Ohio State won, although the rules were much different, the atmosphere much more of a friendly game to have fun than an actual match. The first real game in the league with two teams and set rules was Delta v MSU, where MSU won. Bomis obviously got the ball rolling on that one as the captain for MSU and as far as I can recall, Ben Murphy acted as such for Delta. This match was the first “Michigan Dodgeball Cup.”

That was the only “regular season” game that year (2004-2005). The then titled “Spartan Dodgeball Invitational (SDI)” acted as the inaugural MDC championship tournament and featured 5 teams: MSU, Delta, Ohio State, Kent State and DePaul, with Nebraska being invited but not showing.

I believe the Saturday round robin portion went as follows:

OSU 6-0 (def Kent St twice, def Delta twice, def MSU, def DePaul)
Kent St 4-2 (def MSU twice, def DePaul, def Delta, loss OSU twice)
DePaul 3-3 (def MSU twice, def Delta, loss Kent St, loss OSU)
MSU 1-4-1 (def Delta, tie Delta, loss Kent twice, loss OSU, loss DePaul twice)
Delta 0-5-1 (loss OSU twice, loss MSU, loss Kent St, loss DePaul, tie MSU)

The Sunday portion of the tournament featured the top 4 teams (Delta did not play because at the time they were not an official organization/club within their school yet, so were deemed ineligible. I imagine part of it also had to do with the uneven number of teams and the amount of times that we were able to use the facilities that we were in.)

Semi Finals:

Kent St def DePaul
OSU def MSU

Finals:

OSU def Kent St 4-2 (OSU trailed 2-1 at halftime)

The next year was the first full year of the league where there was a regular season. Oakland University, Kentucky and of course, GVSU, made their debuts this season. I wish I had the full regular season standings (maybe I can dig them up in another place that I wrote them down, but most of my record keeping of this time period was on the old OSU dodgeball website which was through the now defunct Geocities hosting site).

The only thing I can state for sure is that this year featured the first Ohio State Invitational, which was supposed to be Ohio State, Kentucky and Kent State. Kent State ended up not being able to make it, so it was just OSU welcoming Kentucky into the league by winning 16-4 (The regulation time score was something like 8-2 and we just kept playing for another hour or two since we had the gym space rented.)

I know GVSU stormed onto the scene and dispatched of Delta and MSU in a few individual matches, and then again in the Michigan Dodgeball Cup, so they ended the regular season ranked #1. Both GVSU and OSU were the only undefeated teams that season, but GVSU had played several more regular season games than OSU.

If I’m not mistaken, DePaul hosted their first tournament that year too, which consisted of themselves, MSU, Kentucky and Kansas State, who actually had a team. I think I’m forgetting another team that participated in this one (Delta, maybe), but I know it wasnt GVSU, Kent or OSU. I remember hearing that this tournament was pretty evenly matched and every team had at least one win and at least one loss in the round robin portion. I’m 99% sure MSU won this tournament because I remember Bomis being all excited and telling me all about it in an AIM conversation, adding that the talk of the tournament was “How good GVSU was,” “The Matrix guy has a cannon for an arm” and “Everyone is afraid of OSU’s Big Jon.”

Delta was also vastly improved during the regular season. I remember being really surprised at the number of matches they ended up playing that year (something like 12 or 16 games) and won roughly half of them–they mostly played vs MSU, Oakland and GVSU. I cant remember if Henry Ford Community College, Alma, or Wayne State had a team this year that they played against. Either those colleges had a team and played once or twice, or they were rumored to be starting teams and they didnt quite get off the ground in time for this season. I wanna say they went to the DePaul tournament as well…so they had pretty much played every team in the league at least once except for the two Ohio teams by the time the National Tournament came around.

We went into the 2006 NCDA championship tournament with 8 teams:

GVSU, OSU, Kent St, MSU, Delta, DePaul, Oakland and Kentucky (Kentucky ended up not coming due to financial reasons). They were replaced by a “JV” team (I believe from GVSU, or possibly MSU) to even out the number of games each team would play in the round robin. Because of the increased number of teams, the round robin portion of the tournament was divided into two pools based on regular season rankings/winning percentage/whatever

Pool A: GVSU, Kent St, MSU, GVSU JV
Pool B: OSU, Delta, DePaul, Oakland

Each team would play the other three teams in the pool once. This was due to there being a lot of arm fatigue by the end of the first day in the first year’s tournament.

The results from Day 1:

Pool A-
GVSU : 3-0
Kent St: 2-1
MSU: 1-2
GVSU JV: 0-3

Pool B-
OSU: 3-0
DePaul: 2-1
Delta: 1-2 (to be honest, I dont remember who won the Delta/DePaul game…couldve been Delta)
Oakland: 0-3

So the Single Elimination Championships went like this:

Round 1

MSU def Kent St
Delta def DePaul (these two matches were the first two held as we only had two courts to play on)

followed by

OSU def Oakland (Oakland conceded defeat at halftime, the second half was a massive free-for all among all interested players from any team. Actually this was the highlight of the tournament, lots of fun)
GVSU was awarded a first round bye for being undefeated in round robin play and having more wins in the regular season than OSU

Second Round:

GVSU def MSU
OSU def Delta

Consolation game:

MSU and Delta elected to not play the game and split 3rd place, possibly due to time constraints.

Championship game:

OSU def GVSU 2-1. GVSU led 1-0 at halftime. They won the first game fairly decisively, but then the second game was very drawn out and ended up going all the way to halftime without a point being scored. OSU then came out and won their own fairly decisive game to start the second half. The final full game of the match was a pretty extensive one with that at one point was a 7 on 5 OSU advantage, but then OSU got a couple huge plays to close it out and was able to take the lead with about 2 or 3 minutes left in the second half. GVSU came out blazing, but there just wasnt enough time for them to mount a comeback. This game also got pretty heated at times, but afterwards there was good sportsmanship on both sides and despite this matchup being hyped pretty much all season and it being really close, both sides left with a lot of respect for each other. OSU has since always held GVSU in high regard both in terms of ability (obviously) but also in terms of sportsmanship.

After that, I graduated, moved down south and didn’t get to be part of the league in any fashion in 2007, even as a spectator. So beyond 2006, I cant give you and specific details besides that the next two seasons also featured championship games with GVSU and OSU squaring off but with GVSU winning both of them.

As I can recall, the original founders and captains of the early clubs were:

Kent State: Olsen Ebright (team may have been founded even before him, but he was their primary contact person in 2002-2003). He also came to OSU to represent them when the Today Show from NBC came to film a segment about dodgeball–something which was originally supposed to happen at Kent State, but they were between semesters when NBC wanted to shoot the film, so they came to OSU instead. The clip ended up being less about the growth of dodgeball as a sport at the collegiate level and more as a cheap tie in to the stupid Dodgeball movie. I’m not sure specifically who Kent’s captain(s) were once the NCDA began, but Nick Fantozzi was one of the leaders of the group and was our main contact person when we wanted to get in touch with them for a game.

Ohio State: Considered to be founded by Gavin Mueller and Todd Burns in 1999-2000 (both graduated and moved on before the MDC/NCDA was even an idea). Marc Ybarsabal was then the captain and primary contact for the first season in 2005, with Joe Ryan as the assistant captain. Marc graduated in ’05 and then Joe was the Captain with Zack Mylander and Nick Wright (myself) as the alternate captains. All 3 of us graduated in ’06 and we passed the titles on to Dave Shaffstall and Alex Young after that.

As stated before, Bomis obviously got MSU’s team off the ground and from what I understand, Ben Murphy for Delta (I’m not sure if there were any co-captains or alternate captains for them during the first year of their existence).

I know DePaul dodgeball also existed well before the creation of the NCDA (I believe they were the oldest club in the league predating the year 2000 if I’m not mistaken). I can’t say for sure who founded them, but Ryan “Magoo” McGeehan was their typical contact person in the first two years of the league. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the other captain that they had, who was a very good player and was a real nice guy in the multiple times I met him. Sorry, I’d know his name if I heard it but I can’t pull it out of my head right now.

I wish I had specific scores of all the games, but at the time, I dont think anyone really knew what the league was going to morph into and that detailed record keeping beyond the very basics was going to be a worthwhile use of time. If I got anything wrong with this, I apologize, but to the best of my knowledge this is all accurate.

From Bomis:

The big thing you need to remember is that for the first 3 or 4 years we inflated the dodgeballs until they were taught. It wasn’t really by design, it just started that way. I can’t imagine playing in the racquetball courts like MSU did those first two years with the throwing speeds people have now. Teams still tried to grip throw, but it wasn’t nearly as fast and you’d often get cases of people’s fingers bleeding from trying to curve the ball inward. I checked out some old footage recently, it looked tame compared to what goes on today. The other important thing to remember is that the shot clock only existed when you had all ten balls, so a 9-on-1 situation could be held indefinitely. There was also no “legit throw” clause, so you’d see some teams *cough cough* roll a ball to the other side to keep from having all 10.

Murphy sent me an email asking if we wanted to play a game, which sounded fun so naturally we accepted. There was a second place plaque and a tarnished little cup for the winner. This cup became the top of the Michigan Dodgeball Cup trophy (which I’m told is made of solid silver). We showed up at some church/community center and played for about an hour. The church staff was ticked because dodgeballs kept hitting the radiator panels, making these awful crashing noises. MSU won 8-3, I’ve got some pics stored on my laptop at home.

Yeah, the real reason Delta couldn’t play Sunday of that first tournament was because I just couldn’t work out a schedule that first year. There was a “must be a student organization” rule which everyone knew about heading in, but Ben seemed to really want it for his group so I figured what the heck, let ’em play on Saturday. I remember the last OSU/MSU score being 8-4.

GVSU… my hatred of them was pre-ordained for so many reasons with that first game. We had to reschedule that game a bunch of times. It wasn’t Dave Soukup’s fault, the athletic department was just being a pain, and then we realized we had scheduled a game on Super Bowl Sunday, so we had to move it again. I was actually fairly upbeat with that first 4-2 loss, we had come off a much-closer-than-it-shoulda-been W against Delta, having goofed around much of the game, but we’d actually tried at GVSU. They wore blue their first year and hadn’t figured out how to be this unstoppable force – yet. I managed to imitate Izzo while I was there – he wasn’t having the best season, and earlier that week while trailing he had called timeout a split second before Mo Ager nailed a 3. The second string team was trailing in the closing minute of the half, Mike Youngs is the only one left, I call timeout so I can sub in Rob Freeman, who was a defensive master… and he makes a catch from about 15 feet away. Rob gets hit about 10 seconds in. Youngs was LIVID. And to be fair I was getting overcompetitive at that point.

Michigan Dodgeball Cup came down to the final seconds, with a throw at Kevin Hankinson going in and out of his hands for the GVSU win. It was tough to call that one from the booth, but it made for a heck of a finish.

The extra team at DePaul’s Chicago Open was Kansas State. Everyone was drained by the time we got to the end, but we managed to pull that one out and sing the fight song and everything. I was almost bouncing off the walls because we had actually managed to string some Ws together after struggling most of the year, Rob Viola got a game-saving OT catch between his legs (I think against Delta). I’m also pretty sure DePaul had some footage of Nick Gebauer getting clocked by a Kansas State player, I mean right into his face.

Oh, and a funny story I just remembered! So like I mentioned earlier, there wasn’t any shotclock rule, and you could roll a ball to the other side and there wasn’t anything in the rules to stop it. Delta had been catching some flak by this point in the year for not doing anything unless they had at least 7 or 8. DePaul decided to flip the script on them, not doing a thing unless they had all 10 balls. Not knowing DePaul’s plan, I wander over to check their score at halftime: 1-0 DePaul. I check back at the end of the game, same score. I look at Murphy who’s passing me. “Don’t even TALK to me, Bomis!” Once we found out what DePaul did we couldn’t stop giggling. I think Viola applauded.

2007

MSU managed to score huge on the fundraising front and had enough money to rent a bus for a rare fall Thursday night game at Grand Valley. Once we got there, it was clear they were on a mission, destroying us 16-0. Black eyes and bruises abounded. I remember the newer guys begging me to put up a fight with the refs or Soukup, but the truth of it was we were just plain getting stomped. At one point the crowd started laughing at Freeman who’d been laid out and wasn’t moving (eventually he rolled under the net/wall just behind the baseline) and no one appeared to be doing anything to help him. At that point I snapped and blindsided Dave with a rant that I’m not even sure made sense, but I was getting on him for everything and anything. Amazingly enough, we didn’t lose any of the people who were at that game.

State won in overtime vs. Delta later that month, with Gerald Hessell hitting Dave Halloran with about :40 to go in regulation. Later that year they’d have their first lost to DC in Saginaw, and again at the MDC that February, the last televised game MSU had. Oakland was kind enough to serve as sacrificial lambs in the dodgeball halftime show for the basketball doubleheader.

OSU put together the spring tournament, but for whatever reason that fell through in March and in 24 hours I was somehow able to cobble together enough court time to host in April. Marshall tackled a GVSU player at one point, MSU lost either 8-1 or 8-0 to GVSU, and GVSU finally beat Ohio State.

BGSU: It’s A Start

I have been pleasantly surprised in the past couple of weeks with the amount of girls i’ve seen at the games. Granted they’re all on the JV or B team but hey it’s a start. I was especially happy to play against these girls on the SVSU and MSU teams and I hope to see even more in the future and tons at Nationals. On that note I would like to thank, on behalf of the team, to everyone who voted for the Nationals location. It just shows that we can eventually become an NCAA or at least a multiple conference league (starting with adding the west). I hope we can continue this great momentum and hopefully beat out the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association as better obscure sport college league…by the way they already have like 200 teams in like 3 years but they’re not quite as organized as we are (surprisingly). So anyways back to the point, great job girls and I can’t wait to see more from all of you!

Girls, Stats, and more

Hi everyone long time no talk…many things have happened here in Bowling Green, OH and I thought it was time to share. First of all we have another girl…yay! But I still expect more out of the girls here at BGSU hopefully we will make the number 3 or 4 by the end of this year…hopefully. Also just wanted to inform everyone that I’ve been talking with STATS a company who provides statistics for professional leagues like the NFL, MLS, and NASCAR just to name a few. Hopefully if things go alright we can get official stats like we’ve been talking about all summer and we won’t have to do them. Last but not least I’m excited to get game play going in a couple of weeks on the 14th. We’ve been looking pretty good at practice and if I do say so myself I and the rest of my team have improved. I can’t wait to see everyone and hopefully get some wins for this season!

SVSU win home opener

An improved Central Michigan squad gave second ranked Saginaw Valley a scare, but ultimately the Cardinals held on for a 3-2 win over the Chippewas on Sunday Oct. 25.

“I knew it was going to be a close one,” SVSU captain Bryan Janick said. “I had a feeling, especially for our first game. They’ve gotten a lot better.”

CMU captain Bryan Lynch also liked his team’s performance, despite the loss.

“I thought that our team did well,” he said. “Much better than previous years (against SVSU.)”

The Cardinals took the first point after about eight minutes of play, giving them a 1-0 lead.

“We pushed them back a lot,” Janick said. “We had them backed up. I thought was a good thing.”

The Chippewas (0-1), bounced back with a solid effort in the second point, tying up the score at one apiece.

“For our more experienced players, we saw how much we have improved over the last two years and I think it was  wake up call for the new guys to see what dodgeball is really about,” Lynch said. “I think we did well, but still have plenty to improve in to be thinking about a victory versus SVSU.”

“We needed to shadow a little bit better,” Janick said. “We had a few times when people got hit when people were supposed to be shadowing.”

SVSU responded, dominating the next point to go up 2-1 into the half. The point was fueled by several catches, particularly by Jason Stein and Joe Fetterhoff.

“We had a lot of huge catches,” Janick said. “They came at the right times.”

The second half started off with another Cardinal point, putting them up 3-1 with less than 20 minutes to play. Lynch felt his team lacked in experience in crucial situations.

“The difference between SVSU and us in the match was definitely patience,” he said. “There is no doubt that Saginaw has more fire power than us, but in clutch situations they were able to play smarter and make more clutch throws and catches than we were.

The Chippewas claimed the next point, though at a cost of running a significant amount of time left in the game, leaving them without sufficient time to tie up the score.

“That was really important,” Janick said of starting the year off with a win. “We looked kind of rusty but it was definitely a good start to the season, a big victory.”

The Cardinals, 1-0 after the win, travel to Allendale next to face three-time defending national champion Grand Valley State on Nov. 8. in what will be the Lakers season opener. Game time is 3 p.m.

WKU Rallies Late

Story by: M. Blake Harrison

“Our players couldn’t help but feed off the fan energy,” Josh Raymer said gratefully in reference to the crowd at Western’s home opener against UK.

It was that energy which propelled Western to a 1-0 start in its third year of competitive dodgeball.

Western, who played host to just its second-ever home game Sunday afternoon, was welcomed by upwards of 150 fans at the Preston Health & Activities Center on main campus.

The raucous crowd looked on as the Toppers took a commanding 1-0 lead to start the contest.

With the lead, Western zeroed in on their second point as UK lost men rapidly.

Finally down to one opponent, Western sophomore Luke “The Sideline Assassin” Gilliam nailed UK’s final hope to tie the match at one apiece.

With a commanding 2-0 lead, Raymer, who serves as the Hilltoppers’ head coach, chose to sub in some younger players for the third point, which they lost.

“We really just lost track of our game plan after awhile,” Raymer said. “Our level of play wasn’t as strong.”

UK won the fourth point to knot the game at 2-2 by the end of regulation.

The fact that the Toppers finished the half up 2-1 and tied 2-2 at the end of regulation highlighted the impact of Gilliam’s play early in the first half.

“It looks a lot better now than it did at the time,” Gilliam said after the match. “Little points like that can make all the difference.”

With 10 minutes of overtime to decide the outcome of the match, Western’s cheering section rose to the occasion.

With chants of “Let’s go Western,” and “T-O-P-S, TOPS, TOPS, TOPS” in the background, the home team prevailed.

WKU eliminated their final opponent with time to spare, sending a message to future foes:  Don’t mess with the Tops in Preston.

Freshman fan Joshua Amos summed up the crowd’s mentality, “With the fans behind them, I knew they could pull it off.”

The Noob Report

Story by: Kris Wright

Starting a new dodgeball club at your school may be the hardest part of dodgeball as a whole. Really. Because you have no club, then you have no team, and if you have no team, you can’t play, and that’s where the fun is.

Working on starting my second team, I have learned the do’s and don’ts of this process and how to keep a team running. Here are just a few things to remember when trying to start your club.

1. Advertise
By advertise I don’t mean go buy an ad in the school paper, I mean print out flyers and post them EVERYWHERE around your campus. Put them in every floor of every building and dorm, anywhere people will be so they can see that you’ve made a club.

2. Recruit
Not only do you need flyers, but you must also talk to anyone interested. Make announcements before or after class, in the student center and anywhere there is a large group. But make sure you’re professional about it or no one will take you seriously. Also, talk with athletes that play sports that aren’t in season, like basketball players in the fall or football players in the winter, and make the argument that dodgeball is a great way to stay active in their offseason.

3. Be Professional
When dealing with your school’s campus life and starting your club, don’t just “get around to it whenever.” Schedule meetings, check up on your club’s status and make sure you know everything there is to know to get your club started and off the ground. When going to meetings, don’t go in your hoodie and sweats. Instead, try a polo and jeans. Looking the part could make all the difference, and if your campus life director thinks that you don’t look or act the part, they may not approve your club, which means no dodgeball for you.

4. Fundraise
My final point is that you must fundraise in order to get anywhere with your team, especially if club fees and dues don’t cut it. If you need to fundraise, you have two good choices to raise money for your team. You can either really fundraise by going door to door selling candy or pizza kits or you can sell advertising space. Find any local businesses that regularly sponsor other college activities and start there by selling space on a science board or just plain poster board. This usually works better if you can get some home games, but brainstorm some other ideas that will entice businesses to advertise with you.

Starting your club is probably the hardest and most time consuming part of the dodgeball process, but stick with it and you’ll have a club that’s playing games in a matter of no time.