Sometimes known as “That Cult”

Story by: Ben Rusch

Most teams in the NCDA instantly recognize DePaul as the team who cares only about fun… and we wouldn’t have it any other way. The DePaul Dodgeball club was founded with the intention to allow students to cut loose from their stresses in life, whatever those may be. It initially attracted a wide variety of students from all different backgrounds, and this club diversity became a mainstay in the culture of the club.

Today, our club consists of everything from finance students to musicians and aspiring filmmakers to philosophy majors. Some of us our metalheads, some of us are hippies. There are girls, and there and guys, but we’re all dudes. Essentially, we come together despite our differences in lifestyle, career paths and interests because we all have on commonality; we love this freaking sport. You will never find a more cohesive group of people with more differences in personality, and that’s all because dodgeball has brought us together to hone our aggresive energy into something that makes us feel like kids again. We’re often referred to by lame, isolated DePaul students as “The Cult”, because of our ridiculous antics and overt hilarity. These are all huge reasons why we play the way that we do.

Instead of holding practices, we just play. Everyone is invited, and you’re numbered off into two games like it’s a pick-up game. Non-stop play for 2 hours, thats how we roll. And we have never forgotten the dodgeball, so in the spirit of gym classes all around the country, we attempt to be deviant and goofy as much as possible. Remember that time your gym teacher told you that you were being too aggresive and energetic during dodgeball play??? We burn that teacher in effigy at DePaul. We refuse to put a cap or filter on the fun we have… and this is the exact reason for the phenomenon of “Baby Shark”, trick shots like “The Awesome” and “The Shotgun” and our contradictory moniker “undefeated”. We will never be defeated because we will always have fun. Plain and simple.

Come join us on Monday and Thursday nights and experience the DePaul mantra for yourself. I promise, you’ll never wanna go back to running wind sprints or practicing strategy in your practices again ;-).

The ROB 9000

If you were to sit it out in public, it would attract plenty of confused stares. People would whisper to their neighbor in the hope of determining what exactly they were looking at.

“Is it some kind of funky armchair?” they would say. “Some piece of obscure construction equipment? A new aged torture device?!”

No, no, and definitely not.

To put it as simply as possible, it’s a pitching machine. But not in the way that you’re thinking.

It was an idea that came to me after the conclusion of last season. Our team had just completed a winless season in our inaugural year, finishing up with a thorough thrashing at the hands of Ohio State.

Despite the fact that our inexperience had factored heavily into each of our losses, our team clearly needed to improve in several areas of the game. We were getting blown off the court by teams that made better throws, dodged more effectively, and caught every ball that came their way.

This last issue struck me as the most important area of improvement for our team. We needed to become better catchers if we had any chance of finding success next season. But upgrading our skills in this department had posed several challenges to us during our previous practice sessions.

For starters, we couldn’t practice catching off a live arm for more than a couple throws before that player’s arm was completely dead. We often found ourselves skipping out on catching practice for the sake of having a decent scrimmage at the end of each session.

Replicating the speed and the unique spin of a grippy throw also proved to be rather difficult. The handful of players on our team who could actually make that kind of throw consistently were never keen about burning out their arms for someone else’s sake.

So it became imperative for me to come up with a different solution to our problem.

I got the idea for a pitching machine after returning to what had inspired to start a dodgeball team in the first place: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

The training sequence in that movie featured a dual wheeled contraption that Patches O’Houlihan used to launch balls at the various members of Average Joe’s gym and torture Justin Long’s character by pummeling him unmercifully. This seemed like the perfect answer for our catching woes. Having an automated delivery system to practice with would save our arms and expose us to some serious fastballs.

So I turned to eBay to explore the price range for this particular style pitching machine. The results, to put it mildly, were jaw-dropping. Prices in the upper hundreds and lower thousands jumped out at me. Short of taking out a bank loan, our chances of getting a Dodgeball-esque pitching machine had all but disappeared.

But the dodgeball gods smiled upon our team that day. A closer examination of the variety of pitching machines on eBay revealed a style that I had never seen before. For lack of a more a precise definition, it was basically a weight bench with a large slingshot attached to the vertical poles that hold the bench press bar.

The machine’s specs said it could throw up to 70 mph and the price tag of about $80 provided a huge sigh of relief. But its simplistic design had me thinking that it might be possible to build our own and help preserve our already meager budget. An early sweep of local consignment stores made it obvious that finding an affordable weight bench was not going to be as easy as I had planned.

Despite that, my main concern was soon taken care of when I found a couple rubber exercise bands that I could use to make the slingshot. They were the quality I needed at a price that made my wallet very happy. Further digging into the wide world of weight benches led me to determine that a different support system for the bands would be necessary if I wanted to transfer my creation from my imagination to the dodgeball court.

After a trial run with the rubber bands, a sign post and a weight tree proved my idea could actually work, I quickly planned out a new contraption that I thought had an outside chance of working. I called up my buddy Robert to ask if he would help me construct my masterpiece, since my only experience with construction was the few times I watched Bob the Builder with my younger cousins. (OK, it was just me.)

He agreed to help and gave me a list of supplies that I would need to acquire. I hurriedly rounded up those necessary items and he arrived a few days later. Using a couple 4X4s, some 2X4s, a box of nails and a saw, we spent the next two hours assembling the creation in the shadow of my family’s carport. My original design, which I had anticipated would not work, did not fail to disappoint. Instead, Robert used his expert design skills to tweak and improve upon what I had initially envisioned.

After a hard day’s work, we both stared in awe at the masterpiece that stood before us. I was slightly scared because I knew something had to go wrong. I decided to test it out to see if I was just being paranoid. I excitedly jumped out in front of the machine, which I dubbed the “ROB 9000” in honor of Robert’s help, and awaited its maiden ball launch. There were butterflies in my stomach and I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding inside my chest.

Robert placed a dodgeball inside the pouch between the bands, pulled back and let it fly. Before I could even react, the ball had shot out like a rocket and planted itself firmly in my gut. I was ecstatic. Having the air driven from my lungs by the ROB 9000’s first launch sent tears of joy down my face. It had worked better than I ever could have imagined, and as I stood there gasping for breath, only one thought kept going through my mind:

“Wait until the guys get a load of this…”

Hall of Fame talk

I’ve been on the NCDA forums and I was excited to see a Hall of Fame topic for discussion. I looked through the posts and I saw that the top votes went to guys. This is completely understandable. But the more I looked at the nomination process the more I wanted to be a part of it. I want to be in the NCDA Hall of Fame but sadly I haven’t done anything to warrant a nomination. So I have decided to do everything I can to make BGSU dodgeball a top competitor in the years to come and possibly get a nomination. But I don’t want to be the only one. I want every girl in the NCDA to make difference for their team. Whether it be popularizing a “Grip” (like OSU’s Funk) or revitalizing a team, a girl can be an indispensable part of their team. Let’s get those nominations ladies!

Blue Demons Focus on Fun

Story by: Ben Rusch

DePaul University, located in scenic Chicago, is a unique team within the NCDA. Whereas many teams focus on the competitive aspect of the sport, the Blue Demons tend to focus on the fun and ridiculous nature of a bunch of undergraduates playing a child’s game.

Several players take a keen interest on inventing complicated (and usually impractical) trick throws, including The Awesome, The Amazing, and The Mexican Flying Coffin Filler. The spectacular failures and the shocking successes of throws like these are equally entertaining.

In terms of tournament play, DePaul is in a rebuilding phase.

Last season’s National team sported two seniors and 14 players with no prior tournament experience. While numeric successes from Ohio State were limited, we were able to hang out with our good buddies at Michigan State, and our new friend “Chris” from GVSU.

DePaul-style dodgeball has significant differences in game play than most schools in an effort to increase the pace and intensity of the game.

For example, a catch does not eliminate the thrower (though one person from the catching team’s jail returns to the court), and boundary lines (excluding the neutral zone) tend to be fluid.

The basic core belief of Blue Demon Dodgeball is that it’s a game, and while no game should be taken too seriously, dodgeball should probably be taken even less seriously.

When it stops being fun, the reason for grown men and women to throw rubber kickballs at each other ceases to be.

Is Dodgeball Sexist?

I love dodgeball with all of my heart but it seems to me that the NCDA is geared for the guys because most of the decision making is done by guys. Even the throws are geared toward a male grip. I wonder whether dodgeball could be a more diverse sport with a healthy mixture of males and females. Maybe it isn’t. The few girls in the NCDA may have to become guys to even be competitive. Also the fact that girls are vastly underestimated as players is bothersome mainly because I have been conditioned to pick out the girls as easy outs because thats what the rest of my team does. I have seen girls that have canons (due to softball I’m guessing). I’ve seen girls with great hands. I’ve seen girls that are great blockers (usually their main function). So why are we not seen as a player to look out for? We play just as hard as the guys and we deserve to be recognized for our efforts. Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this sport is truly for the guys but I hope that in the future we can appreciate everyone no matter what kind of reproductive organs they have.

Our current nationals format the best?

I can’t help but wonder if the way we run the national tournament at the end of the year is the best way to crown a champion. Currently, the way we do things we have all the teams come and play three games on Saturday, which pretty much destroys everyone’s arms. So what happens the next day? You come right back and can possibly play another three games.

It’s almost as if it’s a marathon of dodgeball, to see who can last the longest. While, I think Grand Valley was obviously a deserving champion this year, and would have most likely won it had they been forced to play 11 games the first day I still have to draw it into question.

What other sport does something like this? Outside of the time your beer league softball team decides to go to a softball tournament and plays 8 games in two days, you’re going to be hard pressed to find a sport that crowns it’s champions similarly.

Though there is always the argument that comes up that is hard to fight, in that teams want to play everyone they can at nationals because it’s the only time of year they see a lot of the teams. Well, the simple solution to that would be to host several small tournaments throughout the year. If nationals was limited to the amount of teams going maybe teams would feel like they actually needed to schedule a game or two throughout the year.

So what is my solution? Followers of my blog know that I have always been an advocate for regional tournaments that take place 1-4 weeks before nationals. The top 1 or 2 teams from each regional advance to Nationals. Then instead of having over 10 teams at nationals, and maybe even a few more junior varsity teams (what other national tournament allows JV teams???) you have teams that deserve to be there. Then when you say you go to the national tournament it actually means something. It gives your team something to work towards. I know there are people that disagree with me, but that’s fine. There will probably come a day someday along the line that you realize I’m on to something.

Reliving Nationals

Before April 4, 2009, the concept of Dodgeball Nationals was very foreign to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I had ideas of what the year’s final tournament would be like from listening to some of the older guys talk about it.

But without seeing it firsthand, the notions I held regarding Nationals were very similar to what I thought college would be like while I was still in high school.

People would preach to me about how awesome college was and I would hear dudes older than me reliving their favorite college stories like they were straight from a blockbuster comedy.

Needless to say, my emotions during the eight hour drive up to Grand Rapids were a mixture of nerves and giddy excitement. I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve before he finds out Santa Claus isn’t real. (My parents dropped that bombshell on me last year, much to my dismay.) As I tried to fall asleep on the Styrofoam hotel mattress Friday night, I had a million unanswered questions running through my head.

How would my team fare? What would the captains’ meeting by like? Was GVSU still as dominate as when they whipped us 15-0 our first season? Did anyone actually listen to our podcast?

Walking into that gym the first day was like walking into Disney World for the first time. There was so much I wanted to do.

The setup was fantastic.

Using GVSU’s basketball court as the main stage for competition was ridiculously cool. I mean, how many teams can say they play every game on their basketball team’s court? I could feel the excitement humming through my guys like electricity. They all sensed it.

We’re finally here. After months of anticipation, we’re about to play in the most legitimate tournament we’ll probably ever play in.

Some quick stretching and reuniting with familiar faces helped me shake some of the nerves. It wasn’t like I was seriously worried about the teams we were going to play or how well we’d do. I was just incredibly excited to be at the national tournament and anxious to get started.

Before I knew it, we were being whisked away to the bowels of the Fieldhouse for my first ever captains’ meeting. When we all settled into the chairs lining that lecture hall, you would’ve been hard pressed to find a more dedicated group of guys on the planet at that moment. After some last-minute scrambling, we finally configured the schedules for the first day. My team would play Central Michigan, GVSU JV and Wisconsin-Platteville.

During that first game against CMU, I could’ve griped about how we were drained from the eight hour car ride or just had first half jitters. The simple fact was that we underestimated CMU. That’s one of the beauties of Nationals. It brings together teams that you haven’t played or never even seen play before.

Despite turning a 0-4 deficit into a heartbreaking 3-4 loss, our game against CMU did yield one of the weekend’s funniest moments. It came during the first point. I never even saw it, but apparently a rocket throw from CMU made a detour to crush my buddy Adam Martin in his face as he stood up from grabbing a ball. This was hilarious for several reasons. If you check the pictures from Nationals, you can see the elaborate face paint and hairdo that #99 trotted out for the first day. Knowing that we’d be seeing black face paint on some of the balls was an amusing reminder of how many times Martin stopped throws with his face.

But nothing could’ve topped Martin’s face when he approached me before the start of the second point. In fact, I’m laughing about the thought of it as I write this sentence. The sight of Martin with his eyes swollen shut and a mixture of sweat, tears and snot running down his face was absolutely priceless. Even more classic was him telling me, “I’m fine! I can still play.”

Also on my personal highlight reel was getting hit in not one, but BOTH, buttcheeks by some rocket throws during the GVSU JV game. Like Ron Burgundy said, “I’m not even mad. That’s amazing.” Our team definitely had the best pre-point ritual when we imitated the Globo Gym Purple Cobras against DePaul.

I believe Jack Attack said he was “rolfcoptering” on the floor after that one. Finally, we perfected the game of “Gladiator” against SVSU. Watching our guys battle it out against the Cardinal juggernaut might’ve been my proudest moment of the weekend.

When it was all said and done, we didn’t finish as well as I’d hope. But here’s the way I look at it, thanks to an attitude rearrangement from DePaul’s guys: ten years from now, I won’t remember the record we finished with or the points we should’ve won.

I’ll remember all the awesome dudes we met and the feeling of being around so many people that love the great game of dodgeball. And how much my cheeks hurt after that GVSU game, of course.

AJP #05: Part 1

In this episode, Ben plays the harmonica like it’s nobody’s business. After that, him and Josh talk about BGSU’s tournament, WKU vs. Miami and Wreckeation Nation.

The episode finishes with an in-depth Nationals preview. Josh and Ben preview every team, pick their Final Four and predict the winner and score of the championship.

Play

WKU’s First Home Game

After nearly two years, gallons of gas, and plenty of last-second cancellations, the streak of 13 consecutive road games for the Western Dodgeball team will come to an end.

On Saturday, March 21 at 3 pm, fans at the Preston Center will be treated to the team’s first-ever home game.

And what a sweet relief it is.

As the captain and founder of the Western dodgeball team, it is with great excitement and joy that I look forward to a game without the worries of traveling.

The streak of road games has finally ended, and we now have a chance to start the proud tradition of defending home court and become a place where teams want to come play.

I always knew this day would come. But I never wanted to act prematurely.

During our first year, it was difficult to justify a home game when we didn’t have nearly enough guys to field a full team.

Road trips were preceded by dozens of phone calls as I tried to find people who were willing to play a game they’d never tried with guys they probably didn’t know.

It was a nightmare.

Then a new school year rolled around, and God decided to smile down on our pitiful little team.

I’d trimmed away some of the dead weight before the summer. Now, I was hoping our fall recruitment fair could bring the fresh faces our team needed to rebound after an 0-7 season.

It did. And then some. And then some more.

After a year of trials and tribulations, my team had finally come together just the way I had always hoped it would.

It was after we picked up some nice wins against in-state rivals UofL and UK that I knew the time was right for us to finally host our first game.

My good buddy Benjamin Sobczyk scanned the forums and found out that Miami University was looking to play some of the Kentucky teams this semester.

A couple phone calls later and it was official: on March 21, our team would make history.

The Facebook events we have put us at over 200 fans attending the game. I didn’t even know 200 people knew about the dodgeball team!

In order to make the game special, I’ve made arrangements for a cameraman and an announcer to be present at the game.

We’re even going to try a blackout among our fans!

Needless to say, my players are pumped at the opportunity to show their friends and family what college dodgeball is all about.

Come Saturday, we’ll have our chance to make history.

I never thought I’d see the day!

Battle of the Bluegrass: The Drive to Dodge

Thud!

Several heads ducked in unison as the projectile sailed over them.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Three more rubber balls slammed against the back wall in rapid succession.

Those audience members with bad memories from middle school PE classes probably questioned the sanity of the 15 young men standing on the court at some point during the evening.

The white and red clad combatants had scrambled for loose balls, rocketed throws at their opponents and dropped to the floor when dodging was no longer an option.

Although the motivation to play a childrens’ game in college escaped some members of the crowd at Butler County High School, players on the Western dodgeball team never lacked inspiration for their annual game against UK..

It wasn’t the prospect of campus-wide renown or the allure of playing in games that would be featured on ESPN.

Each player that stood on the court that night to risk pain and humiliation did so because of a passion for the eloquence and simplicity of dodgeball.

Any doubts of such devotion were erased when Felix Perrone fell to the floor during the game’s first point clutching his left ankle.

Perrone hobbled off the court and slid down his sock to reveal a sprained ankle that had already swelled to the size of a golf ball.

But instead of heading for the locker room, he waited for his team to win the first game before dragging his swollen ankle onto the court for the second point.

“A bad ankle wouldn’t stop me from playing this game,” Perrone said.

Teammate Ben Sobczyk battled elbow soreness to be on the court during the rematch of Kentucky’s two prominent dodgeball programs.

“I just took it out on our opponent,” Sobczyk said.

Devotion wasn’t the only motivation other injured Western players had in their clash against the Wildcats.

The “Battle of the Bluegrass” was a fundraiser for BCHS’ after-prom program and an opportunity to share dodgeball with young students.

Daniel Williams called the game “the highlight of Western’s season.”

“It feels great to give back to the community,” Williams said.

As he stood among a gaggle of third graders prior to the match, Williams beamed as he watched the kids pelt their classmates with brightly colored foam balls.

“The look on their faces made it all worth it,” he said.