The last player to avoid being hit is the winner. Sometimes the game is called bombardment, killer ball or even murder ball. And that bothers the critics. The Austin Independent School District, where Farr works, banned dodge ball more than two years ago. Austin's school system may have been the first in the nation to ban dodge ball.
Injuries occur all the time in dodge ball.
It is just the nature of the game. And in 1992, Neil F. Williams, now a physical-education professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, placed dodge ball in the Physical Education Hall of Shame, a list of gym activities that he suggested could damage children emotionally. But we do not believe it belongs in a quality physical-education program. The game's advocates, however, are not standing around waiting to be picked off. In Schaumburg, Ill., the National Amateur Dodgeball Association holds spring and summer tournaments for youths and adults.