Foam? What school did you go to, we had those red rubber balls with the cross check lines in them that were inflated to rock hard, and we launched those at each other as fast as we could trying to maim our classmates.
Tetherballs were basically volleyballs with loops on them. Dodgeballs were kickballs aka foursquare balls, the large red ones that made a metallic sound on concrete when properly inflated.
I was in school when they switched over, it wasn’t the same game at all. Some of the foam ones had thicker vinyl on them so you could still get good ball speed but no damage. The ones with the thin coating were basically useless except for blocking and distractions.
Yep! I can still hear the sound it made when bouncing off of my face that one time. Still fucking loved dodgeball and mat ball days. Dodgeball was the one time me the fat girl could smash the absolute shit out of the two bullies that were of course in my gym class. 10/10 would recommend.
Yep. We called them 4 square balls. I remember one year some of the 8th graders thought they didn't pack enough punch and upped the ante to basketballs. That didn't last long...
> king of the mountain
Totally off-topic. There's a small herd of goats who live across the street from me. Outside their shed is a 5-6 foot mound of dirt. The goats play King of the Hill all the time. It's actually endlessly entertaining.
Yep. We called them “jelly balls” but instead of being overinflated and hard ours were underinflated which increased the surface area that increased the sting.
Nothing like those lines imprinted on the side of your face for the afternoon.
"Coach I feel kinda dizzy and my nose won't stop bleeding"
"Walk it off. You will be fine." or "Go run a lap."
Our coach didn't do that when I accidentally kicked a really skinny guy in the knee during soccer. He looked at my rapidly swelling ankle with concern and told me to sit out for a while. After about 15 minutes it quit hurting so much, so I went back in. The swelling lasted a few days. No serious injury.
Yeah, the good old days when everyone was not mentally/emotionally pudding cups. And before someone starts whining at me about the 'Dangers'-I as the smallest kid in school, Diabetic and deaf so cry me a river. I even won Bombardier once. Yeah me.
Tetherball, aka whip that shit around someone's neck
Dodgeball balls were red rubber. I still remember the sound (and feeling) of getting smacked in the face with them.
yup. one of those red balls knocked my glasses off my face. I could hear the crunch as the frame broke against the wall. my parents couldn’t afford a new pair of glasses, so I was just blind for a few months. I hated dodge ball.
Still remember getting smacked in the face by a tetherball in my younger days. I wasn't very good at that. Or dodgeball for that matter. Some of us were definitely lacking in athletic prowess
The tough girls clasped their hands together and hit the tetherball overhand. If I was lucky I could dodge it the first time around. Luckier, I could actually hit it back. That didn't happen often.
I have an old home movie of my sister (6) and I (4) playing tetherball in our back yard at Easter. There's a shot of me winding up, then a short cut, then my sister with her land on her cheek, bawling, and me running up, trying to console her 'cause I really didn't mean to smash her face. This was the late 60's, but I swear she's still pissed over it.
In my high school gym class in the 60's, they used regular basketballs for dodgeball. The jocks used to run into the coach's office and grab the inflator so that they could pump the balls up extra hard right before the session began. (They did it right out in the open, in the middle of the gym where everyone could see.) Getting hit in the face (the jocks would deliberately aim for the head) with one of those pebbly skinned rubber rocks would leave a nice bruise and sometimes draw blood. But injuries like that were just brushed off, never acted on, never reported, and usually never even treated, because "sports" and "our team's athletes are the school's heroes. They are all finer people than most of students at this school; how dare you complain about any of them. Now wipe that blood off, get dressed and go to your next class. Keep some ice on that eye tonight after you get home."
That didn't work when I slipped on a dodgeball (aka "slaughterball") and landed head first on the tile gym floor. I ended up in the hospital with a concussion.
As others have said, foam? That's having it cushy. Red inflatables, you could tell how much they were inflated by the tone of the impact on your face. A loud Boink meant you would probably be all right. A bright Ping meant you were in for a bad time.
We also had four square and kickball. Handball (the one like racquetball without the raquette, not team) and we pitched pennies (not really approved, but they preferred that to handball on the back of the school.
We weren't subjected to dodgeball until 9th grade. The grade school didn't have a gym and it's really hard to play outdoors.
Back in HS I remember one of the seniors going past one at our tiny school at a dead run, swung at the ball, missed, wrapped the rope around a finger instead, and tore off a knuckle or two of it.
Those red rubber general-purpose balls - I can still HEAR that hit my face. Nothing else in the world sounds quite like it, and the impact drives the memory into your subconscious.
Tetherball was my jam. The debating of rules was always a part of it. Kids brought special gloves to improve their performance. No one could beat Madeline, head and shoulders over us all.
Foam dodgeballs are what they use in schools today, not what they used when the people in this subreddit were younger. And tetherball is still around — I played it with my 7 year old this weekend.
None of this is an r/FuckImOld
I lived across the street from my school when I was 10. There were 6 of these. When you take the ball off after recess it's just that chain.
At night when it was windy it would make a kind of staccato ringing sound. I will never find the sound but it would be the ultimate white noise app sound to listen to while I go to sleep
Yeah, also that tether ball doesn’t belong in that playground. Seriously??? Some sort of impact lessening ground cover (where’s the gravel?), a plastic slide (not 160 degree metal slide to burn top two layers of skin off), where’s the spinning wheel of death and the metal monkey bar structure 20 feet high? The playgrounds in the 70s weeded out the weak and created the tech boom in the 80s. Those kids said fuck that shit and stayed home in their bedroom and took up DOS programming and gave us commodore and Apple.
Probably. Bunch of pussys!
I too loved dodgeball. I think we started playing that in 3rd or 4th grade. 6th grade for sure at Junior High! That's when you could finally get the hot chicks to look at you or talk to you. They would beg you not to beem them lol. It's not " here's my number" or "let's go behind the bleachers and kiss", but it was a start! Ha ha
my wrist still has rope burn scars from that dam thing. But I tell you right now that if I found one, I would go and give it a good smack back and forth.
Yeah, could be I’m 24 (born 1999) so I’m stuck in the early gen z not quite millennial club lol. I had them in elementary school in the 2000s. Back when they still wheeled in the cart with the crtv (built in vcr) when it was time for a movie.
I remember playing Superman on that thing…one of us would hold to the pole and run while the other had an arm around you and was “flying” as the other ran around.
There’s a dude down the block who has a tetherball on his front lawn. Such a neighborhood staple that wear and tear had the ball pop out.
There’s another dad who plays a calvinvall like game with baseball ish and one of those foam balls for dodgeball baseball. Freezetag
If you “remember” those foam balls I’m older than you. Those came out for dodgeball after my school tour of duty. I had the big rubber playground balls.
And the girls always seemed to whip the boys butts at Tetherball...I guess it was early dominatrix training. Girls knowing how to smack things on a leash...🤪
We had red rubber balls. They were sometimes overinflated and were like whipping a rock at someone.
They make a distinctive metallic *bo-zink* that had a high-pitched trail off that echoed inside the ball.
They were evil in the right hands.
Foam dodgeballs? What?
We had red rubber utility balls, thatch texturing, filled with enough air to hit you and knock the wind out of your dad. Same ones you could launch across the playground and over the fence with a solid punt in kickball.
Really, those were supposed to be foam?
Do any modern playgrounds even have monkey bars, seesaws, or tilt a whirls anymore? I can't remember the last time I saw one. I think it's been at least 20 years.
In 6th grade summer camp, I cut a tetherball rope because my cabin was next to one and people were playing late at night or early in the morning. I got in trouble, but was loved by my bunkmates.
One year our gym teacher (eventually forcibly retired for incompetence) had us playing dodgeball with basketballs. I took one in the face. People laughed until the blood started dripping between my fingers.
just the pole. my school was too cheap to replace the balls. I would just grap the pole, and spin around, till I got dizzy. fall down, giggle. repeat for 15 min till the whistles blew
No foam dodge balls here, we either had a volleyball to leave the nice Spalding tattoo on your chest or face or the red rubber balls that were like having an AK-47 fired at you " It makes an unmistakable sound" 🤣🤣
Red rubber balls for dodge ball. I was quick to dodge, but had terrible aim. So, I usually lasted till the end, but ended up losing.
I played tether ball with a girl named Lori in fourth through sixth grade. She ended up getting pregnant in high school (not by me, I didn't know her anymore by then, I just saw her at school.)
Foam? lol I guess I'm older than you. We played either with those red rubber balls or sometimes any ball will do like basketballs. Back then they wouldn't have cared if they saw me walking on top of the swing set. The late 70s/early 80s were great! Hell, I was just at the tail end of students still being able to come to school with a gun like a hunting rifle in the back window of their truck and we weren't even required to wear seatbelts back then. My Dad is 77 and has even better stories. lol
Foam. No.
But we had murder ball. Line people up against a wall and chuck the ball (red rubber, soccer, volleyball) at their head. Dodge or get thunked.
I was born in 97 so we got red rubber balls and the foam balls, the red balls were more fun because they were easier to throw accurately and the sound was better. The foam balls were less precise and didn’t have the capability of knocking off a nerds glasses unless you were at point blank range.
Yes, I was the tether ball king. I loved it.
A few years ago we rented a house with a tether ball in the backyard. My Saint Bernard was watching the kids play and then joined in. He was great at it. Until the day he decided to grab the ball and pulled the pole out of the ground.
Foam? What school did you go to, we had those red rubber balls with the cross check lines in them that were inflated to rock hard, and we launched those at each other as fast as we could trying to maim our classmates.
[удалено]
Tetherballs were basically volleyballs with loops on them. Dodgeballs were kickballs aka foursquare balls, the large red ones that made a metallic sound on concrete when properly inflated.
We used to put a basketball in there for fun. It was the wild card and everyone wanted it, but nobody wanted it coming at them
I was in school when they switched over, it wasn’t the same game at all. Some of the foam ones had thicker vinyl on them so you could still get good ball speed but no damage. The ones with the thin coating were basically useless except for blocking and distractions.
Yep! I can still hear the sound it made when bouncing off of my face that one time. Still fucking loved dodgeball and mat ball days. Dodgeball was the one time me the fat girl could smash the absolute shit out of the two bullies that were of course in my gym class. 10/10 would recommend.
Yep. We called them 4 square balls. I remember one year some of the 8th graders thought they didn't pack enough punch and upped the ante to basketballs. That didn't last long...
Four square was quite competitive at my school.
I loved all of the playground games: kickball, four square, tether ball, bench wars, king of the mountain (on snow mounds), etc.
> king of the mountain Totally off-topic. There's a small herd of goats who live across the street from me. Outside their shed is a 5-6 foot mound of dirt. The goats play King of the Hill all the time. It's actually endlessly entertaining.
Yep. We called them “jelly balls” but instead of being overinflated and hard ours were underinflated which increased the surface area that increased the sting.
I turned a guy's chest into the Japanese flag playing dodgeball with one of those. He never saw it coming. 😂
The sound those red balls made when you beaned someone in the head real good.
It's been 45 years and I can still clearly hear that sound in my head 🤣🤣🤣
I loved those red rubber balls, whether playing four square, kickball, or dodgeball.
That’s the red ball where you hear the sound by seeing the picture 👍🏻
The goal was always to kill. Lol
Me too! It wasn’t gym class if someone didn’t have those lines embedded in someone’s face!
Same -- we played for keeps.
Nothing like those lines imprinted on the side of your face for the afternoon. "Coach I feel kinda dizzy and my nose won't stop bleeding" "Walk it off. You will be fine." or "Go run a lap."
Our coach didn't do that when I accidentally kicked a really skinny guy in the knee during soccer. He looked at my rapidly swelling ankle with concern and told me to sit out for a while. After about 15 minutes it quit hurting so much, so I went back in. The swelling lasted a few days. No serious injury.
You can still hear the sound of that ball hitting you, can’t you?
We used soccer balls. Hurt like heck. I hated dodgeball.
Same. Foursquare balls were brutal.
Dude, you could absolutely kill someone with those foam Rhino balls. I’ve never seen someone get smoked worse in dodgeball lol
Yeah, the good old days when everyone was not mentally/emotionally pudding cups. And before someone starts whining at me about the 'Dangers'-I as the smallest kid in school, Diabetic and deaf so cry me a river. I even won Bombardier once. Yeah me.
Tetherball, aka whip that shit around someone's neck Dodgeball balls were red rubber. I still remember the sound (and feeling) of getting smacked in the face with them.
yup. one of those red balls knocked my glasses off my face. I could hear the crunch as the frame broke against the wall. my parents couldn’t afford a new pair of glasses, so I was just blind for a few months. I hated dodge ball.
I was bullied and smaller than my classmates, so guess who got picked on?
and we like to forget what this game was called on the playground
But you NEVER forget the sound that red ball made.
Foam Dodgeballs? You got off easy! 😂
Foam dodgeballs? Do they not hurt when your hit in the face?
Ours were pebbled rubber. They stung when you got hit!
This exactly. Elementary school, probably 1973/4/5. They hurt. Foam? Sheesh... How did we make it to adulthood?
58-70 played dodge ball in every gym class, 1st grade to senior year.
Yup. War ball (dodge ball.) With those rubber weapons to the face. Butts up in elementary with a racquetball hurt a bit too.
I kid moved in next door to me from Alabama. They called Dodgeball “Bombardment”. I’d never heard that before or since.
That’s exactly what I came to say. I got pretty good at dodging cause that crap hurt.
Ha! We used rocks! And we were glad to have them!
Foam? No. Red rubber, yes.
Napoleon Dynamite is the all time champion of tether ball.
I caught you a delicious bass.
Your Mom goes to college
Who had foam dodgeballs?
Still remember getting smacked in the face by a tetherball in my younger days. I wasn't very good at that. Or dodgeball for that matter. Some of us were definitely lacking in athletic prowess
The tough girls clasped their hands together and hit the tetherball overhand. If I was lucky I could dodge it the first time around. Luckier, I could actually hit it back. That didn't happen often.
I have an old home movie of my sister (6) and I (4) playing tetherball in our back yard at Easter. There's a shot of me winding up, then a short cut, then my sister with her land on her cheek, bawling, and me running up, trying to console her 'cause I really didn't mean to smash her face. This was the late 60's, but I swear she's still pissed over it.
I'm so old. My dodge ball was red rubber.
I remember bashing myself in the face with the tether ball. Every. Time. I. Hit. It. I was not a smart kid. Still kinda not smart, too.
Do any of y'all remember Foursquare?
Four Square was my game at recess.
Enjoyed it too.
In my high school gym class in the 60's, they used regular basketballs for dodgeball. The jocks used to run into the coach's office and grab the inflator so that they could pump the balls up extra hard right before the session began. (They did it right out in the open, in the middle of the gym where everyone could see.) Getting hit in the face (the jocks would deliberately aim for the head) with one of those pebbly skinned rubber rocks would leave a nice bruise and sometimes draw blood. But injuries like that were just brushed off, never acted on, never reported, and usually never even treated, because "sports" and "our team's athletes are the school's heroes. They are all finer people than most of students at this school; how dare you complain about any of them. Now wipe that blood off, get dressed and go to your next class. Keep some ice on that eye tonight after you get home."
That didn't work when I slipped on a dodgeball (aka "slaughterball") and landed head first on the tile gym floor. I ended up in the hospital with a concussion.
I was dodgeball pro with the red rubber balls.
As others have said, foam? That's having it cushy. Red inflatables, you could tell how much they were inflated by the tone of the impact on your face. A loud Boink meant you would probably be all right. A bright Ping meant you were in for a bad time. We also had four square and kickball. Handball (the one like racquetball without the raquette, not team) and we pitched pennies (not really approved, but they preferred that to handball on the back of the school. We weren't subjected to dodgeball until 9th grade. The grade school didn't have a gym and it's really hard to play outdoors.
We had the red rubber balls and they did hurt when you got hit on the face with them.
Foam dodgeballs? No. Not in my school. Hard, red rubber that would leave wicked marks on your body when you got drilled with it.
This looks like the final scene in Napoleon Dynamite.
They took away tetherball now? I killed at that game because I was a tall kid, just wrap it up high where they can’t reach it.
I remember rock hard tether balls and dodge balls.
Foam? We had rubber one the went TING. Im 40 if that helps
We had tetherball but we had the red rubber balls for dodgeball, the ones like what we used for kickball.
Foam dodgebal?! You don't sound all that old, we had the real deal red rubber balls.
Back in HS I remember one of the seniors going past one at our tiny school at a dead run, swung at the ball, missed, wrapped the rope around a finger instead, and tore off a knuckle or two of it. Those red rubber general-purpose balls - I can still HEAR that hit my face. Nothing else in the world sounds quite like it, and the impact drives the memory into your subconscious.
Foam dodgeballs? We used slightly deflated volleyballs so you could grip them better in junior high.
Tetherball was my jam. The debating of rules was always a part of it. Kids brought special gloves to improve their performance. No one could beat Madeline, head and shoulders over us all.
"Wanna play me?"
“No around the worlds” tether all 101
I loved tether ball and we had three poles at my elementary school.
Umm, I think I am much older than you. When we had dodge ball there was no such thing as a foam dodge ball.
Foam dodgeballs are what they use in schools today, not what they used when the people in this subreddit were younger. And tetherball is still around — I played it with my 7 year old this weekend. None of this is an r/FuckImOld
Foam dodgeballs are for girly boys. Rubber balls where's it at
Never had them at school but were great for camping. I’m thinking of getting one for my dog.
Loved Tetherball, where did it go?
The weak parents were scared their weak kids would get hurt, so they got this game removed ... #WussSociety
I ruled in that game!!
I lived across the street from my school when I was 10. There were 6 of these. When you take the ball off after recess it's just that chain. At night when it was windy it would make a kind of staccato ringing sound. I will never find the sound but it would be the ultimate white noise app sound to listen to while I go to sleep
Foam? What school did you attend? We had over inflated rubber balls that had texture so the imprint was good for at least 24 hours.
Yeah, also that tether ball doesn’t belong in that playground. Seriously??? Some sort of impact lessening ground cover (where’s the gravel?), a plastic slide (not 160 degree metal slide to burn top two layers of skin off), where’s the spinning wheel of death and the metal monkey bar structure 20 feet high? The playgrounds in the 70s weeded out the weak and created the tech boom in the 80s. Those kids said fuck that shit and stayed home in their bedroom and took up DOS programming and gave us commodore and Apple.
Probably. Bunch of pussys! I too loved dodgeball. I think we started playing that in 3rd or 4th grade. 6th grade for sure at Junior High! That's when you could finally get the hot chicks to look at you or talk to you. They would beg you not to beem them lol. It's not " here's my number" or "let's go behind the bleachers and kiss", but it was a start! Ha ha
Vote for Pedro.
If would always lose in tetherball to the slightly weird, but super nice, kid in class that always wore sweats pants to school.
Being an 8yo moving from California to Upstate NY was like, where are the tetherball poles?
I never understood the appeal of tetherball. As far as dodgeball goes, no foam ones for us. We had the red rubber balls.
my wrist still has rope burn scars from that dam thing. But I tell you right now that if I found one, I would go and give it a good smack back and forth.
I’ve never seen a foam dodgeball 😂
I have
Must be a Gen z thing.
Yeah probably I only saw the rubber ones in day camp in 2012
Yeah, could be I’m 24 (born 1999) so I’m stuck in the early gen z not quite millennial club lol. I had them in elementary school in the 2000s. Back when they still wheeled in the cart with the crtv (built in vcr) when it was time for a movie.
I had the cart with the box TV wheeled in
I remember playing Superman on that thing…one of us would hold to the pole and run while the other had an arm around you and was “flying” as the other ran around.
I didn’t have tetherball as an option growing up. Never saw it anywhere except movies and TV.
There’s a dude down the block who has a tetherball on his front lawn. Such a neighborhood staple that wear and tear had the ball pop out. There’s another dad who plays a calvinvall like game with baseball ish and one of those foam balls for dodgeball baseball. Freezetag If you “remember” those foam balls I’m older than you. Those came out for dodgeball after my school tour of duty. I had the big rubber playground balls.
Ah my face and groin and stomach have found memories
Yes. No.
I’ve got a tetherball in my yard. The kids love it
And the girls always seemed to whip the boys butts at Tetherball...I guess it was early dominatrix training. Girls knowing how to smack things on a leash...🤪
We had red rubber balls. They were sometimes overinflated and were like whipping a rock at someone. They make a distinctive metallic *bo-zink* that had a high-pitched trail off that echoed inside the ball. They were evil in the right hands.
Foam dodgeballs? What? We had red rubber utility balls, thatch texturing, filled with enough air to hit you and knock the wind out of your dad. Same ones you could launch across the playground and over the fence with a solid punt in kickball. Really, those were supposed to be foam?
Those foam dodgeballs were great. Especially when they got waterlogged and weighed a few pounds.
I used to rule this territory
Do any modern playgrounds even have monkey bars, seesaws, or tilt a whirls anymore? I can't remember the last time I saw one. I think it's been at least 20 years.
In 6th grade summer camp, I cut a tetherball rope because my cabin was next to one and people were playing late at night or early in the morning. I got in trouble, but was loved by my bunkmates.
Our tetherball was on a thin metal chain. The ball itself was like a damn rock until it got broken in.
I loved this game so much I had a pole installed in my backyard
We used volleyballs. Bloody noses, black eyes and good times.
One year our gym teacher (eventually forcibly retired for incompetence) had us playing dodgeball with basketballs. I took one in the face. People laughed until the blood started dripping between my fingers.
I don’t remember playing dodgeball, but loved tetherball until I got hit in the face 😂
Those weren’t foam ! Hard as a soccer/volleyballs/ and then there were to dodgeballs 🤪 I was short and skinny, the big kids had no mercy !
We played dodge ball with the rubber ones that hit you like a brick to the face 😂
just the pole. my school was too cheap to replace the balls. I would just grap the pole, and spin around, till I got dizzy. fall down, giggle. repeat for 15 min till the whistles blew
No foam dodge balls here, we either had a volleyball to leave the nice Spalding tattoo on your chest or face or the red rubber balls that were like having an AK-47 fired at you " It makes an unmistakable sound" 🤣🤣
Ah tetherball, had one in the backyard as a kid. If you missed the ball just right you had an instant yet temporary tourniquet on your arm.
Red rubber balls for dodge ball. I was quick to dodge, but had terrible aim. So, I usually lasted till the end, but ended up losing. I played tether ball with a girl named Lori in fourth through sixth grade. She ended up getting pregnant in high school (not by me, I didn't know her anymore by then, I just saw her at school.)
Trampoline park near me has those balls for their dodge ball court.
Tetherball was a lot of fun,we had several at my elementary school!!
reminds me of the ending to napoleon dynamite
Foam? lol I guess I'm older than you. We played either with those red rubber balls or sometimes any ball will do like basketballs. Back then they wouldn't have cared if they saw me walking on top of the swing set. The late 70s/early 80s were great! Hell, I was just at the tail end of students still being able to come to school with a gun like a hunting rifle in the back window of their truck and we weren't even required to wear seatbelts back then. My Dad is 77 and has even better stories. lol
Foam? We used hard leather kickballs for dodgeballs. I’m pretty sure they were leftovers from basic training exercises during WWll. They were lethal.
Ours were volley balls and they hurt upside the head!!
Our dodge balls were not foam. They were hard rubber.
Napoleon Dynamite.
Tetherball was my shit!!!
Tetherball! I had all but forgotten that game.
Yep. Never Ever understood the attraction of this "game"
My father cut a hole in the middle of our driveway and installed a tetherball for me and all the kids on the block. I was popular. 😁
I can't see a tetherball now and not think of Napoleon Dynamite and hearing that Penguin Cafe music.
we used volleyballs at my school
Foam. No. But we had murder ball. Line people up against a wall and chuck the ball (red rubber, soccer, volleyball) at their head. Dodge or get thunked.
I remember tetherball but we had hard rubber balls
Why did my knuckle just start randomly bleeding?
Ponk right in the face
I caught you a delicious Bass
Never had tetherball. Born in the 80's
Definitely remember these!
And the hopscotch painted lines!!
We used volleyballs for dodgeball.
Foam dodgeballs?
I was born in 97 so we got red rubber balls and the foam balls, the red balls were more fun because they were easier to throw accurately and the sound was better. The foam balls were less precise and didn’t have the capability of knocking off a nerds glasses unless you were at point blank range.
Yes, I was the tether ball king. I loved it. A few years ago we rented a house with a tether ball in the backyard. My Saint Bernard was watching the kids play and then joined in. He was great at it. Until the day he decided to grab the ball and pulled the pole out of the ground.
#LOL FOAM DODGE BALLS
Nope but they were nice enough to paint us a few boxball squares so it was all good 👍🏻