Art of the dodge

SPRINGFIELD — Maybe you played it in grade school. Maybe you were good at it.

Maybe not.

Maybe you were one of those kids who wasn’t quite as coordinated as some others and thus the word “dodgeball” conjures memories you’d just as soon dodge.

Or maybe, like a certain reporter Friday night, you weren’t paying attention during an interview, and got nailed in a, uh, sensitive area — sending the 300 or so spectators in the Thurston High School gymnasium into fits of wild laughter.

Whatever.

Dodgeball is not nearly as popular as it used to be as a physical education activity for grade schoolers. In more recent years, some schools across the country have banned it, saying it’s dangerous or favors more athletic children since the object is to eliminate your opponent by hitting them with a rubber ball. But at Thurston High it is all the rage once a year.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Adam Kennybrew, a guidance counselor at the school and one of the few staff members to play in the fourth annual Thurston High School Dodgeball Tournament. “It’s a great fundraiser, a way to get kids together for some good, clean fun, and it increases school morale,” said Kennybrew, who played with students on the Look Hott in Pink team Friday.

The tournament was the brainchild of Thurston senior Chance Hendrickson, quarterback of the Thurston Colts football team last fall, who came up with the idea his freshman year as a way to raise money for his class.

“Our class fund was about zero dollars,” Hendrickson said. Sixteen teams participated that first year; the number has gone up every year since. Twenty-five teams competed Friday.

Each team pays a $35 entry fee, and spectators pay $2 to watch. Each year the class of 2010 has raised close to $1,000, a figure it hoped to top this year, said Hendrickson, whose Cobra Kai team made up mostly of varsity football and basketball players won the tournament title Friday for the third straight year.

“Every year it’s just been getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” Hendrickson said.

The money raised goes to the class’s homecoming, prom and graduation events.

“The idea came from the movie ‘Dodgeball,’” Hendrickson said. “I was watching it one night and thought, ‘Why doesn’t our school have a dodgeball tournament?’ ”

He was referring to the 2004 Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn comedy, “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” about a rivalry between the owners of a rundown gym and the big-budget gym across the street.

Just like in the movie, student teams at Thurston create their own uniforms and come up with some colorful team names. Names such as Ball Busters, Street Sharks, Bean Machine and Victorious Secret, the latter an all-girl team in which the players were dressed in black with their faces partially covered by black scarves. One team, simply called The Team, was composed of players wearing only shorts, their names and numbers written on their skin.

Each game in the double-elimination tournament lasts five minutes. Players have to leave the court when struck by an opponent’s ball or when an opponent catches a thrown ball. The team with the most players on the court when the buzzer sounds wins.

Frank and Rusty Bedortha of Springfield, whose four children attended Thurston between 1969 and 1977, read about the tournament in the newspaper and decided to attend.

“It looks like the kids really love it,” Frank Bedortha said. “It’s simple and it doesn’t take any kind of equipment except a ball. And they don’t have to dress (well),” he said with a cackle.