News-Argus dodgeball falls hard

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on March 15, 2015 1:52 AM

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As soon as me and the rest of the News-Argus dodgeball team turned the corner in W.A. Foster gymnasium, there he was.

Goldsboro basketball coach Russell Stephens was standing there -- smiling as always.

"You're playing in this?" I asked him.

"Yep," he responded.

Oh no. I thought this was for kids. I fully expected to walk into the gym and dominate. I was planning on our team walking in with the hissing sounds of the Purple Cobras and demolishing teens from beginning to end.

Instead, what happened was I walked into a gym filled with three dozen people ready to tear my head off.

I tried to play it cool during warm ups. Like my arm would be able to survive the constant pressure I was about to put on it.

It could not.

Our team sat out the first two games and observed our competition knock out teams in spans of 24 and 51 seconds. Then we took to the court. We were facing off against Stephens' parks and rec team.

They dominated us.

I was eliminated within seconds after a ball skimmed my leg.

These teams were far better than I thought.

My girlfriend, Becky, was participating in the activity and she lasted, perhaps, twice as long as I did.

The next game went better. We had a one-player advantage with eight seconds left and it looked like we were on our way to a victory against one of the best teams playing.

Then, out of nowhere, a ball was planted directly in the middle of my chest. It was if God himself came down from the heavens and supplanted the Superman "S" logo in the middle of my chest. Only this was a dodgeball. And it gave me no super powers.

The buzzer sounded.

We tied. It was all my fault. I have no idea how to dodge.

Still, Becky survived. I did not. How will I live this down?

I began to take the next few games more and more seriously. And by that I mean I threw the ball harder and harder until my arm went numb. Mostly, my goal was to take out Stephens. You can call it a reporter-coach rivalry. I was going to do whatever I could to take him out.

I failed wildly.

For some reason, no matter how hard I threw the ball or how much I tried to control the direction I threw it in, I missed Stephens by five to 10 feet.

Luckily for me, he missed me as well.

As far as the other teams and players are concerned, though, I was an easy target. I didn't even attempt to dodge the balls thrown in my direction. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I think I just figured if they were accurate enough to throw the ball in my general vicinity, they deserved to hit me.

Plus, I hate sudden movements. I was always taught not to make any sudden movements in life.

In another game we take on a team that is far better than us. I'm pretty sure they are professional dodgeball players, though no one would confirm it with me.

I last the majority of the three-minute game by largely being anonymous, hiding in a corner. Then it comes down to me and Becky as the last two standing.

Terrific.

Becky somehow gets eliminated. I'm pretty sure no one actually hit her, she just saw the odds were stacked against us and completely bailed on me. (That is a joke, I think.)

So I'm the last man standing. It's like I'm standing in a war zone with no place to hide and a full on frontal assault is coming at me.

Bullets, I mean dodgeballs, are flying past my head left and right. I'm channeling my best Patches O'Houlihan and dodging, ducking, dipping, diving and dodging the best I can.

At one point I manage to get all six of the balls on my side of the court with four players left.

I begin chucking them as hard as I can with no clue where they are going. Two of my throws hit an enemy and eliminate them. Suddenly, it's two on one and I still have four balls to throw.

I chuck one and it sails about 82 feet high over my opponents' head. I retreat to avoid being hit by their response, but just as I bend down to pick up another ball, I see one flying right at me.

There's nothing I can do. I'll try to catch, it but I'm hopeless.

It's too late to dodge so I stick my hands out and hope I can hold on to it. The ball hits me square in the gut and bounces to the ground.

I'm out.

Out of the 12 games we played, we won two. I survived only one. My girlfriend survived five.

I'm convinced the males on the other teams purposely avoided throwing at her, while they coordinated decisive plans to take me out of the game because of my rocket arm.

I thought about playing the last game blindfolded, like Vince Vaughn in the movie Dodgeball. Instead, I got eliminated early and headed over to the bench where Stephens sat.

"How your legs feeling?" he asked.

My mind tells me to say they feel awful and I don't know if I ever will recover. But my mouth says "everything is good."

Everything is not good.

I'm a battered man. Beaten and bruised. Utterly defeated. I am pretty sure my toe is broken. This was supposed to be a fun activity, and I am more sore than I have ever been.

Allen Etzler is the News-Argus who typed this completely left-handed because he's pretty sure he tore his shoulder throwing dodgeballs. He can be reached at aetzler@newsargus.com or follow him on Twitter @newsargusal.