MurderBall

Friday October 10, 2008
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more exciting news from my 7th Grade School year
MurderBall
My favorite Gym Class game of All-time.

7th Grade was the dividing line for Students’ lives in Herndon during the early 1960s. The 6th Grade was normal; you rode the School Bus to School and you got there at 8:15 AM with Classes beginning at 8:30. You sat in the same desk all day in the same Classroom with the same Teacher. The only exceptions were that you took a 10 minute ‘midmorning break’ for a small snack and bathroom use at 10:15, you went to the Cafeteria for Lunch at Noon for 30 minutes and at 2 PM, you went outside for Recess for about 40 minutes. Then at 3:30, the School day ended and you rode the School Bus home.

But, in the 7th Grade, everything changed. 7th and 8th Grade was now called Intermediate School with High School being 9th – 12th Grades. School started 15 minutes earlier and ended 15 minutes later but the major changes were in between those times. When you first arrived at School, you went to your Homeroom where you stayed 15 minutes listening to the Morning Announcements that were broadcast through a speaker on the wall by the door. Then, you went to another Classroom and every 50 minutes a bell would ring and you’d go to your Locker and exchange your book for another and report to a different Classroom. Your Locker had a combination lock on it which you had to memorize the numbers to and in what order to spin the dial.

There were some radically different Subjects, as well. Shop was a Class where there were power tools and other dangerous equipment that could cut off a finger or cause you to bleed in many other ways. There was no more Arithmetic – that Class was now called Math and every other day, you had either Art or Music Class.

But THE most radically different Subject was the life changing Gym Class. It wasn’t called Recess anymore .. it was called Physical Education and shortened to Phys-Ed. Oh sure, it was fun but you had go into a dingy, stinkin’ Locker room and take off your School clothes and put on Shorts, T-shirts, Sneakers and something called a Jockstrap. There was another combination lock and another set of numbers to memorize. And before you could go outside to play Sports, you had to do exercises. Stretching muscles that you didn’t even know that you had. And when your play-time activity was complete, you had to go back into that dingy, stinkin’ Locker room and take off your sweaty Gym attire and take a freaking shower. Right there in School. Then, you’d dry off and put your School clothes back on and go to another Class as if nothing happened out of the ordinary. :- o

The first three months of School found my Gym Class going outside to play, but playing got a little harder. We had to run around a Track (with no ball or game involved) and we had to jump high and far and land in sawdust. We even had to do push ups and pull ups and sit ups.

Then, by the time cold weather arrived, we took Gym Class inside in the School’s one and only Gymnasium. And since we had an enrollment of more than 700 in the Intermediate & High School, which were all at the same place and same time, we shared our Gym Class time with the 11th Graders.

Inside, we still had to do exercises and sit ups, etc. but we, also, got to play actual games like Basketball and Volleyball and a new type of Dodge ball game called MurderBall. During the first week that my Class played this game, we were alone in the Boy’s half of the Gym because the 11th Graders were doing a different activity, outside. The game of MurderBall was, indeed, Dodge ball with a few exceptions. The area of play had one side verses the opposite side. The boundaries were marked off in thirds. Each side’s back third was their zone and the other team could not enter into it .. but the middle third was designated as Dead Man’s Land and both teams could, legally, enter that area. The rest was Dodge ball played with 4 of those red rubber inflated balls the approximate size of somewhere between a Basketball and a Volleyball.
If you hit someone with a ball, they were out and had to vacate the area BUT if they caught a ball that you threw in the air, the thrower was out of the contest.

Some people would play the game timidly, by hiding in the back third and not making any attempt to gather up a thrown ball and throw it back at someone. We could play as many as 3-5 games per each Gym Class and I’ll admit that I played the game aggressively. I enjoyed knocking unsuspecting Classmates out of the game and, sure, I was knocked out other times, as well.

During the Friday Gym Class, the 11th Graders finished up their outside Class activity before the period was over and they came inside the Gymnasium. And so it was, the last MurderBall game of the day and of the week was a contest between the 11th Graders and the 7th Graders.

* Allow me to interject one important note, here, if I may. One of the 11th Graders was a guy by the name of Bill Butler. I played Little League Baseball with Bill when I was 8 years old and he was 12. I wasn’t old enough to play but I lied about my age. Bill went on to pitch in the Major Leagues with Cleveland and Kansas City. He once threw a 9 inning 1-hit shutout with 11 Strikeouts.
But I digress ..

There were maybe as many as 25 of us 7th Graders while the 11th Grade Class had 12 guys at the most because it wasn’t a credited Class after 10th Grade. As the game wore on, I carefully avoided Bill Butler when he got a ball and I watched him nail unsuspecting 7th Graders. He put a big red mark on many of my Classmates’ legs and arms. When the clock on the wall showed no time left in the Class activity and it was time to go shower up, the Gym Teacher, Mr. Griffiths proclaimed that that the game would conclude before we had to retreat to the showers. If we were late for our next class, he’d write us a note.
And so, the game was down to me as the last 7th Grader and Bill Butler and Billy Roberts as the last 11th Graders and all 4 balls were on their side of the Court. Ronnie Roberts was a tricky s.o.b. and he and Bill, both, had a ball in their hands. Ronnie whispered something into Bill’s ear and they laughed. Then, Ronnie ran towards me and wound up to sling a ball at me when he (supposedly) tripped and his throw lazily popped up into the air right to me. As I stepped forward in the middle of the Court to make an easy routine catch and eliminate him from the game, I looked up at the ball in the air and while I was starring upwards, Bill hauled off (I love that expression) and hit me square in the side of my head with a sizzling fastball. I never saw it coming. It knocked me back about 10 feet before I could, finally, hit the floor and as I did, I rolled and tumbled another 10 feet or so. I could have laid right there but I decided to accentuate the moment by rolling backwards and tumbling another 20 feet or so until I got the double doors that led out into the School hallway. Jokingly, a Classmate of mine opened the doors and I tumbled right out into the hallway and with a red splotch on the side of my face the size of a watermelon, laid on my back with my arms and legs sprawled out.

The joke could have ended right there but it so happened that a group of Sophomore girls who had finished their Lunch in the nearby Cafeteria and had moseyed on down the hall in front of their next Class, waiting for the bell to ring and enter, were standing all around the place that I tumbled out to. They ran over to me asking, “is that little guy all right’? I looked up with a dazed look and there stood about 10 girls, one of which was Virginia Emery. She of the brown Volkswagen that drove past my morning School bus stop, every morning and whom I had a huge crush on. Another girl asked if I needed anything and I half unconsciously replied that I needed that girl (pointing towards Virginia Emery) to kiss my boo boo. Virginia Emery did kiss the side of my head but then the bell rang and all the girls scurried off and into the Drama Class located right across from the Gym.

As I started to get up, most of my Class was looking at me and Bill Butler and Billy Roberts picked me up and escorted me back towards the dingy, stinkin’ Locker room and I became a Cult hero not only with my Classmates but with the 11th Graders and most importantly, with those Sophomore girls and Virginia Emery.

* Note: More on another, later, encounter with Virginia Emery in another Blog Piece, someday soon. I promise.

LARRY CURTIS SPURLOCK

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