Latest 50 Hot Topics In the column, I advocated for a revival of the game played at New Hanover-Upper Frederick Elementary School and Boyertown East Middle School in the 1990s.
We call it “<編集済み>to pollute“It would be canceled now, but thisMackle” “Cream the carrier,” and “Kill the man with the ball.” The last two are a bit more straightforward in their explanation, but everyone who played them seemed to have named them differently, so maybe it was so localized that no one noticed.
It was a really great game. It was a mix of soccer, rugby and wrestling and we played it every time we went outside during recess. It was very easy to set up. You split into groups of any number of people and get a ball. It doesn’t matter what kind of ball it is. It can be a soccer ball, a rugby ball, anything small enough to carry and run with. Then follow these rules:
- Everyone gathers together and one person throws the ball in the air like a jump ball.
- Whoever grabs it becomes the first carrier.
- Everyone else is tasked with taking the ball away from this person.
- This can come in all different forms: tackles, punching the ball away, headlocks, and more.
- The player who catches the ball becomes the next ball carrier and the game continues.
The goal was to hold the ball for as long as possible, and that’s how you win. There wasn’t necessarily someone standing there with a stopwatch, but everyone knew who had the fastest time in the end.
I don’t know if this rule is universal, but we forbade participants to create teams or factions, each person had to pursue their own interests and had to stay within a certain area, otherwise people would keep running and no one would be able to catch up.
This is a very rough example, it’s the only one I could find on YouTube.
There are only about six people in this video, and the rules are a little different, but you get the gist. We played this game with over 50 kids and it was an amazing show, with a bunch of lunatics running around thinking they were Reggie White and trying to steal the ball.
The reason they don’t play it anymore is probably because it’s “dangerous.” It may be too rough and unsafe, but I don’t recall anyone having to go to the nurse’s office after a game. It wasn’t a high-impact sport, more like rugby on grass, with huge scrums and close-quarters combat, almost grappling. Nobody sprinted at other players and knocked down trees like Sheldon Brown did with Reggie Bush.
But it was a game that separated the boys from the men. To excel as a ball carrier, you needed a variety of traits. You needed strength, agility, and evasion. You needed stamina and endurance. And you needed a certain mindset to steal the ball and dodge 50 skinny classmates at the same time. It was truly a sociological experiment to see who was brave and who wasn’t. The playing field was a testing ground, not a safe haven for wimps looking for fresh air.
This may be why children these days are so spoiled.Kill the man with the ball“I think so. Instead of a dunk tank at the Flyers Charities Carnival in 2025,Kill the man with the ball” Charity games. Let’s make it happen.
