Four Square!

[OldSchool_Boy]

never really played 4 square. Elephant Tag was the game to play.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

What the heck is four square?

Seriously. No lie.

You've really never played four square? It seemed so universal back in the day.

At any rate, the goal was to knock the ball into an opponents square after it landed in your own. If the ball lands in your square twice, if it lands in your square and goes out, or if you hit it and it goes out, then you're out and have to get back in line waiting to enter play. The squares rotate, you start in square 4 and if you get to square 1 then you get to serve (you move up squares by the players in them getting out). There were usually all kinds of rules about acceptable ways to hit the ball, for example it might be deemed that "over hands" (hitting the ball downwards) are not allowed.

Wow, that feels like a really long description for such a simple game.

Ah.

My game in grade school was "Try not to get the shit beaten out of me during lunch and recess today". I lost at it a lot, then eventually it all built up to a breaking point, I raged out and broke a little dipshit's arm and collarbone all at once.

That was a good day.

But yeah, most grade school games and non-video games in general are completely lost on me. I did play a bit of wall ball for about a month in 8th grade, but then our school banned it when some kid tripped on the ball and ate the pavement.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Yeah, four-square ruled recess back in elementary school.

On a side note, do they still allow kids to play dodgeball in school? Because in retrospect now, it seems kinda strange that teachers would actually allow kids to line up against a wall and nail each other in the face with a big rubber ball. *Reminder* ALWAYS go for the fat kid! Especially if he says "hey, no hittin in da head!"

[Droid party]

You guys played with balls that big? Pussy's use to play with tennis balls.

We always used a tennis ball too, except we up here in Queensland called it handball.

[Hobie-wan]

Four-square is the shit. Same with wallball. Both had their bans at my school though. Too many stupid kids getting railed in the face with a ball, I guess. Actually, no, it was those asshole kids that LIKED pegging in wallball. When you have a bunch of immature young teenagers trying to flex nuts by purposefully hitting people they wanted out the most, I guess a ban should be in place. Oh well. I feel like my generation destroyed fun for all of the rest of the following generations.

Pfft outs?

I think at the height there would be about 40 of us with 10-15 tennis and racquet balls playing against the gym before the first bell. Just lots of screaming and welts with the occasional need to send someone on the gym roof when someone made a bad throw. There were too many people to worry about having any outs.

I'm sure it would be banned at my intermediate school too by now and there's probably a camera pointed at the front of the gym so that anyone trying to get on the roof would be expelled. Come to think of it I'm surprised I never saw any graffitti up there even though I was in a very rural area.

[lisalover1]

I used to play 4-square every single day as a kid in Connecticut. Then I moved to Michigan, and learned that every region has it's own rule set and name set for legal moves. Kind of interesting, and it was still fun. However, no one used the 4-square court anymore once my school got a teatherball pole.

[gtmtnbiker]

I never played the game growing up but my kids do play it. For me, it was kickball & dodge ball.

[Niode]

I never even knew this game existed.

A game I did play was Bulldog (sometimes known as British Bulldog or just plain Bully) until it got banned almost universally. I remember some of my friends that went to a different school in my village (curiously my little village had 3 schools...) had it banned at the same time. That game was the shit.

[alexis524]

never played four square, but for me and the gang it was red ass. a wall and a tennis ball. you throw the ball at the wall as hard and at any angle. The goal was to catch the ball. If you tried to but bobbled it/dropped on the ground, you had to race to the wall and tag it before someone threw the ball at the wall. If you beat the ball, no harm came to you, but if you got beat, the guy that threw the ball that beat you got one chance to throw the ball at you with your face to the wall, ass out. the goal was to throw the ball as hard as humanly possible at your ass, hence the name red ass. If was all good until you got pegged just a lil bit south of your ass and caught your sac.

that and what we called matball in gym class. kinda like indoor kickball but with large mats, have to round the bases twice. the layout of our gym made it classic.

[MrPopo]

never played four square, but for me and the gang it was red ass. a wall and a tennis ball. you throw the ball at the wall as hard and at any angle. The goal was to catch the ball. If you tried to but bobbled it/dropped on the ground, you had to race to the wall and tag it before someone threw the ball at the wall. If you beat the ball, no harm came to you, but if you got beat, the guy that threw the ball that beat you got one chance to throw the ball at you with your face to the wall, ass out. the goal was to throw the ball as hard as humanly possible at your ass, hence the name red ass. If was all good until you got pegged just a lil bit south of your ass and caught your sac.

That's wallball. We used to play that on the swim team against the gym exterior wall between heats. The game is much more serious when you don't have thick clothing on, just that speedo.