Category Archives: Game

Backyard Football

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Radio producer and sports media
Residence: Lake Bluff, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/18/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant used to play tackle football – yes that’s right, TACKLE football – in a friend’s backyard, with no pads or helmets or anything.  His friend had a large enough backyard to accommodate play.  Also this was, according to my informant, back in the days before wavers and rampant lawsuits and whatnot.  If you got hurt, you got hurt and went home and that was the end of that.  So everyone would get together at this one person’s house and divide up into teams, usually it would be 5 on 5, but sometimes as big as 7 on 7.  It was self-hike, and you could pass or run.  The backyard was big but it wasn’t quite football field huge, so there were no distance markers, just two end zones marked out.  You had to get a first down or a touchdown or else you would be forced to give up the ball.  First downs were obtained by making two complete passes.  Players were also allowed to throw lateral passes during plays, making the game very “Razzle Dazzle” as my informant put it.

While I have never played padless tackle football, I have played several games of small-field football.  Usually there were one of two ways you could make a first down.  Either you had to cross the halfway point of the field, or you had to make two complete passes during your first four downs.  Also when the ball was turned over on downs, the other team simply took their ball all the way back to where it would be if the original team had made a touchdown.  Interceptions, on the other hand, are played at the spot where the interceptor is deemed down.  Back in the 70’s though, people were not as uptight as they are now about kids getting hurt and roughhousing and such, and parental supervision was hardly required for kids to play sports.  This does not necessarily mean that parents were less concerned with the safety of their children than they are now, but instead that no one wants to get sued, so they make sure that no harm befalls their children or, more importantly, that no harm befalls other children while they are around.  As soon as someone figured out that you can so another person when your child gets hurt at their house, everyone was in a hurry to make sure playdates and games were absolutely safe, lest they get their butt sued.

Thunder Dome

Nationality: Italian American, African American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena
Performance Date: April 16, 2013
Primary Language: English

Um, okay, so I guess I’m talking about Thunder Dome, which was a ritual thingie for my water polo team in high school. Um, uh, so, basically, it was like this exercise we did every week for hell week, which was like the most intense part of practice, I guess. It’s before the season starts, like a week. Anyway, this particular exercise, um, basically what they would do is, they wouldn’t tell you what it was until you were about to start it, so for like the freshman it was like this big deal. So what they would do is wheel out this big speaker system. And they’d start playing “Thunderstruck” by AC DC, like really, really loud, on the pool deck or whatever. And then, uh, they would have to uh line up in two different rows on each side of the pool. Basically the rules of the game is you have to stop the other person—you were like matched up with someone on the other side—you have to stop the other person from scoring any way you wanted to. And if you didn’t you had to keep going against another person, and another person, another person, another person, until you do. And, yeah, that was basically the game.

This sample of folklore describes a rite of passage. The secrecy and fear of the mysterious “Thunder Dome,” is a way for older high school students to intimidate, and allow new freshman team members to prove themselves in order to be accepted as part of the team. The game is an extreme version of water polo that allows freshman to show the team what they’ve got. If one performs poorly at Thunder Dome, they are off to a bad start as a member of the team. Doing well can increase one’s standing in the eyes of older players. This tradition can lead to acceptance by a niche peer group.

Booty Shaking, Vomit Dance for Good Mojo

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Colorado
Performance Date: May 4, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Some German

Before every competition, my high school theater group would circle up, and shake all of our bad mojo/energy into the center of the circle. It usually involved some brushing off, fake vomiting, booty-shaking, etc until our jitters were out of like two minutes had passed. Then we all visualized that nasty ball of nervous energy, lifted it up as a team, and and threw it far far away. It made us perform better.

This is a ritual the theater group would conduct. For superstitious reasons they would join in a type of bad mojo warding dance. Obviously this ritual provides comfort, marks the occasion of the competition, and provides a good placebo affect, but the biggest benefit is likely that the team members joining together to do an embarrassing dance provided the club with a strong feeling of community.

Theater Circle Trust Rituals

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 3, 2013
Primary Language: English

Ooh, high school drama productions would have a “circle” every night before shows. I feel like most schools or theaters or whatever have something like this. A communal thing to get everyone together and alleviate anxiety before a show. Let’s see. There were different ritual/game things every time, chosen from an established group (established, as the whole thing was, by past students. Everything passed down and taught to the freshman and sophomores and other newcomers so that the whole thing goes on). There’s one thing where everyone holds hands silently. One person squeezes the hand of the person next to them and then that person does the same so it goes around the whole circle. There’s another thing where an appointed person, usually a beloved clownish figure who retains the post until they graduate, is blindfolded. They then go around the circle and randomly select two people, who have to kiss. That one happens three times. There’s “Show us how you get down” or whatever it was called. Basically a call and response then dance thing.

“Hey Michael!”
“Hey what?”
“Hey Michael!”
“Hey what?”
“Show us how you get down!”
“What?…I don’t know…no way”
“Show us how you get down!”
“Ok!”

Then you’d proceed to do some kind of dance move or something while saying “This is how I get down.” Pretty much anything goes. Everyone then imitates it and then the person who just went calls the next person.
Then there’s senior speeches, where all the seniors talk about how much drama has meant to them and lots of people cry.
Aaaaaaand, yeah, that’s pretty much all I remember about that.

The members of the Drama Club are afraid to fail at performing their play, and so they ritualize those fears by forming a circle and participating in group games, dances, and songs to loosen up and gain comfort in the routine. By doing embarrassing dances beforehand, they can relax and not worry so much about embarrassing themselves on stage. Another big benefit is that the club members joining together to do embarrassing dances and awkward activities provides the club with a strong feeling of community. People learn to trust each other by breaking their comfort zone, and through passing on these Drama Club activities to newly initiated members. This trust makes the group tight-knit and able to work together to put on a play.

Wallball variant – Handball

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 5/1/2013
Primary Language: English

According to my informant, he and his classmates would play a game they called Handball during recess.  The ‘court’ was a specific area in the school between a set of stairs one one side and a railing on the other.  Games were played with a rubber playground ball.  If a player hit the ball at either of these points, that player was out.  Also there was a small hole in the court, and hitting the ball there also merited an out.  Additionally, there was a grey line partway up the wall, and if a player hit the ball above this line, that player would be out.

In a way, this game seems to be similar to regular handball,  where the player must hit the ball against a wall in between a lower and upper line.  However, my informant’s version of the game involved a large number of players, usually 15 to 20 at the start, and had more specific boundaries that can be attributed to the nature of the court they used.  Overall, this appears to be a mix of regular handball and playground wallball.