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Submitted by Sanford K
Tetherball was the most epic of all playground games! Sure, the tall kids always had a bit of an advantage, but that only provided the shorter kids with incentives to learn different tactics and make up home-court rules that would even out the playing field. For instance, our court had home-court rules about ropesies and when they were appropriate, open hand versus fist hitting, high angle shots, and touching the pole. What were your home-court rules?
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These were so cool and generated so much play value that my parents built one in our backyard and it got used to death by everyone in the neighborhood. Actually, almost literally “to death” , because one “home rule” game my brother and I invented was “one guy runs through the tetherball circle while the other tries to hit him with the tetherball.” My brother got tricky and swung the ball around to meet me coming and it wrapped tight around my neck and (remember, I’m running as fast as I can) yanked me up off my feet like a dog tied to a swingset who tries to chase a squirrel. Landed flat on my back completely unable to breath (choked and wind knocked out of me.) (Just one of several Brotherly Interactions With Unintended Consequences that ended badly for me.)
Wow, good thing for you that kids don’t have enough mass to snap their necks during a hanging.
Though I suppose it leads to a long choking death for those that do get hung. 
Wait, who’s hanging kids? Are their statistics on this. (Also, that story is more win than the Tetherball).
I enjoyed Tetherball, but getting in trouble for hurting kids while playing was never fun.
So I spent most of my time playing kick ball, and wall ball.
For kick ball it was using a doge ball or soccer ball, and having three kicks to make it touch the back board. Rules where you could not touch the ball with your hands.
Wall ball was sort of like American Handball, except played with the same kind of ball as kick ball, and you would have to punch the ball to make it bounce then hit the board before the next player hit it.
What constituted for a out was double bouncing, and making the ball hit the board without making it bounce first.
Wallball (Or we sometimes called it Suwee- don’t know how to spell that-) was a win of it’s self. SOMEONE SEND IT IN!
I never ahd tetherball, school was too poor and town was too little.
We played this version with a Tennis ball. We also played dodge ball with the targets standing against a wall. Getting hit is the head hurt bc it bounced off the brick wall. Catching the ball meant that you could throw.
Sometimes we’d use a Pinky. You did not want to catch one of those in the head- kids were coming off of recess with welts.
The kids at my school basically had tournaments set up to find out who was the best. The last school day of a month would be the finals with the month champ.
You didn’t win anything other then recognition that you where the best.
Twas quite fun.
One rule we had was the standard “no ropes”.
Another one was “no bottlecaps”. I never did figure out what that meant.
“Bottlecaps” was putting your hand on the top of the tetherball, right by the rope, and throwing it like a normal ball. You had a better grip on it that way and could put WAY more power behind it than by hitting it with your fists.
I hated playing tetherball because I was -short- in elementary school and I’d always get hit in the face with the ball, which sucked because I wore glasses.
I never got a chance to play tetherball.
When my son was in school, all they played was Wall Ball. As much as I watched, I never *did* figure out the rules to that one.
As follows:
1-You throw the ball agsint the wall.
a) If you catch it, the person who threw it has to run to the wall before he is pegged by the ball (or the ball hits the wall if you’re playing wall outs) or he gets an out.
b) No on catches it and it is thrown again.
2- If someone touches the ball, then drops it he has to run to the wall before he is outed.
a) If you touch the ball and drop it and touch it agiain (wethere it’s your foot or what) it is an automatic out. This is called a doubletouch.
3- Three outs and you’re elmininated.
We never had everyone eliminated so, I don’t know what happens when you get down to two people.
i shattered the growth plate in my pinky from playing tetherball. damn you 5th grade!!
That game scared me so much, haha.
I was usually up against people who could smack the ball pretty hard, so I usually ended up chickening out.
Oh childhood.
We had one of these at my school, but they take it down because some kid went for a ride on the ball. But they only took off the ball and string, they left the pole in the middle of the playground.
my best friend and i played this so much her dad put one in the front yard for her birthday one year. sadly, the hole for the tetherball pole has filled in with dirt, so we cant play anymore…
We called Wall Ball Butt’s Up in my school becaused you exposed your rear end when running for the wall. There was another game called Suicide, same concept except the penalty was not just running up but standing at the wall for 10 seconds being pelted by balls. We used tennis balls for these games. Good times and really sore welts.
The suicide you speak of was called “Butt pegs” here. It never took off, we may have only played it that way a handful of times.
I hated tetherball….but that happens when you grow to the grand size of 4′11″. We didn’t play Wall Ball (hadn’t heard of it until right now), but I wish we had! Sounds fun. Dodgeball, Capture the Flag and the very un-PC Smear the Queer were our games of choice!
Tetherball was epic until some kid got hung playing it and they removed it from our school.
i almost got strangled using one of those! scaaary
Submitted for voting by yours truly.
“Summer… Do you wanna play me?”
ahhh yes! tether ball was epic!! i’m pretty sure our rules were no bottlecapping, no ropesies and no catching….i think, after catching the rope one day, and having my entire arm wrapped tourniquet style in the rope was enough reason not to for me.
wall ball was a load of fun…we called it “suicide” cause we used a pink raquet ball i believe or the tiny rubber balls that were only like 6″ in diameter.
another version was also the “handball” style that we played, where you bounced it off the wall and the other person got one bounce before you you hit it back. the most epic win would be off a “slidee” that NO one could conceivably return! extend your arm straight back, locking the elbow, make a fist and hit the ball underhand….this would send it FLYING back to the wall, at such an extremely low height, that it would barely skip, or “slide” off of the ground once before touching the wall and only bouncing back a foot or two before hitting the ground….you had to be REALLY fast and well positioned to return one of those….
….ahhhhhhhh childhood…which the fact that i survived, is an epic win lol
I sooooooooooo wanted to play tetherball well.. and I sucked at it… as I did w/ many other physical games. (I had difficulty w/ teeter-totter cause I was so skinny!) My parents put a tetherball pole in out theIback yard, I tried, I really did, i practiced at home.. still sucked at it – this game was NOT for me. Better stick to climbin like a monkey and running games I guess…. :\
at one of my schools, we had a pole. but no ball. when they finally got off their butts and got a ball, we would all just hit it in one direction until it wrapped around the pole.
but then again, who didn’t?
OH MY GOD, I loved this thing.
My friend and I were playing just recently, since it was up at Lair of the Bear and we’re like: “OMG I KNOW WHAT THAT IS.”
It’s much more intense when you’re older.
I used to play alone on the courts at my school because I had no friends. xD
I liked tetherball, but according to friends the way I played it wasn’t right. I always played it rather slow and friendly, not the cutthroat “WHACK WHACK WHACK” way they played it.
Hmph. At least no one got hurt when *I* played it. =P
The kids in a rough neighborhood near my mom’s house play this all the time, but they put a regular ball in about 10 layers of plastic grocery bags and tie it to a stop sign with clothesline. I thought that was quite clever. Probably doesn’t hurt as much when you’re whacked with the ball as that rock-hard one they used at school!