LITTLE ROCK — Rich Williamson and his girlfriend were talking about kids. Not necessarily whether they’d have them, but what sport their hypothetical offspring might play.
“I don’t want my children to play football. It’s too violent,” the 38-year-old Alexandria, Va., resident decided. Baseball was deemed boring. And as for the world’s most popular pastime: “Soccer’s lame.”
It’s not that Williamson has never enjoyed playing those sports, or a slew of others, including lacrosse, basketball and rugby. But none ever managed to be as awesome as a game he remembers from his elementary school days in Texas. It was like soccer, but you could pick up the ball and throw it. Williamson realized that if he could codify the rules, sprinkle in elements he enjoys from other sports and rustle up people to play withhim, he’d be a big winner.
There’d be the glory of being the founder of a sport, the fitness benefit of running around while punting and heaving and, of course, the gratitude of his descendants.
So he slapped together a Web site for his creation, dirty pool (dirtypoolassociation. com), and invited members of www.meetup.com to join the movement. Last month, when District of Columbia resident Greg Nelson, 32, stepped onto a field in Alexandria for the first game, he was ready to be part of history. “I’ve played a lot of sports - I think I’ve played every sport there is - but I’ve never invented one,” he said.
Time to get cracking then, huh? The instinct to make up sports is as old as humanity, and while we usually think only about the ones that get airtime on ESPN or result in Olympic medals, there are countless others. They might not have formal leagues or the fanciest equipment, but many of these sports have players who are just as passionate asany pro.
Just ask Michael Rosen, author of the new book No Dribbling the Squid: Octopush, Shin Kicking, Elephant Polo and Other Oddball Sports (Andrews McMeel), which catalogs some of the sports world’s more exotic offerings.
There’s everything from bossaball, a variant of volleyball that encourages the use of feet (and includes trampolines), to chess boxing, which is exactly what it sounds like. “It’s the intersection between creativity and competition,” Rosen says.
He says the sports he writes about fall into two categories: ones created out of a sense of humor and others that come from people pushing the limits of the human body. “They think, ‘I can do this on two feet, but can I do it from a canoe or underwater?’” Rosen explains.
Whatever the motivation, the ones that stick around satisfy our fundamental urges to hurl, throw and kick. “It’s a little more appealing than standing on an elliptical,” he adds.
Nelson, along with the other inaugural dirty pool players, isn’t so high on gym cardiovascular exercise. “I don’t do aimless running,” he told me as we walked toward Williamson, who was prepared for the occasion with a sack of size 3 soccer balls (small enough to easily grip in one hand), cones to mark zone lines and a stack of dirty pool cheat sheets with a first draft of the rules.
Once three soccer players looking for a new way to get their kicks joined us, Williamson hashed out the basics: Players can score by standing in the end zone and catching a pass from a team member, or by throwing or kicking the ball through the uprights. Kicking the ball is always OK, but you’re also permitted to kick to your hands or a teammate’s hands and then carry the ball. You can’t, however, use your hands to take the ball outside of a zone - at that point, you need to pass it or drop it.There’s no tackling of other players and there’s no contact allowed between opposing players not in possession of the ball.
Also, instead of a set time, play ends when the losing team has had 10 possessions.
At that point I turned to 28-year-old Michael Haidar and asked, “Do you understand what’s going on?” “Not at all,” he replied, while 42-year-old Mike Wallace and 24-year-old Joanna Kochaniak shook their heads in agreement. But that wasn’t going to stop anyone.
“Can we take some air out of the ball?” Nelson asked.
“We can do anything we want,” Williamson responded.
Then it was time to play. There was a lot of dashing and passing and surprise scoring. A random guy who spotted us decided to cut in. When Kochaniak ended up with two opponents clenched on each side of her for the second time, there was a timeout to figure out possession rules.
Somehow, a fumble I made at the end zone convinced everyone that it would be all right to “solo” a touchdown by kicking it to yourself.
Two hours later, the entire “founder’s council” was collapsed on the grass, singing the praises of the new diversion. “I’m enjoying it a lot, especially that the rules are flexible,” Wallace said, even allowing that it had a leg up on soccer. “Once you get comfortable, there are more options for strategy.”
There was just one problem. “I’m not crazy about the name, to be honest,” Wallaceadmitted.
“What does it mean, anyway?” Kochaniak asked. Williamson explained that it’s a term for cheating, which makes sense because he thinks of dirty pool as cheating at soccer. The others were not convinced.
So at their next meeting, they plan to launch another new sport. Name suggestions, and more rule ideas, are welcome.
ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 12/28/2009