The Rules of Dodgeball

Hey fellow Dodgeballers,

So a few questions have been raised in our dodgeball training sessions that I can’t seem to find answers for in the various rules. I’ve put my interpretation hoping people here can offer their opinion?

1) So you are allowed to leave the court via the back line to retrieve deadballs. We’ve had it where play gets down to a few people players run out the back to retrieve ball just as someone is throwing a ball at them, thus dodging the ball or if hit they say hey I was getting the ball. In my mind retrieving balls is necessary to keep game going but shouldn’t be used to gain an advantage. Not sure how to tackle this issue, because it’s a bit of a grey area?

2)What if the ball hits you while retrieving ball, or as re-entering court? we currently count this as a no hit.

Hi all,

I started running a Dodgeball team/training session in Bristol UK and being a newbie to the game I have a question about Losing possession of your guard ball? (When I say guard ball I mean a ball you have in your possession.)

So when you have a ball in your possession if your opponent throws a ball at you and you use your ball to block an incoming ball and you drop your ball then you’re out right?

1. If this is true then what about if you drop your guard ball because
A)you wanted to try and catch an opponents ball
B)your dodging an incoming ball.
C)You throw to a team member and they either miss it completely or it hits them then hits the ground.

2. What about if a ball is coming at you and you throw your guard ball at the incoming ball and either balls hit you, are you out? Because wouldn’t both balls be dead as then hit in mid air?

We've been asked by the city parks and rec department to "design" a dodgeball court over an existing tennis court that is rarely (if ever) used. Our initial design gave us two courts as we merely had to bring the tennis net down and strip in the new boundaries.

However, we were asked to design the courts in a way that didn't require taking down the nets and also provided us with four courts. These courts are short in length but pretty wide.

Anyway that got us to thinking what the "ideal" Dodgeball court looks like as far as dimensions are concerned. If this league does well, we're more than likely going to be able to actually design on our Dodgeball court from the ground up. Since there's so many Dodgeball organizations out there, NDL, NDA, IDBF, NADA, LADS, WDF, (god the list goes on) it'd be cool to see what other people use to determine the ideal Dodgeball court.

The league we started last night was suppose to be adult, but filled with 16 yr olds, and cheating with there boys for refs. Plus we dblheadered and was worn out by the second, but it was tons of fun. hope we do better next week.

Im submiting this to not only congratulate our utah players that won the tournament but also as a testament as to how we play the game here. I started the league a year ago and have implimented a number of certain rules of play that I believe has helped the game as seen and experienced by utahs opponents in vegas. With practice and teamwork it almost makes you unbeatable at that! I invite you to check out our website at www.utahdodgeball.com , contact myself Paul, for any further info. If a standard rule of play, 8 1/2 inch red playground balls, court size and team size where implimented nationwide this would be a far more competitive sport. Playing as we did in Vegas was much like shooting fish in a barrel. No offense intended, but this was really a far cry from how we play it here.

Hello-

I'm from the DePaul Dodgeball Society in Chicago, Illinois. We recently developed an informal conference with Michigan State University, Ohio State University, Kent State, Grand Valley State, Nebraska, and Delta College among others.

We have developed a standard set of rules that have agreed to for competition and tournaments within our conference.

You can find them @ http://depauldodgeball.com/rules.htm

We created them for the collegiate, competitive level to be appropriate with club sports play as well.

Thanks!

The rules are simple. You're out if:

* A ball hits you and falls to the floor
* You drop a ball thrown at you
* Someone catches your ball
* You step out of bounds or over the center line
* A ball hits you and another teammate (you're both out)