Four Square

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I thought it was just a local game we played as kids, but apparently it's a pretty common schoolyard game. Who played it, and what rules did you have/variations used? Did you use a tennis ball or something else?

 

I remember before each game the person who would start with the tennis ball would say the rules ("Double Bouncies, no erasies times infinity plus one spit on it" for example - though often we would play straight-up because it got whacky with too many rules) and we'd have special techniques (my favourite, the "Michael Jordan" where I'd jump in the air, spike the ball while grabbing my groin.)

 

Another fun game we'd play was War. We'd take chalk and draw out a huge square and semi-squares within it which would be countries (naturally, some countries would be bigger than others), and we'd write our countries name into the square ("Canada", "US", etc - there would also be a neutral zone at times) and one person would start off with a basketball or a soccer ball and say "I declare war on... FRANCE!" and throw the ball into the square and the person in France would have to chase after it. In that time, you had the opportunity to claim territory in that country by making a chalk outline ( but you couldn't be in Frances square - you either had to be on the outside of the big square, have permission from another country to enter their space and draw from there, or stay within your own country and reach into the attacked country and draw from there. You could move into any marked territory (marked with the initials or full name of your country) and the objective was to capture every bit of space in the world. This was probably my favourite game. So much fun. If it were socially acceptable, I would so be playing that this summer.

 

It'd be interested in hearing what games everyone here played as kids, and seeing if it's a local thing, or if other kids played it. It's not like we buy these games at the store, or learn them from our parents - it just travels from kid to kid and place to place.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Fuck yeah.

[Aero 0]

Four Square ruled. I used to play it with the other kids in the neighborhood way back and occasionally at school. Last year, my senior year in high school, in gym class, we had one of those 'units' where you get to choose what activity you wanted. A bunch of us started Four Square and it eventually just turned into a huge game, with everyone REALLY getting into it, playing hardcore.

 

But you played with a tennis ball? I always played with a kick ball. We usually had the captain square, where the person inside gets to make the rules. Powerbombs were always good moves, but we didn't do the crazy stuff like that in high school.

[The Mandarin 0]

God yes; I hardly remember the game but I know I had a great time playing it. I can't fathom playing it with a tennis ball though.

 

Although looking at Wikipedia's list of four square moves is strange. "Tiananemen Square"? "Peppermint Sticks"? I don't remember what we called those (we still used them), but they weren't those names.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Back in tha day, in the school yard, we would just take chalk and draw out the squares and play from there and a few years later they painted squares, and then it became all corporate and shit. My neighbour had a driveway that was perfect for four square as it was concrete and had the pre-made squares that were the right size. I was reading the wikipedia stuff and not a lot of it carried over to our games.

[Guest Smues]

When I was in elementary school it was huge. They had lines painted in a couple places for lots of four square goodness. But my god, playing with a tennis ball? That'd suck. I don't remember a lot of the special rules we had but I do remember there being a zillion of them and usually whoever was in the 1 square got to name the rules.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

The 1,2,3,4 square I am not very familiar with.

[Art Sandusky 0]

That's how you fuckin' play it though.

 

I would have schooled all of you if we'd crossed paths on the square, or the big tetherball circle (that was never actually used and was just a big circle) that we divided into four parts for Thunderdome-level intense games.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

We played kickball.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

Greek Dodgeball.

 

 

Though I know a group of hippies that use their dining room to play four square in though. They took the table out and used tape to mark out the squares and they get quite buzzed and play.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

We just played it like, someone has the ball, hits it into another square, then that person hits it into any other square and we'd keep goin until someone missed or it bounced twice. We were roughneck like that.

[bob_barron 0]

Four Square was huge in fifth grade, we called it box ball.

 

I was pretty good.

[Ced 0]

The one memory of 4 square I have was hitting the ball so hard it bounced up and hit one of the other boy in the face. It left a little redness, but he fell over and cried like it had crushed his cheekbone or something. Good times.

 

I also remember the 2-rectangle variation that was essentially ping pong with a kickball and no net.

[Scroby 0]

4-square was big in Elementary school, hell we used names for the WWF belts for our champions. I was the IC champion. After Elementary the game to play was Suicide. That was a huge blast until we got the game banned from school grounds. It wasn't our fault the kid tripped over his loose jeans and broke his wrist.

[EricMM 0]

Truly, if they need a new Olympic sport, the consensus is that it should be this sport.

 

Last years gold medalist gets to make the rules!

 

All Around the World!!!

[CanadianChris 0]

We always played it with a tennis ball. It was nearly 20 years ago, though, so I don't remember a whole lot more about it.

 

We played another game (I don't remember the name - it may not have even had a name) where you had a group of kids throwing a tennis ball at a wall. If the ball came back and hit you without you catching it, or if you caught the ball with two hands, you had to run to the wall while the other kids tried to get the ball and hit you with it before you touched the wall. If they nailed you before you got to the wall three times, you had to go stand at the wall with your back to everyone else, while every other kid got to take a free shot at you with the ball. Good, sadistic fun.

[EricMM 0]

Of course.

 

There is an inherant hilarity in a game where the goal is to run as fast at a wall as you can.

[daileyxplanet 0]

During recess me and my friends always played totally made up games, like Power Rangers. Gotta love kicking air.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Greek Dodgeball.

 

 

Though I know a group of hippies that use their dining room to play four square in though. They took the table out and used tape to mark out the squares and they get quite buzzed and play.

 

Is Greek Dodgeball the variation where if you hit somebody with the ball you get to sodomize them?

[Guest Felonies!]

We had wall ball in 3rd grade (1994-95), which may have been like what CanChris described, except the whole hit-the-kid aspect. I think it might have been like handball. There'd be like 50 of us playing up against the giant exterior wall of the gymnasium, and I think you just had to keep doing stuff until you made some sort of error and were eliminated. You know what, I don't really remember. I tried playing once and got eliminated early so I quit.

 

I played a lot of 500 in 3rd grade. The worst was when they'd announce "surprise package" and I'd lose all my points. Usually I'd just run laps around the school complex a lot. I played Power Rangers in 2nd grade but I got in trouble for it and had to be put "on the wall." Was that the means of discipline for anyone else? Being put on the wall? Wasn't that the worst? We had a big track that all the schools were all kind of around. Here, let me find my old neighborhood on Google Earth!

But yeah, I liked to just run on the track by myself and occasionally with friends. It gave me time to think and stuff. Probably early signs of high-functioning autism or anti-social personality disorder. Oh well. I miss those parks. What a mess.

[Guest Felonies!]

[Guest NYankees]

Has anybody here play British Bulldog? Thats when you have a person stand in the middle and people run pass him and he has to tackle someone down. When he tackles someone down they join him in the middle and try to take the down the rest. The winner is the last person who hasn't been tackled.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

BB was banned at my school after some kid got a concussion and another one broke his arm during a high-spirited game.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Man, Czech went to a nice-lookin' school. Ah, another piece of the puzzle. He loves that line.

[daileyxplanet 0]

I should Google Earth more often...

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

We'd play wall ball, but it was something like "throw ball against wall, if you miss you have to run to the wall and back before someone gets the ball or you are out", I think "once the person gets the missed ball, they have to throw it at the other person" may have been a part of it.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

[treble 0]

We called it Red Ass (or Red BUTT, since we weren't allowed to swear). The school I went to from grades 2 to 4 had a wall that was perfect for it, since it was huge, no windows, and it was impossible to roof the ball.

 

Played a lot of World Cup basketball, which was the same as World Cup soccer, just transfered over to basketball. Playing as teams of 2 was usually better. A lot of foot hockey or ministick hockey with tennis balls was played, too.

 

The best, though, was football in the snow. Grade 5 was the best year for that, since there was this huge field in the school yard and a lot of snow that year. We could tackle each other and shit without worrying about grass stains or anything else our moms could get mad at us about.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

We'd play mini-hockey in doors, but it was eventually banned from just about every house because of the mass destruction it caused.

 

Street Hockey was, of course, king. The whole block would be in on it, parents and kids alike, so much fun. Seeing the Sidney Crosby gatorade commercial just sorta blew me back to stick picking, which I had forgotten about completely.

 

We didn't have a ton of winter games. Just snowball fights and GT downhill racing and launching off snow ramps.

[Guest Felonies!]

"throw ball against wall, if you miss you have to run to the wall

How the fuck do you miss a wall.

 

Anyway, we played a lot of floor hockey in gym from 2nd to 4th grade, which was really cool. I was good at getting away with penalties; an act I reprised in 9th grade for the all-too-brief floor hockey unit. But yeah, floor hockey whenever possible, 'cept on Fridays. Friday was Fitness Friday, when all five homerooms had gym together, and we'd have to do, like, step aerobics. Songs we stepped to included, but were not limited to, "Be My Lover" by La Bouche, "Mr. Vain" by Culture Beat (my fave at the time), "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and "Runaway" by Real McCoy. Looking back on it, it's almost kind of surreal. Step aerobics?

 

Weird fact: the K-2nd side of the school's park had swingsets, but the 3rd-5th did not. Apparently we were "too old to play on the swings." Fuck that. Swings were great. Sure did make me feel more mature, even as an 8-year-old, though.