Having a Ball

August 6, 2024

Funny thing.  Go look at my photos of yesterday and the title of today’s blog becomes obvious.  If a Frisbee can be counted as a “ball,” which it does, then all my photos show boys having fun playing ball games.

Honestly, I did not tell Sara about my theme.  Now look at her album:  All 55 of her photos reveal the identical “ball” concept.  Most of her pix came from clinic periods in the morning as Bow and Arrow took a time out for most of the day.

Those Tchoukball photos, however, were the continuation of a senior B&A contest that had been suspended by weather. It was a most spirited competition that went into triple overtime.

Try to figure out what is happening.  In possession of the ball, the holder gets three steps and the opposition puts up no fight when he then passes the ball. Why?  Because when a player bangs the ball off the rebound net, he scores a point for his team only if the ball hits the ground before being caught by the other team.

If a player on the other team does catch the ball, he can immediately turn the tables on either net. Quick scores happen this way.  It is fascinating to watch and very exciting when referee Rob Horne kept calling off the final seconds – four times in all!

Sorry to have dragged you through this explanation but the boys really do have a ball at this joint and I want you to know it. In the non-B&A events after-dinner time, Mat Ball had lots of junior camper participants.  Another game that is hard to explain, just know that in Mat Ball boys run the bases continually when the kicked ball gets away from the counselors!

I asked to see the ball, pretending to be some sort of rules enforcer.  And when the counselor defenders tossed the playground ball in my direction, I kicked it as far as I could, thus prompting a hundred base advancements and loads of good photo ops.  Scorekeeping?  No such thing. Hilarious.

Knowing my theme for this essay, I kept looking for games with balls and had no problem finding them.  Moreover, I discovered counselor Eli having a one-on-one basketball game with Ben Murphy and Ben Bundy taking on two boys, senior camper Nico Polos and junior camper Declan Doyle, in Pickleball on the tennis courts.

“How did the two of you come together for this game?” I inquired of the youngsters. “Just a random thing,” said the older one with a wide grin.  Kingswood at its very best, I would argue.

It started drizzling after that and I beat it back to my cabin.  Noise outside my window revealed happy boys having a ball playing Frisbee golf in what soon had become a harder rain.

Better weather is on the way, as per my announcement at breakfast, which drew many cheers from the ladies and gentlemen.