We played a game we called TRENCH. It was like dodgeball, only there were up to 6 balls in play at any one time, the lines you couldn't cross overlapped to about 20 feet from the walls so there was this huge no-man's land, and it was not only legal, but encouraged by the PE teachers to throw at the head. This was a brutal and terrifying game, especially when you were one of only two players left on your team, and the other team had all the balls, and they were all baseball players, and they were standing about 20 feet away from you. YIKES!
I played baseball, American football, and basketball every day of my childhood, but I sucked badly at anything involving hand to eye coordination. Still, it was fun to play. I was much better at individual sports. I won the first foot race I ever entered at age 8 and was hooked on running for life. I was on the swim team and I ski raced until I got kicked off the swim team for skipping practice one Saturday to race skiing. Soon after that I quit ski racing because it was just too regimented and you had to spend too much of the day just standing around waiting your turn on the course. I wanted to free-ski in the woods, jump off cliffs, and be a general hooligan on the mountain so that's what I did all the time for the next 40 years. I got stupid good at it and today, at age 55, I become 15 again every time I click into my bindings.
That cornice up there? Sure I'll huck it...
That 50 degree glacier above that rocky moraine and that ice-choked tarn? We'll ski it in shorts and we won't fall. We'll go skinny dipping in that lake after...
That mountain in the wilderness that's never been skied before? It has now...
That no-fall zone at Silverton? Sure, I'll go first...
That avalanche on the Continental Divide? Yeah, sometimes test skiing yields positive results. We actually practice disciplined avalanche safety and endeavor to make good decisions about where to go under what conditions. We do know we can die doing this...
Sports are fun, but nothing comes close to big mountain backcountry skiing. Nothing. Not even sex. :crazy: