Kill The Man

The game was played like this:

One kid had the ball, and he ran with it. He* didn’t run anywhere in particular – there was no goal line to cross. He just ran. The rest of the players chased the player carrying the ball, with the intention of tackling him, dragging him to the ground and stripping the ball away. Hence the name kill-the-man-with-the-ball, or kill-the-man for short. Who ever got hold of the ball all began to run, and the pattern repeated itself.

Naturally the teachers, and the parent volunteers who helped police recess hated the game, and it was strictly forbidden. And naturally a game of kill-the-man broke out pretty much every. Though the game was ‘against the rules’ I don’t recall anyone ever getting in real trouble for it – I think the usual teacher procedure was just to take the ball and break up the game. But that was close to to thirty years ago, when it was still understood and accepted that many, if not most, young boys are prone to being rambunctious and that short of maiming one another** should be allowed to express this part of their nature.

I assume that today any such games are strictly prohibited by some sort of zero-tolerance policy, and that any young boys who insist on acting like young boys are earmarked for behavior modification a brand new prescription.
*To the best of my memory this game was played strictly by boys on the third and fourth grade playground.

**Not as unlikely an occurrence as you might think; to be covered in a later post in this series titled (tentatively) “Lethal Devices of My Childhood, Fondly Remembered.”