PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Even Sam Sayward’s own dad thought it was goofy at first.
Competitive dodgeball? Who does that?
“When we were at a Boston tournament, he was watching,” said Sayward. “I was like, ‘What do you think, Dad?’
“He said, ‘I don’t get it.’”
This was in 2022.
Fast forward to a match last year, and Sayward’s dad changed his tune.
“Okay,” he said. “I get it. You’re pretty good at this.”
Taking Sayward’s body of work into account, the “pretty good” assessment still undersells her accomplishments on the dodgeball court.
A versatile 5’4” interior player, the 33-year old Fishtown resident heads to Austria this week to compete in the 2024 World Dodgeball Championships.
“This is going to be the largest dodgeball event in history,” she said.
For all the people who associate dodgeball with rainy days at camp, or the 2004 comedy film starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller that satirized the sport, there’s another crowd that takes the game very seriously.
Sayward is a card-carrying member.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize how competitive it is,” she said.
“We hear [the line from the movie Dodgeball] all the time, ‘If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball,’ but it is one of those sports that, at the competitive level, is really challenging and requires a lot of athleticism.”
Sayward’s first memorable exposure to dodgeball came as a teenager, while she was working at a summer camp in her hometown of Plymouth, Massachusetts. After dinner shifts, she and some other counselors would play against campers.
Years later, when Sayward was in the Navy, she picked the game up again.
“I just fell in love with it and always came back to it,” said Sayward, who enlisted straight out of high school at age 19.
During her stint as a hospital corpsman, she was stationed in Italy and Connecticut. Dodgeball was a way to blow off steam.
“Working in the medical field, you're dealing with pretty serious things on a daily basis. Dodgeball let you have fun, especially with people of higher ranks.”
Sayward served in the Navy five and a half years.
Two years out, in 2018, she moved to Philadelphia - the same weekend the Eagles were in the Super Bowl.
It was a rough welcome.
“I’m a huge Pats fan,” she said with a laugh, “so that’s why I remember the date pretty well.”
As a transplant, Sayward was looking for ways to meet people. She played sports growing up, and knew they fostered community. She decided to check out local rec offerings.
“I saw dodgeball, so I joined.”
Sayward was ultimately disappointed.
She felt the organization that ran the dodgeball league didn’t take it seriously, so she and other players started looking for other options.
After a while, Sayward thought:
Why not create her own league.
In September 2022, Philly Dodgeball was born.
Forty people signed up for the league’s first season. Less than two years later, its size has nearly doubled - growth Sayward attributes to word-of-mouth and social media.
“It wasn’t until I moved to Philly that I was like, ‘Oh, dodgeball is a real thing with a huge niche community,’” she said. “It was really cool.”
Philly Dodgeball plays Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Friends Select School gymnasium on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Games start at 7:00 pm, but Sayward shows up a half hour or so ahead of time to lay tape and arrange plastic mini-cones on the gym’s two full-size basketball courts, forming the boundaries for the 25-by-50 foot dodgeball playing areas.
Two teams ranging in skill from beginner to advanced line up on opposite ends of the bisected court with six active players on each side.
After an official punctuates concludes a countdown, the game gets underway.
Players then race to the right side of the “rush” line (the midcourt line), gobbling up their team’s respective allotment of three foam dodgeballs (there are six balls total in play).
“It gets really crowded in the beginning,” said Sayward. “Some [teams] have one person run to the ‘rush’ line, some teams have two. There's a whole bunch of strategies.”
The wing players, known as “corners,” typically have the strongest arms and set up along the sidelines. In the Philly Dodgeball’s most competitive leagues, corners can throw up to 65 miles an hour.
The stronger defensive players and dodgers on a team man the middle.
“There's play calls, depending on how many balls you have,” Sayward said. “It gets really intricate, especially at the Team USA level.”
Sayward would know.
She made the U.S. national team this spring.
“I started traveling to play dodgeball in 2021,” Sayward said. “Then [in 2023], they were asking people if they were interested in being scouted for Team USA.”
She tossed her hat in the ring, and got invited to Denver in March for a tryout. Talent evaluators took notice. They were looking for players to send to the World Dodgeball Championships.
The morning the final roster decisions were announced, Sayward and fellow players went out for mimosas to pass the time.
When she found out she landed a spot on the mixed men’s and women’s team in the foam dodgeball division, she cried like a baby.
“It was just a really cool experience to be able to put in the work and see it come to fruition.”
Sayward and Team USA left for the world championships in Austria earlier this week. Up first is the group stage, followed by the knockout round. The finals are set for Saturday, August 17th.
Not lost on Sayward is that the competition overlaps with the Olympics. She hopes that by 2028, the next time the summer games are held, dodgeball will be included.
“I think it should be, and should have been a while ago. What other sport do you have where you’re adding in six different players, six different balls, and different strategies that require next-level athleticism? It should be on the same platform, the same stage.”
After coming home with what she hopes is a gold medal, Sayward will start gearing up for the fall season of Philly Dodgeball.
Two of her goals are to sell out the league with 80 participants, and continue increasing the presence of women in the sport.
“My dream is to have a 50-50 league,” said Sayward, referring to the gender split. During the summer season, enrollment favored gender-identifying men, 60-40.
Most of Philly Dodgeball’s players are young professionals between the ages of 18 and 45 who live and work in Philadelphia. There are also a lot of transplants.
Turns out Sayward wasn’t the only one who thought that underneath the sliding, diving, throwing, and catching, dodgeball held the key to something deeper:
A human connection.
“It’s an all inclusive sport,” said Sayward. “As long as you can pick up a ball and throw it - even if you can’t - there’s still a place for you on the court.”