There is so much I could say about this picture, or more accurately, the game of Battle Ball. It was our favorite PE game by far. This picture shows members of DHS's Class of '67 playing. Frank Tanner is the boy standing almost upright with a ball in his hand. You can see Richard Bunting entering the frame at the right. I can't identify any of the other boys.
A full discussion of Battle Ball should be taken off-line, but I'll repeat something I've mentioned before because it's classic. We played Battle Ball for years, thinking the game was perfect. How in the world could you improve on perfection? Well, one day Coach Allen couldn't teach our 8th Grade PE Class, so Coach Hightower (at that time the school's principal) substituted for him. He asked what we wanted to do, so naturally the near unanimous decision was Battle Ball. He said, "OK, but we're going to add a little twist to the game.
"We'll play the game like you guys have always played it, but after the match is over, the last two guys on each team are going to have a shoot-out. The last two players left on the losing side will go over to that wall and bend over and lean against it with their hands, so their rear ends become targets. The last two players on the winning side will get to throw at them from behind that line (he pointed to a line about 20 feet from the wall). Just to make it more interesting, if either of the two players misses, all four have to exchange places."
That was great! It even involved team strategy. I can't remember how it turned out, but I know we never played by those rules again. What a shame.
