DePaulia – CDO

Other than misquoting/mishearing a little bit, and quoting the dodgeball movie, and saying we're an intramural team, the DePaulia prints a story on the Chicago Dodgeball Open.

From the DePaulia - Story by Tricia Cathcart - Issued 01-24-2011

Dodgeball takes aim

In the words of Patches O'Houlihan, "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball," and that is precisely what DePaul's intramural dodgeball team will be putting to practice on January 30th when they take on Moody Bible Institute for the first time ever, in any sport.

Located downtown on LaSalle St., Moody is a close neighbor to DePaul, and the teams are looking forward to the friendly competition. The match will be taking place as part of a tournament called the DePaul Dodgeball Open, which was put together by DePaul. Also participating will be Bowling Green State University, Central Michigan University, Michigan State University, Western Illinois University and UW-Platteville.

"DePaul is really excited to have an event of this magnitude," said DePaul dodgeball event manager Zigmas Maloni. "Everyone is really looking forward to it, especially Moody since it is their first real competition, other than when they have come to practice with us sometimes at the Ray."

Most of us are familiar with the dodgeball basics via our high school gym class experiences, but these players will be raising the bar, by following a nationally established set of regulations. The tournament will be played according to the National College Dodgeball Association (NCDA) rules, which can be found online at ncdadodgeball.com

Chad Schlundt, the head of the dodgeball organization at Moody Bible Institute, is grateful to finally begin tournament play as a team. "It took us about a year to get all of the administration processes rolling," says Schlundt, "last spring is when we began trying to organize it all."

He is also appreciative of the guidance that DePaul's team has given Moody's. "Coming to the open gyms at DePaul has been great, it's pretty much hanging out, having some fun playing dodgeball," Schlundt says. "We're in the process of forming that bond [with the DePaul team], they're showing us how everything works, giving us the ropes, in all aspects. It's been awesome of Ziggy and the rest of the guys to welcome us into the league … they're all super energetic over there at DePaul."

Of the Open, Maloni says, "This is an NCAA style tournament, we're really happy to have dedicated officials for the event as it's usually kind of hard to get people to officiate. The DePaul team has 20 players, with 15 on the court at one time, so we'll have five subs on the side."

Moody's team also consists of 20 players, all of which are genuinely excited for the tournament. "This is just the beginning for us. We have no funding through our school, so our cost on traveling is limited," says Schlundt. "The fact that we are located in Chicago, and DePaul is hosting this tournament is really convenient, it's a perfect start-off for us."

The game will prove to be an interesting mix of players, with DePaul being identified as a Roman Catholic university, and Moody, although they claim to be a non-denominational institution, consisting of mainly all Evangelical Protestants. However, this fact seems to be completely irrelevant for the players of each of the two teams. "It's dodgeball," says Maloni, "it's fun."

As far as Moody's plans go for the future of their team, Schlundt says, "We've been talking with the University of Kentucky for our next match, they're looking at coming out here to play us, and then hopefully we can get everything together to compete in the national tournament next April."