What happened to butts up?

By Cecile Nguyen

She shoots, she scores!

At last week's The Santa Clara intramural basketball game, I made my first basket in over 16 years.

OK, that's a little exaggerated. It's been 16 years since my last game of organized basketball, and therefore that long since I last scored official points that ended up on a stat sheet somewhere.

It took me three games into our intramural season to score a bucket.

I blame physics. Physics ruined my potential basketball career back in high school. Every time I go up for a jumper, I'm thinking about trajectory, force and aerodynamics.

But playing organized basketball with my fellow TSCers got me thinking: What other games have I left behind on the playground of elementary school?

Tether ball, kick ball, hopscotch, H-O-R-S-E, dodgeball and wall ball to name a few, but here are some of my favorites:

Four square: Four players play within a giant square divided into quadrants with a rubber ball.

The objective of the game is to advance to the "king" square by getting other players out. You eliminate others by forcing them to hit the ball incorrectly. The ball has to bounce once in your square before hopping over the dividing line.

At my school, we developed our own terminology around four square based on trick moves to try and get our opponents out. "Hop over," "skimmer" and "high wire" are a few examples.

Butts up: Played with three or more players, you throw a tennis ball against a wall and try to catch the ball cleanly on the bounce back. If you mishandle the ball, you must immediately run and try to tag the wall before another player throws the ball and hits the wall before your tag it.

If the ball reaches the wall before you, then you must stand facing the wall, stick out your butt and the thrower gets to toss the ball hard at your butt, hence the name.

What better way to quickly learn hand-eye coordination than by your friends throwing a tennis ball at you execution style?

Man, we were mean kids.

A friend told me that at his school, there's also the option of straight-up throwing the ball at a player, but as long as you tag the wall before that player's throw, there is nothing he or she can do to you, except maybe return the favor.

Jump rope: Remember when picking a boyfriend was as easy as a game of jump rope? "Ice cream soda, cherry on top. Who's your boyfriend? I forgot. A, B, Câ?¦"

With TSC's intramural season coming to a close Wednesday, how about a game of butts up?