A crowd starts to circle around a court as a young man in black shorts and a black shirt stares across a line of cones to the opposite end of the court; five people, each holding two rubber balls of their own, glare back at him.
Two of his adversaries step forward and fire. He dodges both before striking one of them with his own shot. Two more people attempt to hit him, but he again dodges both and grazes one of their legs with his counterattack.
Eventually, he manages to survive until it is just him and one opponent on the court. Despite his eventual loss, the crowd gives him hearty round of applause, not only for his survival skills, but also for putting on a good show.
“If you haven’t played in a dodgeball tournament, you haven’t lived yet,” says John Munger, the mastermind behind the burgeoning dodgeball scene in Phnom Penh. His dodgeball group meets twice a week to play matches and held their second annual tournament last weekend, an affair fully outfitted with teams, jerseys and sponsors.
“To me, this is what really differentiates dodgeball from other sports. It gives us an avenue to bring our own unique character and creativity into the game and competition,” he said. “Plus, it’s one of the funniest things you’ll see.”
The San Diego-native started the group in July 2014 after moving to Phnom Penh for a job at Passerelles Numeriques, an international education NGO. Despite the prevalence of the sport in the US, Munger didn’t really start playing dodgeball until he moved to Ho Chi Minh City in 2011. On his first day at work in Vietnam, he met a fellow American who invited him to play.
“I was hesitant at first, but I went one time and really liked it. I played dodgeball in Saigon for two years,” he said.
After his move to Phnom Penh, Munger spent six months living a dodgeball-less life, eventually realizing how big a role it played in his time in Vietnam. Prodded by his dodgeball crew in Ho Chi Minh, he decided to set up a small group here, posting notices on expat Facebook pages and praying for responses.
Twenty people showed up on the group’s first official night, and since then it has grown, expanding to two nights a week and leading to the creation of an official tournament once a year.
The roots of the sport are murky, with a number of countries and cultures claiming ownership over its popularization. But most historians agree that the sport got its start more than 200 years ago when Dr. James H. Carlisle, a missionary working throughout Africa, saw a more vicious version of the game being played between villages and communities.
He took the idea back to England, replacing rocks and stones with a leather ball, and the sport was born.
Despite its violent origins, the draw of the sport in Phnom Penh is more social. It is a great way to exercise, to meet people and to blow off some steam, and Munger was attracted to the idea that both women and men could play at the same time.
“It’s not common that you can have a co-ed sport where girls are as good as the guys and even better,” he said.
Phaline Taing, who initially joined the group because one of her co-workers helps organize the weekly meetings, believes the sports underlying message is more important than the entertainment.
“I found that it’s courageous to implement this kind of sport in Cambodia where the culture is very different from the States. In Cambodia, sports are very discriminated,” she said. “Girls play this sport, boys play this sport. But dodgeball is great, both sexes can play together.”
Costing only $1.50 for foreigners and $0.75 for Cambodians per meeting, many of the group’s most ardent followers revel in the sport’s ability to provide a good workout and a venue to meet people.
Shelby Jones, a 26-year-old from England, said the sport and the people involved helped him cope with a personal tragedy.
“I needed to find company, make some friends and do something to take my mind off things,” he said. “Dodgeball was perfect. Everyone there is so welcoming and friendly. It’s not just a place to play some sports. It’s a place to make great friends from all over the world.”
The most avid members of the group say it has evolved beyond just a twice-weekly meeting into a tight-knit, full-fledged community.
“I think the biggest attraction for people is the dodgeball community,” said Giovanni Todaro, a 28-year-old Texas native. “Most of the people that play dodgeball spend time together outside of it. We go to movies, eat dinner and go out with each other on the weekend. There is a family vibe in the dodgeball community.”
The widespread diversity of the community has only helped it to grow even larger, pulling in people from across the world and locals alike.
“Through dodgeball, I can meet lots of people from different backgrounds,” Taing said. “And it’s the only time that I can throw balls at people and they keep laughing and smiling when they get hit.”
