Four Square

[Walden]

When I was in grade school we had 4-square courts (not to be confused with Aimee Semple MacPherson's church). They were laid out as a square divided into quarters. Before we had the courts, kids just marked it onto the pavement with chalk. It wasn't an "official" game. Just an amusement at recess.

I remember playing it, and it was enjoyable enough a sport. I was wondering the history of it. Wikipedia says that in some Commonwealth countries it is played with tennis balls. I guess that would give the game a different flavor. We used to use dodgeballs or volleyballs. Basketballs would work. My father broke his arm playing dodgeball as a child, with a basketball at recess, instead of the softer balls usually used for that game.

[dwest]

Interesting, I thought it was a prairie box home.

[Denny]

me too, I was a bit before official courts (painted) though

Ohio, 1956-on

the name's been used for lots o'things

oh, tether ball too

[carrie]

I was THE tetherball queen of Lincoln Elementary. My dad installed one in cement in our backyard, too, but the thing the post sat in quickly came loose from the cement and it wobbled wildly during play.

[mutepointe]

I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. We played anything from 2 square to 8 square druing recess at St. Mary's Grade School. Now, I live in southern West Virginia and only a couple of people have ever heard of this game. We used a play ball. And when the play ball landed on top of the chain link fencing and popped, two of the kids got to wear yarmulkes for the rest of recess.

[Doug_Tipple]

I remember playing 4-square at Church camp when I was a kid. Sometimes I take/pickup my granddaughter who is in the 2nd grade at St. Joan of Arc Catholic School here in Indy. It is an old school with an excellent academic reputation. I noticed a whole row of freshly painted 4-square courts painted in the parking lot behind the school, so I assume that they are still being used.

[Thomaston]

My college friends and I actually revived this for a while, and set up the 4 squares on the back porch. It was still a lot of fun, but there was a lot of alcohol involved in those days, too.

[izzarina]

My kids LOVE to play four square. It's one of their favorite games of all time. I had never heard of it growing up, so I'm not exactly sure where THEY found out about it.

Coincidentally, there was also a Four Square church not that far away from us when we lived in Ohio. The kids thought it would be a great church to go to because obviously all they did was play Four Square there.

[TheSpoonMan]

I made some of my closest friends playing foursquare in 7th-8th grade. We played with tennis balls- you get darn good that way! When teach took our tennis balls away, we played with woodchips. That didn't go so well.

[fel bautista]

We played with those red balls. I don't know what kind they were, something about the size of a volleyball or basket ball, but red.

[Coffee]

When I was in grade school we had 4-square courts

In a classic case of reading whilst sleepy I misread that as "grad school."
Made me want to ask which university. So I could transfer to it.

[Walden]

We played with those red balls. I don't know what kind they were, something about the size of a volleyball or basket ball, but red.

Yeah, we used those too.

[TheSpoonMan]

We played with those red balls. I don't know what kind they were, something about the size of a volleyball or basket ball, but red.

Yeah, we used those too.

I always called em dodgeballs or kickballs, cause of the sports we'd paly with em. I think kickball is most proper.

[Walden]

They are the dodgeballs I was referring to as being safer than basketballs. That's how my dad broke his arm. They normally used those red balls, in gym class, but at recess they had just gotten ahold of a basketball and used it the same way.

[djm]

That's how my dad broke his arm.

If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball. - Rip Torn

djm