Freedom Elementary school is the tip of the iceberg in the eradication and extinction of man's oldest game — tag. Naturally, this has people in an uproar, whining about how soft kids today have become and reminiscing about the uncontrollable danger involved in their childhood games. In reality, though, it's a desperate attempt to save the common man.
Schools in Wyoming and Washington stepped up and banned tag at recess this year. Other schools in Oregon and California have already banned the game from their playgrounds. Most principals, like Cindy Farwell at Freedom Elementary, cite injury as the reason for banning the game. She was concerned because the game "progresses easily into slapping and hitting and pushing instead of just touching." Yeah, that's her main fear, riiiight.
Let's take this for what it's worth — brilliant PR. Who is going to get upset with a principal for trying to protect the children? In the end, isn't always about the children, anyway? Now, in reality, this is about protecting children, but not because tag has turned into a vicious game. Quite the contrary, it's being axed from schools because it's grown far too soft.
Tag was first played by the ancient Egyptians and has been played at recesses for thousands of years. It is a classic, classic game, so I can understand the outcry at the thought of a tag-less future, but it's for the best. Tag, like any game, has gone through a long period of evolution. It's now claims Marco Polo, Cops and Robbers, Laser Tag, Dodgeball, and Paintball as offspring.
So why are we trying to move back in time? Original tag doesn't make any sense anymore. Are we going to start building pyramids again? Maybe enslave God's chosen ones while we're at it? Ancient tag belongs in ancient history. That's not to say that the basic recess version has always been stagnant, but the current path is producing American children softer than Tom Cotton (cotton was named after him, FYI).
There are no winners in tag. There is no scoring. More important to me, there is no way to humiliate your opponent. Acrobatically evading a tag from "IT" doesn't have the same feel as a massive dunk over or an earth-shattering tackle. You can't even stand and admire your tag or do a little celebration dance when you tag someone else. Sure, these have always been problems that plagued tag, but during my time as a whippersnapper, we were able to play around it. We had ball tag, a form of dodgeball without a dividing line to prevent point-blank assaults.
When my little brothers went through school, they abandoned any sense of rules for a game called "Braveheart." It was a simple game that consisted of a large group of kids splitting into two armies. Then the two sides would do a battle cry and start running at each other. To spice things up, a bat was occasionally placed at midfield and whoever picked up the bat (it was a nerf bat, my brother didn't go to school at a prison) got to use it. Today's kids have "bases" and "no tag-backs."
Honestly, what is happening with our youth when calling "no tag-backs" is actually honored in a game of tag? What happened to integrity or having respect for yourself? First, you should be tagging people strong enough that they aren't in a position to even entertain the idea of a tag back, let alone be able to pull it off.
More importantly, it doesn't make any sense. Calling no tag-backs is like playing a game of one-on-one and then convincing the other player that he's not allowed to play offense. Tag-backs are an essential part of the game to settle grudges if nothing else. I would be willing to wager a substantial amount that Gary Bettman played a role in introducing the "no tag-backs" rule to tag. Of course, that's only after he decided to implement bases and dresses as the official attire of the sport.
It makes perfect sense to take this pointless and archaic version of tag away from children. At this stage, however, I think it would serve our future even more if the kids were given a combination of balls, oblong sticks, rocks, and shards of glass and then were left alone to create their own generation's version of tag. Or they could have an administrator randomly select a boy in the class to sneak up on and spray with TAG bodyspray. Then sit back and enjoy as girls claw each other to death trying to catch him (at least it happened that way in the commercial, and I've found out that TV=real life).
It's either that, or have half the class play tag while the other half begins work on a scaled-down sphinx.
The Sports Gospel According to Mark is sponsored by BetOnSports.com. All readers get a 10% signup bonus at BetOnSports by entering "Sports Gospel Promo" as the promo code. Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on SC. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].
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