To finish off my blog on weird and uncommon sports around the world, I’m gonna review a not-so uncommon sport that hits close to home (well at least for me, I don’t know the weird places you people lived before Penn State). This sport, the holy grail of summer camp games, is one of my favorite sports of all time, one that I cherished and loved throughout my childhood. The weirdly named sport of ga-ga is a sport that almost every summer camp across the country (and a little bit around the world) has been using as a low-risk and extremely fun activity for all ages – yes you old ass college students can enjoy this sport as well. I hope that you all have been blessed in your childhoods with this sport, because it really is all the hype.

Now let’s get down and dirty in the ga-ga pit and discuss the formidable rules of this ultimate sport. The court of ga-ga is either a hexagon or an octagon (picture above) and has walls that are high enough to keep the ball in but short enough to step over. The game of ga-ga is played usually with one soft “dodgeball” but can be played with as many as you want. To start the game everyone must be touching a wall of the court and a ball is thrown up into the air. On the first bounce of the ball everyone says “ga,” then again on the second bounce and then you can get off the wall and play. You can only touch the ball with your hands and cannot hold or throw the ball; you must hit the ball with your hand. The ball must stay on the ground as much as possible. There are many ways to get eliminated in this unforgiving game; if the ball hits any part of your body below your waist, if you hit the ball out of the ga-ga court, if you “double-hit” the ball before it touches anyone else, and if someone catches the ball that you hit before it touches the ground (which is why you want to keep the ball on the ground). When you are eliminated you must step out of the court and the game keeps going until there is one player left in the court. This player becomes the Big Dick Nick of the game.

I’ve been going to summer camps for as long as I can remember and one of the only things I do remember from my hazy childhood is that feeling of pure ecstasy I got from being Big Dick Nick. God, I love being Big Dick Nick. Looking out at all those jealous and amazed eyes is nothing short of fantastic. For the past two years I’ve been working at my local YMCA as a camp counselor, and you know damn well I would play ga-ga with those kids every day. I wasn’t one of those lazy counselors who would just sit on the side on their phone while the kids would play their game, oh no, I got into those games of ga-ga. I wouldn’t go easy either, I would go full out blasting those 7 year old’s in the legs eliminating them one after the other. Let’s just say I was Big…. wait that feels wrong saying with kids around. Now I regret making that reference. Let’s just say I won a lot. Deuces.