Norfolk team of killer kickballers IS world champ

What's it going to take for kickball to get a little respect around here?

LaShawn Merritt wins a couple of races in China, and he and his two gold medals get the promise of a parade through Portsmouth. The East Coast Surfing Championships ride into Virginia Beach each year, and an entire weekend full of events is planned. Old Dominion has a crowd of thousands promising to show up for the football team's first scrimmage.

Meanwhile, a world champion in our backyard goes completely ignored.

Norfolk is home to a killer kickball squad. A team of rugged individuals, determined to win, with steely gazes and clenched jaws. These beasts, defying expectations of what the human body can do to a red rubber ball, call themselves The Frosty Balls.

Earlier this month in Las Vegas, they systematically dismantled the other teams from across the country in the World Kickball Championship. They left as conquerors and rode through the City of Lights as a victory lap.

Put that on the welcome signs: Hampton Roads - home to world-class kickball.

Why haven't you heard about this? Is it the bias of the elite media? Is it because the team has not adopted a cutesy sea creature nickname? No. The reason no one wants to talk about our local world champions is because kickball is supposedly a kids game, the same game you played on the blacktop. And adults who play kickball are...

Well, just try to talk to people who already have all their adult teeth about kickball. Or people who don't appreciate the sport's level of difficulty. They laugh. They snicker. They make a comment that usually ends with the phrase "grow up."

"People think of kickball as the simple, fun game that you played during recess when you were in the third grade. Adult kickball at this level is very, very competitive and difficult," said LaSalle Blanks, the captain of the World Champion Frosty Balls and an anchor at WVEC. "The pitchers are allowed to throw overhand and often throw fast and hard with spins put on the ball - so it can be difficult to kick sometimes."

Nearly 50 adult teams in Hampton Roads are affiliated with the World Adult Kickball Association or other leagues.

I went to a party last week where part of the draw was the promise of kickball, which sounds a little silly at first. But there is something appealing about the game when there are no teachers - especially no gym teachers - no abundance of rules, no worrying about grass stains on your clothes, no worries about breaking and/or losing a retainer, no worries about a kid with a mean streak who will push you down at first base and laugh.

"When - as adults - we all have to face real world problems with finances and job responsibilities and family responsibilities, playing kickball with your friends is such a great opportunity to feel like you're part of a team again and to have fun and escape from the real world," Blanks said.

Kickball is evidence of the new generational tug-of-war. Generation X/Y/Z won't grow up. They like kickball, dodgeball, cornhole (a beanbag game!), even video games they played as kids like "Oregon Trail." Why can't they grow up? Why can't they like adult things? Why can't they stay off the lawn?

I say, time would not be better spent gardening, or shopping for antiques, or vacuuming the garage, or walking the mall or playing Trivial Pursuit just because that's how generations past relaxed.

Kickball is just something to do for fun. And if it happens to be in Vegas and leads to a world championship, it might even bring a little respect, too.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277 mike.gruss@pilotonline.com