Smearball

As school kids, everyone probably played some version of what we called "Smear the queer". Perhaps you called it something else.

Basically it was try to get the ball and don't get tackled with it. If you are about to be tackled, chuck the ball in the air and let someone else have a go. That's it. There were no teams, no points scored, no time kept (other than the recess bell) and no object except to do violence to whomever had the ball. The motivation for carrying the ball was mere machismo.

That's all fine and good, but we can capture this spirit while infusing some semblence of an actual contest so we can play it in big stadiums and show it on ESPN-9 or the Fox Sports Obscure channel.

Still there are no teams - this is an individual sport consisting of eight or nine marquee players. Your score is your total amount of time in possession of the ball. If you are tackled while carrying the ball, you are out of the round (retaining your total time). The round ends when only two players are left. Whoever has the greatest amount of time with the ball, still standing or not, wins the round. Gold, Silver and Bronze are awarded for the best scores after several rounds of play.

Betting is not only encouraged, but provided for at the venue, as with horse racing: "I put $10 on Jacko Burton to finish with Bronze at 7 to 1". Sounds like great fun to me.