A rekindling of a lost childhood pastime pokes at emotions in students. The playground game four square is making a strong comeback and grows in popularity every week.
Mondays are no longer the most dreaded day of the week for a group of VCU students who dub themselves the International Four Square Alliance. Established in the spring 2005 semester, the IFSA meets every Monday at 8 p.m. and has been attracting more than 30 combatants to step into the quad and compete.
“We tried setting up a session during exam week in the spring semester of 2005,” senior philosophy major Ryan Cales said of the alliance’s beginnings. “Since then the game has flourished, from the core players of the early day, to the common students passing by.”
On any given Monday night a line of approximately 20 to 30 VCU students can be seen lined up around the quad in the courtyard between the James Branch Cabell Library, the Hibbs Building and the W.E. Singleton Center for Performing Arts.
So what has made such an elementary game so popular?
“The nostalgia factor is a pretty big reason why I enjoy the game so much,” said Bryan O’Callahan, IFSA co-founder and senior political science major. “Four square is a game I’ve been playing since grade school, and it is nice to get a gang together and just play. The fact that it is so easy to pick up and play is great, too.”
Four square is a playground game usually played by children consisting of a manually drawn 15- by 15-inch box with four separate squares in which the competitors stand. Each player has his or her own box. They try to bounce the ball into another player’s square to make them miss and boot them out of the square, sending them to the back of the line. The vacant square then is filled by subsequent players.
The quad’s squares are called ace, king, queen and one, with ace being the highest. The player occupying this square is privileged with creating the rules of each match. The most popular rules are “one tap, no crap,” “double taps optional” and “brickwalls.”
The “crap” in the first rule refers to holding, carrying and tapping the ball with two hands at the same time. The first two rules are generally well respected but the latter has been the subject of debate for some time.
Other minor rules include stealing, auto-stealing, tree-tops or slams, and blocking.
Auto-stealing occurs when player A hits the ball into player B’s square, and before player B can touch the ball, player A rushes to the ball and hits it in player B’s square again, getting the player out.
Blocking is a physical aspect of four square’s new revival. Player A can rush into player B’s square and perform a body block on player B to prevent him from returning the ball. VCU’s group of hard-core four square aficionados even has its own set of playing cards. Each card depicts one of the regular players on the front with the IFSA logo. The back of the card shows the player’s stats, special moves, nicknames and a brief humorous description.
The alliance has suspended all games this winter because of cold temperatures, but a recent spurt of unusually warm weather has brought the game back to life. Games will resume Jan. 22 at 8 p.m.
Perhaps there is more than meets the eye to the rise in popularity of this game, but one thing is for sure: This game can make elderly college students feel like kids again. Even if it is just for one night, we can all pretend that there is nothing more important in our lives than getting to that ace square.