Walter George and Sam Hancock, the Founders of ChairBall. 

     The only real point of playing ChairBall is to splatter the concrete with the blood of your opponents. I wanted to go ahead and get that out in the open from the beginning, because I want to leave you with no illusions. ChairBall isn’t a game for the weak-stomached. 

When a few guys at my school suggested I take a look at ChairBall, I happily complied. The best article topic I had at the time was about electronic computer-controlled teddy bears slowly crushing humanity under their cushiony-soft grip of terror (see left), and ChairBall sounded far more promising. With a name as generic as ChairBall, though, I feared somebody somewhere would have already taken the name and applied to another (perhaps more legitimate) sport. So I did some research, and discovered that my fears were true.

Only, they were embodied by a group of harmless looking Texas A&M girls. I found this ChairBall, which predates my school’s ChairBall, on a website covered in moving .gifs, animated cursors, and little heart graphics. Not hardcore. And so I dismissed it as not being a liability risk, sent a threatening e-mail to the girl holding the bucket in the picture, and never informed the school's ChairBall community. Instead, I visited the dorms for a game. 

ChairBall is a fairly simple game. Players split up into small teams, and line up on a concrete court. Each end of the court has a ramp, a chair, and a line that the team on offense can’t cross.

“The Drop” occurs at the beginning of play, or after a goal. When the ball is dropped, the two teams scramble for control, and are allowed to do literally anything they want to score, including using bystanders as human projectiles, and throwing bricks. The ball can be moved down the court through any means, but scoring is slightly more complicated. The chairs act as the goals: Hitting the chair from behind the boundary line earns a team 1 point, though the shot must first bounce off the ground. Rolling the ball through the legs of the chair earns the team 2 points. Throwing the ball through the open space in the back of the chair (see below) gets 3 points. In addition, players can roll the ball up the ramps at either end, positioned in front of the chairs, and do any of these things for double points.  

            Though this open-ended method of gameplay leaves much room for strategy, ChairBall games typically involve little more than the infliction of pain. Our game was a classic match-up between two classically hardcore groups, guys who wear camo, and guys who wear Goodwill blazers. One team can perfectly blend into their surrounding in a ninja-like fashion, while the other is stylish and has the security of knowing that they paid 50 cents for their clothing.  

            After the camo team’s resounding victory, I returned to the dorms to interview the players. Several of the boarders joined us as I interviewed Sam and Walter, though Walter did the majority of the talking. I sensed a frightening anger deep within Sam from the beginning, and soon discovered that his ChairBall skill was due to a lifetime of pent up frustrations.  

    I pretended to take notes during the interview, but actually drew little pictures of animals and a robot. So though the following interview is for the most part accurate, there may be some slight discrepancies. I had to get that out of the way beforehand; I’m not going to be accused of being a total liar over a game of ChairBall and a drawing of a kitty. 

Chris: So guys, what was it that inspired you to create ChairBall?

Walter: Being a boarder.

Sam: Yeah, we were bored.

Walter: Originally, the game was played with one goal, and was more like bowling. We decided we wanted something more hardcore.

Sam: We wanted the hardcore.

Walter: We were all about the hardcore.

Sam: It’s brought me a social life. It’s allowed me to pick up the hot women. I had to fire my old ones. 

At this point, I’ve obviously stopped asking questions. I’m letting them talk as I continue my artwork – Now I’ve moved on from the kitty, and am carefully crafting a ducky. And while I’m doing this, I’m wondering why the same song, Van Halen’s “Panama,” has been playing on the computer across the hall since I’ve been in the dorms.  

TW: So how has the game evolved since its creation?

Walter: Mainly, we wanted it to be fast, furious, and hardcore. We don’t like pansy sports. It was like professional wrestling, sort of an ongoing redneck soap opera, but we dropped that for the full-contact approach. Wrestlers aren’t hardcore enough.

Sam: Hey Walter, why don’t you stop talking?

Walter: Huh?

Sam: You’re talking forever… 

            Already the violent tension that makes ChairBall such a great game was beginning to show, even through their repeated use of the word “hardcore.”

I didn’t get much further through the interview, because mere minutes into it, a full-scale battle erupted, which I suspect tore a wide path of destruction through that particular dorm. If you were trying to sleep in an adjacent room, the founders of ChairBall have agreed to pay for any property damage done.