Pat Kenney
Campus News Editor
Orange pylons bordered the field as players huddled together in anticipation. Their eyes filled with excitement and pockets filled with shivering hands. As players exhaled, their breaths formed visible clouds as they waited for that fatal noise – the noise that will start it all. The noise that will begin the mayhem.
Tweet, tweet.
Using all of the energy that they could muster from their frozen bodies, the teams charged. Pushing, hitting, dragging, pulling, slapping, doing anything to get the gargantuan 12-foot beach ball across the goal line.
Despite the rivalry on the field, spectators and players alike faced an enemy that no one saw coming: the cold. A cold that waters the eyes, numbs the lips and affects all who dare to enter upon its domain.
The fight was even. Trading blow after blow, the ball went nowhere until it happened.
Slap, smack, thud, POP!
Everyone huddled around it, staring in confusion and disbelief. There was no coming back from this; it was career-ending. The hole was large and the ball was flat. They were unable to continue on with the game.
In steps President Mary-Beth Cooper. She looked at the scene and walked inside the Administration Building as hope began to fade. Minutes later, she emerged from the warmth with scissors in hand, heading straight for the fallen ball.
Grabbing the ball in one hand, she cut a square out and held it high in the air. “Anyone want a piece?” proclaimed the president.
“I made an executive decision to cut the ball so everyone has a piece of today’s memories,” stated Cooper. “Cage Ball was fun to bring out and fun to see everyone participate in a game that not many students know about.”
Cage Ball is a Springfield College tradition brought back to campus by Cooper and the Inauguration Coordinating Committee during the first ever Cooper Cup.
Played on a football-like field with a ball roughly 12 feet in diameter, the object of Cage Ball is to push the ball across the opposite goal line. There is only one rule: no kicking or punching.
“We are celebrating Springfield College all week,” said Becca Jacobson, the Student Government Association president. “[Cage Ball] is a really big part of our history and a very fun game to play, but students don’t know anything about it.”
Although there was no clear winner, students from every class shared smiles and laughter while getting a chance to relive history. The ball may be in pieces, but the tradition lives on.