Big Kids at Play—Portland's Popular Urban Sports Leagues

Just drive by a Portland City Park on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and you will see the big kids in action. Team jerseys and banners and umbrellas. BBQs and pony kegs. Enthusiastic fans. It's a helluvalotta of fun. Or, is it?

A recent Oregonian article lauds the popularity of urban sports leagues in Portland and beyond. The most popular local organizations for the urban sports enthusiast are Recess Time Sports League and Underdog Sports League. These leagues provide the structure for people to create teams, compete in their favorite elementary school sports, and socialize like nobody's business. Both organizations have done really well here in Portland, land of the "entitled re-juvenile", as I've often heard remarked.

Aside from the business aspect of the urban sports leagues, there are volunteers affiliated with various teams and leagues who make it all happen, and thousands of players citywide. It's all fun and games in Portland, especially in the summer when many of us love to kick it with our pals during our much-coveted hot, sunny days and long, warm evenings in the park—but it seems that a certain demographic is just downright elementary school sports crazy here. I've never seen anything like it.
 

Enter the Madness

So, just who are these re-juveniles? And, why do they get such a kick out of playing kickball with their peers—adults with kids and mortgages and probably jobs, too? Many of my friends are kickballing and dodgeballing and flag footballing and bowling happily right along with the Stumptown masses. And they finally got me to join an Underdog flag football team last year. While I'm not a super athlete by any means, I thought I'd give it a try.

I hated every minute of it. Well, ok, to be realistic, most minutes of each game were far from fun for me—for a variety of reasons that will be presented to you later in this article. But what's noteworthy is that after all the prodding and cajoling, many of my friends revealed that they hated their team experiences, too. In a recent discussion on the matter, Stephanie eagerly contributes: "As you know I hated dodgeball with all of my heart and soul. Loved the tube socks, hated the game. It really, really hurts."

She goes on to suggest that I contact a local doctor for research for this article—apparently injuries rose significantly for middle-aged weekend warriors once everyone in town started joining sports leagues:

My friend caused permanent damage to her hand and almost had to go in for surgery. Another guy on our team dislocated his finger trying to catch the ball. All the way out of the socket. And my friend Lisa broke her hand as well. One time I was hit so hard on the leg that an immediate perfect circle appeared as a fully formed bruise. I really do think that the bigger guys try not to hit you as hard but sometimes you get in the way or they shoot for your feet and then get you in the thigh. So they wound you and then buy you beer later and tell you that they like your tube socks. It is all very abusive.

Indeed. That was kind of my take on it all, too. Lots of players were injured fairly seriously during our football games. Flag football, if you don't know, is supposed to be a no (or low) contact sport. This is a lie. Skulls crack. Eyeballs get poked. Ribs popped. Ankles rolled. And that's just during the pre-game warm ups.

On Competition

It's intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer that many take sports—and themselves in athletic action—way too seriously. That's probably understood going into a team sports situation. However, my homeboy Jeff duly notes that "you end up having a lot of testoter-operas."

Testoster-operas. What a great term! And, there really is quite a bit of male-induced drama on the field. I don't remember this from track meets way back when. You either ran across the line first, or didn't. End of drama. My former team captain quips: "It's amazing how overly competitive otherwise sensible people can get when they're playing co-ed *softcore* flag football.

But it's not just the men who lose their minds during the heat of the game—I've seen women who were just as hardcore. And, embarrassingly enough, many men and women direct some of that nonsense to the refs. It actually all makes for an interesting psychological study of groups. Or something. (Lord of the Flies comes to mind.)

My competitive (with pacifist leanings) pal Steven adds:

What I dislike about re-juvenile sports are the teams that take the competition too seriously. At least in kickball and, from what I hear in dodgeball, asshole teams are often the ones who win it all. These teams tend to have incredibly competitive players who also like to get incredibly drunk and belligerent and that ain't fun for anyone. I mean, we are out there to release our inner child, not be drunk jerks. I don't want to paint a picture here in which the league is full of jerks—there are a lot of funny, kind, and generous people to be sure—but the jerks do stand out.

Yep. I found many to be just what Steven describes: loud, belligerent, obnoxious. Just the type of person my mom told me to back away from, slowly. I tried getting a laugh out of one super duper tightly wound guy who I found myself head-to-head with on the line during a particularly close and heated game by flashing him my totally intimidating Justin Timberlake tee. No laughs were produced. (Note: Lighten. Up. Dude.)

The Benefits

Read the Oregon Live article and countless others to find plenty of positive remarks, experiences, and reasons to join co-ed team sports with an organized league. There are good reasons to join and play. My teammates who have played various sports for years with Underdog say that that the organization is great and "easy to deal with", taking the potential hassles out of starting an independent league to allow for maximum fun on the field.

Jeff muses: "It is a great concept to have 20- and 30-somethings playing grade school sports like kickball, dodgeball, flag football... it is also a great way for people to meet new friends, mix it up, and socialize in a casual environment." I don't believe this part of the social aspect is up for debate: teams and common goals can and do certainly reinforce potentially strong social bonds. (Think: Facebook on the field.)

Kary's experience allowed her to bond with her team:

I really like the diversity of people in our league... literally from all walks of life, all ages. The older you get the harder it becomes sometimes to befriend new people, but the league provides a way to connect and have fun with a large, diverse group of people. I know that lifelong friendships, relationships, marriages, and even babies have resulted from these connections.

Many of my friends have played on the same football and volleyball teams for years, and their friendships are a neat outcome of the leagues. Steven goes on:

It feels like the communities that I've joined through triathlon trainings, century ride teams, and other places where adults get together to do something active while also find ways to bond with one another. The childlike nature of the sports means that most don't take it too seriously and it also means that there is more room to drink.

The Party

The party element is what some seek in playing in urban sports leagues but others revile. My team was sponsored by a local bar that provided us with beer and snacks whenever we won. Drinking does become a focal point for some, and I know a few early enthusiasts who burned out on the frat party element of their teams and leagues. They just wanted to play kickball. Is that so wrong?

One Saturday over coffee, Steven tells me "given that I am not an overly competitive person, I've always found or formed teams that are out there to have fun, do their best, and drink beer. But not too much beer... this is definitely an integral part of the re-juvenile sports scene, and usually in excess. "

Too Big for Their Britches? Or, How to Inspire a Monopoly

Some urban league veterans began before the leagues really became popular. Kary clarifies that she "started playing kickball with Oregon Kickball League when Recess Time got larger and started splitting up the games between different fields. We weren't all together any more, and it just didn't feel the same." Steven supports this sentiment:

I've bowled and played kickball with Recess Time League and then slowly converted over to the Spirit League (bowling) and Oregon Kickball Club in the last year-and-a-half. From a social perspective, I started to feel like Recess was getting far too big and it was hard to find a community with so many teams, thus the rationale for moving to smaller leagues.

He goes on:

This sense of community, of meeting people that I otherwise wouldn't meet and of comradery is what I sought out from the start and what the smaller leagues deliver. I know a lot of people who have formed deep bonds through their participation, even in the now-massive Recess League. I've not really done this but I am very much on the fringes of this world (by choice) and I don't view it as my sole social outlet (a perspective that many others take).

Another reason the big leagues also may be losing appeal with some is that they take away valuable park time in the summer months. The onslaught of urban sports leagues makes it difficult for individuals and independent groups to find space for a pick-up game on a Sunday afternoon. The for-profit leagues use the same facilities reservation process with Portland Parks and Rec as individuals do to secure space, and all pay fees associated with each facility. A pay-per-hour of use model has been implemented, but Shawn Rogers, Parks and Rec Customer Service Manager, notes that this will probably change; for-profit sports concessions (commercial enterprise organizations like Underdog) might see rising fees in the near future. Rogers, who handles permits, adds that the best facilities and groomed fields are getting two times the use—which greatly contributes to the overall maintenance costs that Parks and Rec can already barely handle. "The cost to maintain a safe level of play on many City fields is rising." He also notes that "kickball has gone through the roof" in popularity in the past two years.

Katie says that her pals didn't want to join a league for a variety of reasons that spanned avoiding the hazards of competition, lengthy seasonal commitment, and initial output of cash. Her people were getting together every Sunday to play kickball in a few different southeast locations. Each week, in addition to the core, different players showed up ready for fun, casual action. They played multiple games based on energy and interest. Everyone got to play. There was minor partying and maximized socializing. But, the group found it increasingly challenging to find field space, and had to change locations too many times in a short period of time that they noticed a real drop off of interest.

I've got no regrets for not going back to my football team. (They begged. They really did.) This summer, I've been happy skateboarding around my hood or heading to the bluffs on my tricked-out Schwinn cruiser to watch the sunset. (No PBRs necessary. I'll show you re-juvenile fun!)

View the slide show for more images of Portland's Urban Sports Leagues or visit our Flickr gallery: