Kickball sweeping many Wichita players off their feet

Editor’s note: The original version has been updated to reflect that Devin Halsey has spoken to the city of Wichita about an adult kickball league. The earlier version incorrectly said someone else had.

If the highlight of your athletic career was that one recess in third grade when you dominated in kickball, listen up: Kickball’s back, this time for adults.

At least three adult co-ed kickball leagues should be up and running in Wichita this year. There’s also a charity staging its third annual kickball fundraiser.

In other words, the game’s afoot.

Enthusiasts say there are a number of reasons for the sport’s popularity – if a sport is actually what it is.

“It’s a nonskilled sport,” said Mike Converse, who helped put together a fall kickball league last year. “It was competitive, but it wasn’t competitive, if that makes sense.”

Converse’s league grew out of the Young Professionals of Wichita’s softball league. Within three weeks, the league had eight kickball teams of about 14 players each.

They played each other once, then held a championship game in which the Turquoises – teams were known only by colors – defeated the Yellows in a hard-kicked game.

If you need a refresher course, kickball is played on a softball field, with many of the same rules as that sport. With the exception, of course, that you can get out a runner by hitting them with a ball.

Converse said no players were harmed in the making of the YPW’s first kickball season.

Because the league used a rather large kickball, filled to capacity with air, outs were hard to get.

“It bounces out of your arms,” said Lindsey Brewer, a member of the Yellows. “I have problems with that.”

But for some reason, most scores stayed low, in the 3-2 or 6-4 range.

“You think it’s very simple, but there’s actually a lot of strategy,” Brewer said. “You can move it around the field as the defense moves around. You can bunt.”

In any case, the league was as much about recreation and socialization as anything. It drew sponsorships from a number of local watering holes where players gathered shortly after the last out. A secondary championship – for how many players relaxed with a cold beverage after games – was won by the Greens.

“It really became just a great fun networking opportunity,” Converse said.

Another group of kickball players, now calling themselves the Wichita Kickball League, have been around for three years, although in the past they’ve gathered merely for pickup games in College Hill Park.

This year, they’re getting serious – to a point.

Organizer Devin Halsey said spring, summer and fall leagues are planned. They will be playing at the West Side Athletic Field starting in April.

Halsey said kickball is already a big deal in many cities, including Lawrence. “I couldn’t understand how the largest municipality in the state” – Wichita, that is – “didn’t have a league.”

Halsey said his league plays by World Adult Kickball Association rules. But like the YPW league, he said the target audience is “people just wanting to have fun and not take the game too seriously. People are going to make mistakes on the field. It’s just the game.”

Halsey said he’d also been in discussions with Wichita city officials about the city’s plans to launch a kickball league this year. He floated the idea of an interleague city championship, to be played under the lights at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

If a whole season of kickball isn’t your style, consider the third annual Ronald McDonald House Charity kickball tournament.

Last year, 16 teams with about 190 players participated, helping to raise $20,000 for the organization. This year’s tournament is Sept. 12, and plans call for the field to include four more teams.

“There’s a lot of hype going on nowadays about kickball,” said Amy Forbes, development director for the charity.

The Ronald McDonald tournament comes with a twist: Teams are encouraged to come in creative costumes, Forbes said.

“What’s more fun than having adults wear costumes and do silly things like playing kickball?”

This story was originally published February 18, 2015 at 3:26 PM with the headline "Kickball sweeping many Wichita players off their feet."