<p>I read that bladderball made an illegal return this week. </p>
<p>I went through the iterations: original bladderball, revised bladderball, displaced bladderball and no bladderball. In reverse order and ignoring the obvious last one, they tried to move it to the athletic fields out by the Bowl and that failed. The revised bladderball meant only on the Old Campus with all gates locked and that was like trench warfare in WWI with huge crowds of people pushing one giant mass. Old bladderball was free-form and involved taking the thing to your college, which meant trickery and chasing. </p>
<p>It also led to the “JE Sucks” cheer which lasted for years because those dopes tried to hoist the bladderball over the Old Campus fence with some sort of grappling hook and they deflated it. (It was then chased through the streets and put on reserve at Cross Campus Library.) The “JE Sucks” cheer was huge at football games and I often marveled at the sight of ancient alums, well lit from their elegant, booze-infested tailgates, screaming it red-faced, certainly with no knowledge of where it came from.</p>