We Have Dodgeball Drama in 2026 – Arizona Kid Has Been Charged With Assault After Allegedly Throwing Dodgeballs at Girl During Gym Class Dodgeball

The simple game of dodgeball has been causing our country problems for decades. Literally ever since I was a kid. At one point it was the #1 most popular go-to game in gym class. Then somewhere along the line, parents started suing people, and dodgeball was deemed SO dangerous that a gym teacher allowing a game of it to be played was akin to child abuse. Then public schools across the country invested in the softest, most pathetic, most unthrowable dodgeballs on the market. We were basically throwing Styrofoam filled with air at each other. 

That was around when I graduated high school, so I'm not sure what happened after that. But I assumed the dodgeball industry would have found a happy medium by now. Surely the dodgeball technology is there to make a throwable ball that doesn't put school children in grave danger. But apparently not. Because this poor girl was left bruised to the gills by dodgeballs thrown at her by her ex-boyfriend and his rowdy friends. To the point that this 13-year old boy is being charged with assault. 

Without video of this particular incident, I won't jump to any conclusions. This relentless pelting of dodgeballs allegedly happened during "warm-ups" (something I didn't think dodgeball had). But what type of "warm-up" was this? Were both teams standing on their respective sides, meaning every throw was made from a legal position? Or was it more of an informal warm-up, and a group of teen boys cornered some poor girl and Gronk spiked dodgeballs down upon her as she cowered in the corner. 

Here are some quotes from the involved parties.

The boy who was charged:

NY Post – He claimed he never meant to hurt his classmate when he and his friends hurled dodgeballs at the girl during warm-ups for the class at Mayer High School — about an hour outside of Phoenix — in December 2025.

“I didn’t think a dodgeball would hurt. And these are small ones too. So you can squeeze them and like they compress and stuff,” he told AZ Family on Wednesday.

He and the other boys told police that the dodgeball warm-up was already underway when they targeted the girl and were adamant it wasn’t malicious.

He admitted to the outlet that he threw a dodgeball at his ex-girlfriend and “hit her,” while another boy missed and a third “also hit” her.

“Obviously I’m going to have to target somebody for dodgeball. It’s dodgeball,” the 13-year-old said. “You have to choose somebody, throw the ball, then try to get them out.”

The boy's mother:

The teen’s mother told AZ Family she had no idea police had interviewed her son at school over the incident — only finding out months later when a letter from the Yavapai County Juvenile Justice Center arrived informing her that her son had been charged with misdemeanor assault.

“It is absolutely ridiculous. This is a game that every kid in the nation plays at some point in their life,” the mother told the outlet.

“They’re considering the dodgeball a weapon and that he knowingly or willingly, recklessly harmed this girl just playing dodgeball in PE.”

Cecily Schipper said she would understand her son would deserve “punishment” if the situation was “boys will be boys,” but thinks things have gone too far.

She then claimed that her son’s ex-girlfriend allegedly texted her “for rides home after this incident happened in December.”

“It’s just strange. And I was friends with her mom as well,” she said.

Social worker who contacted sheriff's office (on behalf of injured girl):

A social worker, who had contacted the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office just days after the alleged attack on the girl, claimed the boys had “relentlessly assaulted her with dodgeballs when she came out of the bathroom.”

The girl was allegedly hospitalized with serious bruising on her upper right rib cage and lower right abdomen, according to a police report obtained by the outlet.

So was it during warm-ups or not? Does the bathroom exit directly onto the gym floor? The stories being told by both sides don't seem to add up. There's a pretty massive difference between hitting a girl with dodgeballs during dodgeball, and "relentlessly assaulted her with dodgeballs when she came out of the bathroom"

The case goes before a judge today. So I guess we'll have to see what comes of it. We've really gotta get eyes on these dodgeballs. If a girl was hospitalized from throws made from legal dodgeball throwing distance, this gym teacher must have using dodgeballs from the 1940's (i.e. rocks). But if these were those shitty soft dodgeballs we had back in my day… then it's imperative we get these boys professional pitching coaches immediately. Because you would need a child prodigy-level howitzer attached to your shoulder to inflict any sort of damage with one of those. No matter how close are to your target.

Fucking, dodgeball man. It just can't stop causing us problems.