Create Your Own Games

Ask anyone who knows him, and they'll tell you that Bernie DeKoven has a genius for fun. For more than three decades, he's been on a mission to inspire kids -- and adults -- to play creatively. This is, after all, the man who invented Really Big Pick-Up Sticks (16 feet long!) and established the Games Preserve, a retreat for the study of play. No surprise, then, that he's also the brains behind what he calls junkyard sports, wonderfully wacky games designed to exercise not just bodies but also imaginations. (You can read all about them in his book Junkyard Sports: Make Sports Fun Again!) We asked Bernie to sit down -- something he doesn't do all that often -- and share the magic of his creation with us. And we've given you three games to get you started: Baggyball, Golf Baseball and Newspaper Sumo.

Q What inspired you to develop junkyard sports?
A I was looking for a way to bring fun back into sports, because I think traditional sports tend to fail a lot of kids, which helps explain why so many lead inactive lives. I asked myself, when are sports actually fun? And that led me to the kinds of sports that seem almost to be made up as they go along -- the kinds of informal games you see played in backyards and streets.

Q How would you define a junkyard sport?
A Basically, it's any traditional sport played with nontraditional materials, with rules tailored to suit the players and the playspace. Imagine, for instance, a group of climbers and their Sherpa guides playing an improvised game of softball at the foot of the Himalayas, using a frying pan as a bat and a rolled-up sock as a ball. That really happened, and it's a perfect example of a junkyard sport.

Q What makes junkyard sports dif ferent from conventional sports?
A In conventional sports, the game determines whether you're good enough to play. In junkyard sports, the players determine whether the game is good enough. Since the games are designed to suit the needs of all the players, junkyard sports tend to foster a feeling of community. They're supportive, inclusive, and ruled by a sense of fun.

Q What kind of junk makes for great junkyard sports?
A I like soft stuff because it makes for safe play, but you can use pretty much anything. A couple of years ago, for example, my wife and I attended a conference for computer graphics professionals, where we helped the attendees invent Junkyard Bowling. For equipment, we used whatever we had at hand: paper cups, rolled-up posters, paper bags for pins, and a Rubik's Cube for a ball. Someone thought the cube looked like a die, so we added numbers to it, giving birth to a fundamental rule of the game: you roll the die and multiply the number of pins knocked down by the number on the die. (Check out Great Junk for Great Play for more tips on improvising your own equipment.)

Q If you want to invent your own game, how do you get started?
A You always start with the givens: who wants to play, where you can play, what you have to play with. Then you pick the sport, because everything comes together around that, and the rules, which you can make up as you go along or borrow from another sport. (See Play by Your Own Rules.)

Let's say your family's sitting around the living room waiting for the rice to cook. Maybe you see a wad of paper and you bunch it up and start bouncing it in the air to one another. Then you invite the kids to create a goal for the game, or suggest one yourself: Want to see if we can toss the paper into the trash can over there? Hey, maybe you can hold the can and move it around! Allow it to evolve, and all sorts of questions will come up: This is like basketball, but how are you supposed to dribble a paper wad? Well, you can't dribble it down, so how about dribbling it up by bouncing it on your hands? But we can't run in here. Okay, so how about sitting on your bottom and scooting around? And there you are -- you've invented your own game.