Adults go back to playgrounds in kickball leagues

MILWAUKEE -- It feels great to be a kid again. At least, that's what many of the members of adult kickball leagues around the country say.

"I had mainly bad memories of kickball from grade school," said Heidi Kase, 26, who plays in a Milwaukee kickball league. "But now it's a blast."

That's exactly what Joe Szatmary wanted when he started the Midwestern Unconventional Sports Association two years ago.

Szatmary, 29, was tired of office softball leagues that had too much competition and not enough camaraderie, so he and his sister started the kickball league with six teams and about 100 players.

The Milwaukee league has 80 teams with 1,300 players in 10 divisions.

The World Adult Kickball Association, based in Washington, has 3,600 members in the nation's capital, Virginia and Maryland, said Johnny LeHane, co-founder and league director. LeHane said about 10,000 people signed up for next year's season.

Kickball is like baseball, except players use their feet rather than bats.

And the sport may need adult kickball leagues to stay alive.

Physical education instructors are replacing team sports like kickball with individual sports and fitness activities, said Nancy Markos, a physical education teacher at Broadus Wood Elementary School in Earlysville, Va.

"With the obesity rate and incidents of type-II diabetes in children today because of their sedentary lifestyle, physical education teachers need to keep children active," Markos said. "Sitting around waiting for a ball is not active."