Four Square: Grade School Rules, Timeless Values

Returning to Westford for spring break this week truly brought me back to my roots. In addition to sleeping in my own bed for a week and getting a chance to see the Westford Academy competition play (which I thoroughly enjoyed), I returned to the game that I had passionately played since I was very young: four square.

Four square, or square ball as it is often called, is more than just a game you play in gym class in second grade. Square ball has the ability to combine the fierce competitive mature of other sports but at the same time also stimulates positive social interaction that people pitted against each other do not usually get. On the square ball court, friends are made, lives are made more enjoyable and good times are reminisced.

This spring break, I went back to my old high school to play square ball after school hours with my friends. My friend Kevin put it the best when he said, "We are college students who came back to our old high school to play a grade school game" because we are just that awesome.

Four square is very much like life. There are no true winners. There are no true losers. Everybody gets knocked out of the game (I just lost the game!) for a little while, but if you are patient, you will get another chance. It takes hard work to get to A-Square. Not everyone gets there on the first try. The illusions of the American Dream that are brought up throughout literature can be seen in a game of square ball. Hard work does not always pay off. Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman spent decades of his adult life stuck in a metaphorical C-Square with nowhere to go but out.

In fact, square ball can encompass both comedy and tragedy from a literary standpoint. Comedy is more than laughs. Comedy is about resiliency. Nothing embodies comedy than the person who continues to get out as quickly as they enter D-Square but continues to play because where they are is not that bad and it can't really get any worse. Tragedy is about downfalls. There is always going to be downfalls in square ball. As I said before, it takes hard work to get to A-Square. Those who get there should be applauded for their achievement. Alas, their efforts are not rewarded with the praise that they deserve. As soon as you get to the coveted A-Square, people just want to tear you down. The kings of the court soon realize how lonely it is at the top. No matter how good you are, no matter how hard you bounce the ball, no matter how hard you dive, someone will eventually dethrone you. Sometimes it is just bad luck but sometimes it is the server's hubris--or extreme pride--that makes them feel invincible in the heat of the game.

Square ball may not be in the Olympics, or be the topic of a blockbuster movie, or Pulitzer Prize book...yet. I think it would be a great idea for a movie. It is a game that everyone learns and has universal lessons and values attached to it. The idea of my friends trying to revive the four square culture at WA is a theme reminiscent of when Obi-Wan and Yoda tried to teach the ways of the Jedi to Luke after the ways of the force had been all but forgotten. Maybe I will live to see the day Return of the Square appears on the silver screen. There is always hope...