PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS
Kickball : Game of Throws ( and Kicks )
Jennifer Emens-Butler : I am in the office of Downs Rachlin Martin in Burlington to interview Kane Smart about his kickball team here in Burlington for our Pursuits of Happiness column . Why don ’ t we start at the beginning ? I understand you were not looking for a kickball team , but just looking for something for lawyers to do ?
Kane Smart : It was lawyer-motivated , but not intended to be exclusive .
JEB : Not a lawyer prerequisite ?
KS : Not at all . At the time , my wife was an attorney with the public defender , and there were a handful of similarly situated people in her office with whom we talked about getting together on a more routine basis in a more structured environment , rather than just occasionally on a whim . We talked about getting together a softball team or a bowling team or finding some recreational activity where we could bring her office together with my office , and then supplement the numbers with friends and young professionals in the area .
JEB : Young , because they are more athletic or young because you were out looking for socialization ?
KS : It was socialization . It ’ s tough , I have been practicing for 7 years now , and getting by in Vermont as a young professional is tough . You are constantly looking for opportunities to get out and meet people and find activities that you enjoy . We wanted to find a more structured and routine reason for gathering , rather than the irregular and disjointed efforts to date . We did some initial searching for softball leagues in the area ; but from our perspective , found it to be a little too competitive . I didn ’ t think that we were looking for something overly competitive ….
JEB : So the criteria didn ’ t include being any kind of athlete ?
KS : Certainly not . It didn ’ t require you to be skilled or in shape . It just needed to be a little more active than going to the bar after work and less active than marathon training . In looking for opportunities , I stumbled across the WAKA Vermont Sunshine League , a league run by the World Adult Kickball Association . Surprisingly , I found maybe 3 kickball leagues in Vermont , one of which took place at Oakledge Park in Burlington from May to August . We needed 26 people .
JEB : That ’ s a lot of people .
KS : That is a lot of people . WAKA apparently has this tried and true system , where they want 26 people , because they know a certain number are not going to show up for games and back out before the end of the year .
JEB : So the team was about half lawyers ?
KS : Yes , we were able to get commitments from attorneys at the Chittenden County Public Defender ’ s Office , here at Downs Rachlin Martin , at Sheehey Furlong & Behm and at Bergeron , Paradis & Fitzpatrick , among other places . The youngest attorney in the group recruited her friends to round off the team , many of whom graduated from UVM and remained in the area to pursue careers . All in , our team consisted of a group of 10 or so lawyer-types in their mid-30s and 15 or so young professional-types in their late-20s recently out of UVM . It was a good mix of personalities and enthusiasm .
JEB : Are all the games played outdoors ?
KS : Yes , all outdoors , rain or shine . Games are 1 hour or 5 innings long , whichever comes first . 11 people play in the field and all 26 on your roster are placed in the kicking lineup . You go through your kicking lineup in order and you rotate players on the field . There are only 2 requirements : no kicking out of order , and 5 of the 11 field players must be female .
JEB : I was telling a few people that I was going to be interviewing you about kickball and most people had some recollection from , say , gym class that it is essentially baseball with a big red ball that you kick as
opposed to hitting with a bat , right ? Are all the rules the same as baseball ? KS : That is exactly it .
JEB : Are there any other quirky rules ?
KS : It ’ s like baseball but modified to be more like your gym class . Three outs ends an inning , four balls yields a walk , and three strikes and you ’ re out . Three foul balls also resulted in an out , which is unique to kickball . And not to forget that you can get baserunners out by hitting them with the ball below the head .
JEB : Does it matter if they are forced to run or not or can you just hit people ?
KS : You can just hit people so long as they are off the base .
JEB : Well then that ’ s fun , right ?!
KS : Yes , but there were certainly some instances where people got hit in the face unexpectedly .
JEB : It ’ s not a terribly hard ball ; it ’ s more like a dodge ball , right ?
KS : No , not hard , but it still hurts ; when you ’ re still getting hit in the face with a big red ball , it hurts .
JEB : It still hurts . Alright !
KS : What we didn ’ t realize and what we quickly learned , is that in adult kickball there is a lot more strategy than you would think . It ’ s much easier to catch a big rubber ball than it is to throw that same ball , so a groundball is more difficult to manage than a pop-up where all you have to do is catch it . It ’ s much harder to field a ball and then throw it all the way to first base before the
8 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2016-17 www . vtbar . org