Six questions about the present state of American participation in international competitive dodgeball.

1. What is the current situation?
   - USDO (7" foam ball): Next major tournament: World Dodgeball Championships, Toronto, ON Canada, October 18–21, 2017. Men’s and Women’s teams representing. Two tryouts were held in April/May 2017. (Phoenix, AZ & Chicago, IL) 2017 teams are listed here*.
   - US Dodgeball (7" cloth ball): Next major tournament: Dodgeball World Cup, New York, NY USA, August 3–4, 2018. Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed teams representing. Five cities will host tryouts: Rockville, MD, Halfmoon, NY, Beaverton, OR, New Albany, IN, and TBD, MO. There will also be video tryouts accepted.
2. What is it going to take to get players to be excited about participating?
   - Transparency. Once an organization can show the process of how they create the national team, players will be able to recognize the skills they need to possess to be invited to play on an international level.
   - Medal worthy performances. Winning teams create an aura of national pride. We love it when our country dominates. We feel sad when our country falls flat on it’s face.
3. How can the selection processes be improved?
   - We can easily take examples from Canada, Australia, and Malaysia. These countries have a set system in place to find their absolute best players and can put together solid squads.
   - One suggestion is to hold open tryouts on the Sunday after Round 1 in each region of Elite Dodgeball in whichever ball type needed. Hold a combine-type workout at Round 2 and/or Round 3 in each region for selected players. Bring all these players together at Elite Nationals and create the national teams for the upcoming championships.
4. Who needs to be in charge to make these things happen?
   - People with the time, resources, and diligence to see this through. They must also love dodgeball unconditionally and want only the best for this sport.
5. Are other countries facing similar issues?
   - Other countries have. Other countries will. We can only hope to learn and teach.
6. How would we select the team to defend earth?
   - I would go with my suggestion above.

*I’m a current member of the 2017 Men’s National Dodgeball team.

Thank you to Lu Cas for the questions! I hope you and others find these helpful.