Do kids still play a game they call smear the queer

August 23, 2015 8:55 AM

I was just reminded of Smear the Queer, a game in which everybody gangs up to tackle the person with the ball. The name seems really offensive today (probably was then too, but kids didn't know or care). Is that still the name for the game, or has it evolved into something else? Searching turned up some people saying they called it Kill the Guy with the Ball or British Bulldog, but I'm curious about whether any of those alternate names have caught on in general use, or do kids mostly still use the name Smear the Queer?
posted by willnot to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (56 answers total)

I recall kill the guy (with the ball) but we never called it STQ in central mass where I grew up.
posted by vrakatar at 9:00 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

british bulldogs, at least as i played it in the uk, is a different game - one person is in the middle of the room and has to stop people crossing. anyone they stop joins them. the last person still crossing the room (multiple times) "wins".

(it was a fun game. quite tactical).
posted by andrewcooke at 9:02 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

It was kill the carrier when I was a kid in upstate NY.
posted by foodgeek at 9:02 AM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I know british bulldog as a different game.
posted by Mitheral at 9:03 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

In my elementary school in Southern California, STQ and Kill the Man With the Ball were two different games. STQ actually had some rules to it, while KTMWTB was basically Lord of the Flies.

Just asked my nine-year-old if he's heard of STQ and he didn't know it. Then I described it and he said there's no tackling allowed on the playground.

Then I wept a little.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:10 AM on August 23, 2015 [30 favorites]

I never heard of that game growing up, other than maybe in the occasional fictional teen movie, and found it shocking when I did. These days I'm a schoolteacher in the mid-Atlantic US: I can say that homophobic slurs have been really going "out of vogue" these past five years especially. It's not to say that people don't say or think negative things, unfortunately, but this generation of teens in the US, at least where I am, is generally accepting of LGBT issues and identities, and is very anti-bully. (Not to say that bullying doesn't occur because it does but it's a bit different from before.)
posted by smorgasbord at 9:16 AM on August 23, 2015

Ah yes--Kill The Man With The Ball. The game that answers the question, "Why are they giving me this ball?" I'm so glad childhood is over.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:17 AM on August 23, 2015 [24 favorites]

Never heard of it (until now, sad face), and I lived all over growing up.
posted by aniola at 10:38 AM on August 23, 2015

I think folks saying whether they've heard of it or not may want to include their age. I'm 30 and "Smear The Queer" definitely existed for me growing up in Upstate NY. I've never heard of "kill the guy with the ball," although that's basically what Smear The Queer was. I don't know any kids to ask to see if it's still used, sorry. I will say, I don't recall "queer" being a word that kids used much outside that game.
posted by AppleTurnover at 10:58 AM on August 23, 2015

Maul ball is what we called it when I was growing up.
posted by lester at 11:05 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

STQ was definitely the dominant name (late 30s, midwest) but I also heard Maul Ball, Maul the Ball, and Reverse Tag (everyone chases it, instead of it chasing everyone).
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:09 AM on August 23, 2015

Late 30s, California Bay Area, this was a thing in junior high and high school. Your question really brings me back. It wasn't just what kids called it, the PE teachers called it that too. Such horrible traumatic memories. When I was a kid, it was just the world I grew up in, and I didn't think it would ever change. As an adult, thinking back, it's amazing evil, how the local institution of public school, and the power structures associated with it which determine the lives of children (teachers, classes, sports), linked the mindless hatred of our culture generally to the hyperlocal aggression of bullies on the playground.

I wonder how much it's changed for kids since then. Public consciousness around violence, hate speech, and oppression seems to be better and still improving. Some hopeless part of me though thinks public school will be the last setting of our culture where this will change.
posted by doteatop at 11:25 AM on August 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

When I was a kid (100 years ago) we called it either STQ or Bronco.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:34 AM on August 23, 2015

STQ, no other name, 70/80s California.
posted by rhizome at 11:47 AM on August 23, 2015

The video game series "Marathon" added a multiplayer mode that was called "Smear the Queer" in development but got renamed "Kill the Guy With the Ball" by the time it was released, for obvious reasons.

Then in the successor series of games, "Halo", this mode got called "Oddball". Given the popularity of Marathon/Halo I wouldn't be surprised if these terms transferred over to the playground displacing the original name, at least partly.
posted by w0mbat at 11:58 AM on August 23, 2015

We called it "kill the guy" in northeast Ohio in the mid 80s.
posted by chasles at 12:13 PM on August 23, 2015

STQ, Washington, DC, 80's.

Though many other words did, the word "Queer" didn't have any sexuality-based meaning among kids/young teenagers at the time (it wasn't a word that was used at all outside of the game) -- not until the 90s, after the AIDS crisis had spawned Act UP, Queer Nation, and put the LBGTQ acronym on the map.

It doesn't seem to be played today (in SF anyway), because "no tackling on the playground".
posted by toxic at 12:34 PM on August 23, 2015

The name probably isn't the only reason this game is going out of fashion; it's also that it's pretty easily used as a tool of aggression repeatedly against the same kids. Red Rover and dodgeball seem much less common now too in elementary school settings than they were in my '80s Midwestern childhood.

(I remember being "the queer" frequently in this game and, what do you know, grew up to be queer. A nicely literal bit of brutality, I guess.)
posted by thetortoise at 12:35 PM on August 23, 2015

About 2 years ago while renting a vacation house in eastern Mass, one of the neighbors was trying to round the kids up, including his 4 year-old, for STQ. I had never heard of it before growing up in Connecticut. Thankfully there wasn't much interest.
posted by hey you over in the corner at 12:52 PM on August 23, 2015

Long Island, NY in the 60s it was Kill The Guy With The Ball. I've never heard it called anything else.
posted by tommasz at 1:42 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

SE Pennsylvania, 1970s - neighborhood kids called it Smear the Queer and Kill the Guy with the Ball.
posted by NoraCharles at 1:53 PM on August 23, 2015

32, Alabama. Definitely heard Smear the Queer, what with the virulent homo-/transphobia and all, but also Maul Ball, generally when in the presence of the tiny subset of adults who would find the "proper" name offensive.
posted by Merzbau at 2:28 PM on August 23, 2015

22, Seattle. No such game because it would have broken a half dozen playground rules and we were always watched pretty closely. I don't think it's been renamed - just fallen out of vogue because kids are pretty much indoctrinated to play much more safely, at least as far as organized games are concerned.
posted by R a c h e l at 2:45 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

51, Georgia (CSRA), 1970s - we played STQ in the early grades in elementary school, but by 6th or 7th grade the main game on the playground was tetherball. At that age I'm not sure I understood what "queer" meant other than it rhymed with "smear." In the neighborhood we played Kill the Man with the Ball, which seemed to have different rules that STQ.

I've never heard the children of any of my friends or any of my nieces or nephews mention STQ, due to the fact that a game where you physically tackled someone on the playground would seem to be unthinkable these days, which I think is a good thing.
posted by ralan at 2:57 PM on August 23, 2015

I recall kill the guy (with the ball) but we never called it STQ in central mass where I grew up.

Kill the Guy was the main name for this game in the 70s in outside-Boston-burbs where I was from..
posted by jessamyn at 3:51 PM on August 23, 2015

At my small middle class Evangelical Christian school in the late '90s, we called it Kill the Carrier.
posted by redsparkler at 3:54 PM on August 23, 2015

35, Australia: Stacks On The Dill With The Pill (more usually Stacks On).

Edit: my school had no grass whatsoever, all asphalt playgrounds, my god what were we thinking
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:25 PM on August 23, 2015

Kill The Guy. Mid 40's. Long Island and NYC.

Never ever have I heard of Smear the Queer. Geezus how horrid. Even in the late 70's early 80's, that would have been entirely offensive. And we said "fag" and "faggy" a lot and didn't quite put it together that those words were gay slurs? It just meant "lame" or "not fashionable." Since gay culture in New York is definitely fabulous and fashionable, that's a disconnect between meanings it took me a while to break myself of (late teens early twenties.)

I'm sorry to go on. I'm horrified such a thing as STQ existed. *shivers*
posted by jbenben at 4:39 PM on August 23, 2015

It was called STQ on my playground; Philly suburbs, late 70s.
posted by Ike_Arumba at 4:42 PM on August 23, 2015

For some more context to my earlier reply, I'm in my early 30s and grew up attending public schools in the DC metro area.
posted by smorgasbord at 5:05 PM on August 23, 2015

Mid thirties, Connecticut, always and only 'Kill the Carrier'. I didn't hear it called STQ until I went to the Midwest (Missouri). We played it a lot.
posted by janell at 5:35 PM on August 23, 2015

Mid 40s, Central Massachusetts. STQ, kill the carrier and kill the kid with the ball. KTKWB was the most common. Often with a nerf football.
posted by SobaFett at 6:00 PM on August 23, 2015

Early 30s, attended public school in Southern California (LA county), never heard of any of these games.
posted by kiripin at 6:09 PM on August 23, 2015

Early 30s, Texas and StQ was most definitely a thing, although more popular with the boys than us lady types.
posted by youcancallmeal at 6:16 PM on August 23, 2015

Richmond, VA 70s-80s. We called it STQ, although I don't think any of us knew what "queer" meant (other than the guy with the ball).

When I was in the second grade, I was sent to the principal's office for profanity, although I did not know it at the time. The conversation went like this:

Principal: "So tell me what you and your friends like to do after the school?"

Me: "Play games."

Principal: "What games?"

Me: "Smear the queer."

Principal: "OK, look. You are here because of your language."
posted by 4ster at 6:43 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

STQ was a thing when I was in middle school just outside of Asheville, NC. I'm 25, and this was a game my foster brothers liked to play. Really a horrific, casually oppressive use of language. Don't think I ever heard any teachers talk about STQ in any way shape or form. Still makes me shudder to think about allowing children to play games with names like that.
posted by oceanjesse at 6:47 PM on August 23, 2015

24, Oregon, it was definitely a thing in middle school. Bleh.
posted by CrystalDave at 7:27 PM on August 23, 2015

Just to add to what I wrote previously:

* 46, SoCal, highly racially diverse, middle class city.
* We had no inkling, none whatsoever, that the name was offensive. The name of the game was not relevant to the playing of it (e.g. The guy with the ball was not called "the queer." He had no name, not even "it" like in a game of tag). If anything, because retaining the ball the longest was how you were successful, the guy with the ball was the "hero," so to speak, in his own mind, for as long as he could keep it.
* I don't recall any adult ever saying the name, and certainly no adult organized or participated. It was just one of those cultural things that seem to spring from nowhere on an elementary school playground.
* That said, I'm sure the adults knew what we called it, and they ignored it.
* Since that time, whenever it has happened to come up in conversation today, the people talking about it are visibly uncomfortable and don't use the term. "Hey, remember that game Smear the ... the ... the game where you tackled people?" It's like, yeah, now we know it's offensive, and we're embarrassed at our past naïveté.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:37 PM on August 23, 2015

44, KY. We playing StQ.

At the time I hated the game because I was all like "don't give me the ball because I don't want to get hurt"!

I had no idea at the time that "queer" meant "gay", and I think my peers were, like me, pre-sexual. But maybe I was naive.

Anyhow, I turned out straight, but this is one of many things that makes me feel awful for friends/peers who were, though I didn't know it back then, gay.
posted by agog at 8:25 PM on August 23, 2015

But in MN, where my kids are in elementary school now, it isn't played anymore. No tackling games allowed. No name calling allowed.
posted by agog at 8:39 PM on August 23, 2015

E. Washington State, in the eighties, STQ, elementary school. I think queer was meant more in the sense of weird than gay.
posted by fieldtrip at 11:07 PM on August 23, 2015

Chicago suburbs, 1995-1996 (for some reason this game only existed in fourth and fifth grade--our schools went K-3, 4-5, 6-8), Smear the Queer.

Regardless of whether anyone knew to use 'queer' as a pejorative, I have no real doubt that was the sense (rather than 'unusual'). I suppose it's possible the name goes back to the 1930s, but 'queer' as 'unusual' was long gone from common use by the time most of us were in school. My brother was called gay in the first grade. They didn't know what 'gay' meant, but they knew it was 'bad'.
posted by hoyland at 4:57 AM on August 24, 2015

STQ in the 70s and 80s in Chicago burbs. I wonder if the word in the game predates its pejorative homophobic use. I'm not certain, but I don't think we used it that way until later into our teens. But that's consistent with it being used that way by others and our picking up the name from them.
posted by persona au gratin at 5:20 AM on August 24, 2015

In Newcastle Australia we called it 'Kill the dill with the pill'.
posted by fonetik at 5:36 AM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

27, When I moved from Phoenix to rural Arizona in fourth grade, I remember being mildly shocked to hear kids saying STQ, although I doubt I really understood all of the implications. Funnily enough, I don't think we ever actually played it, just talked about doing so.
posted by Alexandra Michelle at 6:04 AM on August 24, 2015

This is such an interesting question because of the variations you all played -- in the way we played it, being "it" was the goal -- the cool part -- but there was hardly any tackling! Everyone CHASED "it" in a big mob, and "it" would run with the football until he was about to get caught, then fling it in the air as high as he could (you were supposed to throw it either straight up or up and behind -- it was bad form to throw it to someone you could see), and the dozen or so kids closest to it would scramble to catch the ball and the other 50 would run back a little bit so they'd be in a better position to chase no matter which way the new "it" ran. There was hardly any tackling; not flinging the ball when it was obvious you were about to get caught was the only time you got tackled, and it was considered no fun whatsoever because then we all had to stop playing to tackle someone, recover the ball, and restart the game. Even the unathletic did okay at this game because if you were in the right place when the blind ball was thrown, you could catch it and be "it" (the cool part) for at least a few seconds before panickedly throwing it in the air to avoid tackling, and everybody liked it when the scrum was so tightly packed that three or four people were "it" in rapid succession before bailing.

Anyway, we definitely had the sense that "queer" in this use meant "odd one" as in the "odd one with the ball," and it didn't seem perjorative because being "it" made you cool in this particular game. However in fourth or fifth grade we all started to become aware that the word "queer" in general was used as a slur by, like, high school kids, and it was not such a great word, and a lot of classmates started saying "Let's play smear the ... guy," or "Let's play reverse tag ... with the football." I think a teacher suggested "maul ball" but it became "maul the ball" because that had the same cadence as the original "STQ." (I don't think we had any clear idea what "queer" meant when used as a slur, but we felt uncomfortable with the word the way you feel when you're 10 and saying a swear you know your parents would disapprove of you saying.) I have no idea if it was one of those very old playground games like kick the can that had a name that predated the slur use, or if the game-name was always a slur, but we didn't have a sense of it as a slur until we were in the 9/10 age range, and when we did people stopped using it.

It was important the game had a name because the way you started the game was that someone would grab a football and go out to the big field and shout "MAUL THE BALL! MAUL THE BALL!" and everyone who wanted to play would leave the playground equipment and start chasing him. I actually remember it as a pretty fun and egalitarian game -- the girls didn't get left out, the way we did in a lot of ball-based playground games -- but our version only tackled ball-hogs (who were mostly the cool, jocky boys). After playground tackling was banned, they kept playing it as a sort of two-handed tag -- if someone got BOTH hands on you, you were REQUIRED to throw the ball away, it was the same as a tackle -- but my brother who's a decade younger said it wasn't as fun when you had to argue about how many hands you got on someone.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:18 AM on August 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'd never heard of it by name or method of play when I was very little, but when I was in third grade we moved to central Massachusetts (Shrewsbury) and the neighborhood kids absolutely played it, and called it Smear the Queer. I was appalled by the whole thing - it was a brutal game with a brutal name - and did my best to sit it out.

There was another game that was similarly evil and ruthlessly full-contact called "Muckle" that the neighborhood kids would play. I was the youngest of three brothers and it didn't take me too many times playing to realize how much happier I was inside watching Star Blazers than I was outside getting repeatedly leveled onto frozen sod by a kid twice my size playing a game with no particular rules. I guess it's more fun if you are the bigger kid.
posted by dirtdirt at 8:02 AM on August 24, 2015

In the 70s in Virginia we did call it STQ, but the kids in my part of the state now call it "Tackle Loco" which I rather like. Wikipedia has most of the terms used here plus a few others.
posted by Lame_username at 8:07 AM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thirding that STQ was the dominant name in the Midwest in the 80s. However, I only ever heard it it the neighborhood. At school it was Maul Ball, and once our class read Lord of the Flies the game promptly and forever became "Kill the Pig" for and at least a class or two that followed.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:04 AM on August 24, 2015

We called it Smear the Queer in NY/NJ, in the 80's. We also called it Free-For-All and Saloogi. The way we played, we used a lawn or field, and two areas would be designated end zones. One person would start in the end zone, and try to make it to the other end zone. Everyone else would try to tackle the person with the ball. Once you're tackled, you throw the ball on the ground, and then anyone else has the opportunity to try and pick up the ball and run with it (in the same direction, if a touchdown hasn't been scored yet.) Make it to the end zone? You get to catch your breath and try to make it to the other zone. When we played, it was usually 2-4 players, so the fun part was trying to juke everyone on the way to the end zone....good times!

Also, the way we played, the ball was never thrown to someone. Once you were brought down, you had to toss it up (and let it land on the ground.) If you just got tackled, you can't pick up the ball again (unless someone else touches it, I think.)
posted by KillaSeal at 4:59 PM on August 24, 2015

46, Boston suburbs. STQ and KTKWTB (definitely "kid", not "guy") were equally prominent and I'm pretty sure they described the same thing.
posted by dfan at 5:56 PM on August 24, 2015

Just want to chime in again. Being 'it' was not the cool part for me. This game was a pretext for a mob of people to attack a singled-out individual (yes me). I didn't have to know what 'queer' meant to understand that to everyone at school it justified any assault and any insult. Obviously other kids did know what the name of the game meant, those words formed part of the perpetual torrent of illogical, meaningless, immature, obscene abuse kids were hurling at each other. Also, the structure of the game makes it both difficult and against the rules to fight back. The yard duties would overlook the violence of the tackle but any aggression the other way was called out. It's not like this game was the worst part of junior high for me, it was just a part in the machine, what's amazing to me now is how well it expresses playground dynamics.
posted by doteatop at 11:10 PM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Smallish western US city, played STQ from about age 9 to about age 12. No other name. Complete free-for-all with no rules, but we generally played on home suburban lawns, not at school. No connection with actual ideas about sexuality.
posted by telstar at 1:49 AM on August 25, 2015

Forgot to note, early 70's time frame.
posted by telstar at 1:52 AM on August 25, 2015

Rural western PA. We played it. We called it STQ. But more frequently, we called it fumbleannie. Or fumblanny. We never spelled it.
posted by firemouth at 2:55 PM on August 25, 2015

Reflecting on it, I feel sore and also think it was fumblinni.
posted by firemouth at 3:03 PM on August 25, 2015