Prison ball players rush to the center of the court for ammunition last Monday at Free State High School.

Students at Free State High School are doing time – by playing prison ball, that is.

The Prison Ball Club meets once a week to play its favorite version of a playground classic – dodgeball.

“I played this in junior high all the time and I loved the game,” said senior and captain John Wilson.

Here are the rules: There are two teams and each has territory on one side of a basketball court. If a player gets hit by a ball or an opponent catches a player’s throw in mid-air, that player goes to jail. The jail is located behind each team’s playing field. The only way to get out of jail is to catch a ball thrown by a nonjailed team member.

This is the club’s third year and one of its founders still returns to the big house for some action.

“It all started out in junior high,” said founder Alex Gordzica, a Free State graduate who is now a Kansas University sophomore. “We used Nerf balls, of course, that weren’t as hard.” But the team switched to smaller, harder playground balls “for a little more hardcore action.”

But finding a warden to sponsor the activity wasn’t easy. Gordzica found a teacher who took the job.

“I tried it out and it’s been loads of fun,” said John Olson, a physics teacher at Free State. “I like the exercise part of it. You always have to stay on your toes because you never know where a ball is coming from.”

The chain gang continues to grow in numbers.

“I’m surprised, honestly, to see this many people out here. It makes me happy because I like to come back and play,” Gordzica said of the 40 to 50 players participating.

And the club doesn’t just sit behind bars.

“This is one of the few clubs that you actually get to play and get some exercise,” Wilson said.

For now, the prison will be limited to Free State, the only high school in the area with a club.

“The long battles that take place, back and forth – it never really ends and that’s the best part,” Gordzica said.