PHOTO: Gina Pace

The Chocolate Turkeys, a team that plays dodgeball for the New York City Social Sports Club, charge the center line.

For an elementary school student, few things can be more intimidating than a big red rubber dodgeball coming your way. Now, many adults are having the same experience.

Nearly a year after DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, spurred a boom of adult leagues across the country, New Yorkers are still flocking to the sport in growing numbers.

“It harkens back to childhood, and most people enjoy reliving childhood a bit now and again,” said Amy Short, the commissioner of the New York City Social Sports Club (NYCSSC), which runs an adult dodgeball league that plays in the 59th Street Recreation Center. “It’s a good social sports game because it doesn’t require much athletic prowess, it’s something most people know how to play, and it’s always fun to kick it playground style.”

PHOTO: Gina Pace

Play ball.

Kara Collins, 33, a graduate gemology student, tried to find a dodgeball league after seeing the previews for DodgeBall in November 2003, but when she looked online to find leagues she didn’t find any in the New York City area. She contacted the International Dodgeball Federation, a group founded in 1998 to promote the sport, and they suggested that she start her own league. Now, about 120 people in 11 different teams play regularly for the Manhattan Adult Dodgeball League, which currently plays at a school on 52nd street.

“It’s so much fun. It’s great exercise and a wonderful workout,” Collins said. “Plus, you get to hit other people – so it’s a great tension relief.”

Both the NYCSSC and the Manhattan Adult Dodgeball League are social leagues, designed so people can meet each other while having fun. The teams go out for drinks after every set of weekly games.

“The sports are really conduits for the social aspect,” Short said. “It’s way less intimidating than trying to meet someone at random in a bar or elsewhere. It’s particularly difficult to find a sense of community these days, especially in big cities like New York, and I wanted to help people find that.”

But that doesn’t mean people aren’t competitive and develop rivalries. Collins said that one of the teams in her league, the Good Stuff Gang, set up a Web site and received one hate e-mail.

“They laughed it off,” she said. “But people really revert back to their childhood and take it very seriously.”

Mike Fayne, 36, has been a referee for both the NYCSSC and Dodgeball Champions, a more competitive league, that uses a different style of play – 10 versus 10 rather than six against six – and allows throwing balls at people's heads.

“I don’t see the rivalries so much between teams, but between guy on guy,” he said. “There are certain guys that you know want to take each other on, and are egging each other on in the court.”

Fayne said that trash talking and boyfriends upset that their girlfriend has been hit too hard with a ball will sometimes spark near-fights, but that fists had never been thrown. To cut down on aggression, the NYCSSC mandates that each team have at least one female player, and Short said the league tends to check itself, weeding super-aggressive people out of the league.

Trace Sheehan, 25, a member of Brad Pitt Live and Nude, said that he’s toned down his game since he first started a few weeks ago.

PHOTO: AP Photo Archive

Ben Stiller, playing White Goodman, the leader of Globo Gym in 2004's DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story.

“It felt like it lasted 5 minutes, and it was kind of primitive – I was screaming and throwing it as hard as I could,” said Sheehan, who is an actor. “Then I got booed because I threw it hard at a girl and close to her head, but I had no idea. But now, it’s more fun.”

But when competing against teams with names such as Cocked and Loaded, DodgeMyBalls, the Freaky Naughtys, and the Crack Ferrets, who have T-shirts with a logo of a ferret with a crack-cocaine vial, it’s hard for players to take the games too seriously.

“It’s tough to have rivalries when you're drinking $2 beers with the other teams later,” Sheehan said. “Plus, we know we’re the best team.”

As dodgeball grows in popularity for adults, many schools across the country have banned the game, citing its negative associations with physical activity.

“If it’s not been banned in a district, it should be banned,” said Steve Silverman, a professor of education at Teachers College at Columbia University, who studies how children develop attitudes about physical activity. “There is no educational value to teaching dodgeball.”

Silverman said that since dodgeball is an elimination game, the students who have the lowest skill level are eliminated first and don’t have a chance to practice or improve. Shortly after DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story was released and the Game Show Network started airing Extreme Dodgeball, The National Association for Sport and Physical Education released a position that dodgeball is not an appropriate physical education activity for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The association cited that since 16 percent of U.S. youth aged 6-19 are overweight – triple that of 25 years ago – and since many children are inactive, sports such as dodgeball which can intimidate children away from exercise should be banned.