“There is something more dangerous than cigarettes, something millions of kids are facing every day — yet no politician is trying to solve the problem.”

Is it child abuse or neglect? Is it sexual assault? Is it the rise of teenage pregnancy?

No, the terror Steve Hammer of NUVO Newsweekly speaks of is dodge ball.

He continues, “More children have been terrorized by dodge ball than any other health threat, I’m sure. I’d rather have my kid light up a Kool than get smashed in the face by a dodge ball hurled at 50 mph. Give one of those dodge balls to a fat, hyperactive kid and it’s like handing a .44 to the Son of Sam. With four or five of them whizzing in the air, it’s like a miniaturized version of Bosnia in the gymnasium.”

Are you kidding me, pal?

Shocked as I was, I realized Mr. Hammer is not the only one who feels this way. In fact, the game of playgrounds and physical-education teachers’ lesson plans has come under intense fire lately. Some school administrators have even banned the game, saying it doesn’t promote the social, emotional and physical growth of students.

“Why dodge ball?” my confused reader may wonder.

Because, dear reader, according to “experts,” dodge ball is a game that encourages aggression amongst children and rewards the strong for picking on the weak.

But it was a hell of a lot of fun way back when, wasn’t it?

As a result, the game of dodge ball may undergo a serious facelift. Judith Young, executive director of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, says not having players sit down when eliminated and other variations on the rules can make the game less exclusive. “Usually it is the kids who need the most practice who get eliminated first,” she said.

I liked that particular game better when it was called “catch.”

This lady, after Mr. Hammer of course, is the first person who needs a giant rubber ball upside the noggin.

As I remember, much to the chagrin of Ms. Young, dodge ball, unlike so many other playground games, required very little athletic ability.

The game is far too simple and unstructured to require any feats of great athleticism. It has one simple premise: Get the hell out of the way.

Hell, the littlest, most unpopular kid in my third-grade class was the dodge-ball champ. He couldn’t dribble a basketball, our gym teacher timed his 50-yard dash with a sundial and I’m pretty sure he ate paste, but that little bastard could zig and zag his way out of the path of that ball all day long. And he loved every second of it. We all did.

Why, then, has the game come under such scrutiny?

The answer is simple. In the minds of these fanatical parents and paranoid school officials, the end result is a kinder and supposedly more civilized and peaceful youth population.

They believe children who lose on the playground will never again be ostracized if “everyone wins.”

This is a concept that works wonderfully in theory. Everybody wins, and, therefore, nobody gets picked on. But we live in the real world, remember? And here in the real world, grade-school kids — for the most part — are brutal, unruly little pricks. If you don’t remember that, it means you were probably one of them.

Grade-school kids tease their peers about their clothes, their parents, their looks or anything else that will get a rise out of some awkward 12-year-old and incite the laughter of the masses.

The barrage of school shootings shocked the nation. The motives behind them do not. Kids get picked on until they break and lash out in unspeakable violence.

I don’t condone their actions, but I understand their anger. We all do, to some point. The blame does not rest on dodge ball or television violence or any other simple cure-all someone is pedaling. Blame falls squarely on the way kids treat one another.

Banning dodge ball may help some administrators sleep better at night, but it does little to address the bullying of children in our schools.

Bullies will exist until the end of time or until every kid in America gets home schooled. Part of the job of parents, guidance counselors and teachers is to build the confidence of a child — whatever the particular strengths of that child may be.

Address that, and leave the petty complaints about dodge ball where they belong — on the playground.

Zach Fehrenbach can be reached at [email protected]. He lies awake at night because he played “Duck, Duck, Goose” and hasn’t gotten over being compared to a bird.