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The Seriousness of Play
By President David Hodge
When I saw that this Miamian’s cover story featured
crossword constructor Andrew Reynolds ’10, I chuckled.
I happen to love crosswords.
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This is bumper ball soccer,
the newest and hottest
game on campus. To watch
a bit of video of the rather
bizarre sport, go to http://miamioh.edu/bumperball.
It’s even more fun than it looks.
You are invited to write to President David Hodge at president@miamioh.edu. Follow him on twitter @PresHodge.
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One of the many things I enjoy about them is that the clues often have double meanings. You have to kind of twist your mind a little to figure out the answer. I find that fun — and challenging.
Often, though, especially as you get further on in the week, crosswords include many cultural references and people that I simply don’t know. My sense is that more and more of these puzzles are being written by Millennials, who were born in the 1980s and ’90s. Can you say “generation shift”?
I’m a Baby Boomer, just like journalist P.J. O’Rourke ’69, who shares his sardonic wisdom
in this issue’s “Boomers’ Ballad.” Born only a year after P.J., I grew up (literally) working with threshing machines. Current Miami students can’t even comprehend how far we’ve come in just a few generations. It’s pretty amazing to me, too.
In the same article with P.J., Suzanne Kunkel, director of our Scripps Gerontology Center, shares several fascinating facts from a report she co-authored, GenerAges: Generations As They Age. For example,
my parents’ generation worked nearly 50 hours a week, usually on the farm, to buy a 15-cent gallon
of milk and 40-cent pound of coffee.
Yet, they were also some of the first Americans
to be allowed time for fun. Before them, youngsters were expected to grow up fast and help support
the family.
Even when play started to be recognized and studied in the 1930s, researchers focused only on children because nobody believed that adults played.
Thank goodness that attitude has changed. But whereas children spend their playtime practicing adult roles, you and I are already living those roles. Instead, our play allows for a much needed break from stress, according to Brooke Spangler, one of our psychology faculty, who leads classes during Winter College and Alumni Weekend on the benefits of playfulness in adulthood.
I enjoy physical as well as mental play. Both are significant to me. Crosswords and other word games, such as Catch Phrase, a favorite in my family, keep
my mind active.
Physical play, such as broomball and bumper
ball, cranks up my endorphins and keeps me happy — especially when my team wins. You may not have heard of bumper ball yet. It’s a rather bizarre form
of soccer that is new to the U.S. I recently tried it
with several willing students and loved it. The photo on this page and on the Such A Life pages give you an idea of what
it’s about.
Watching students tackle bumper ball, Quidditch, and everything in between, I appreciate the results
of research by professors like Suzanne and Brooke that prove the positive benefits of play. Whether
we’re 6 or 66 (my age), it fuels creativity, creates
social bonds, and reduces stress, all good reasons to take play seriously.