Todd Gold takes off on a dead sprint past the left field foul line and dives head-first into the hard ground at South Park to make a catch.

And Gold, Denver senior, did it all without a glove. No gloves are needed in kickball — a game that has turned into a Lawrence summertime favorite. Gold’s team, the Sun Creations, rides the momentum from his spectacular sixth inning snag to a 10-4 victory against the division-foe Eastsiders.

“It was the most amazing play of my life,” Gold said.

The Sun Creations and Eastsiders are just two of the 28 kickball teams that are a part of the Kaw Valley Kickball League this summer in Lawrence. Lawrence Parks and Recreation also offers its own kickball league in the summer that has 16 teams.

Phil Mitchell, commissioner of the Kaw Valley league, said kickball enthusiasts just can’t get enough. He said the league started seven years ago with only eight teams as a way for downtown business employees to interact. The number of teams in the league has grown ever since.

“It’s pretty amazing what it’s turned into but I’m glad it’s here,” Mitchell said. “People wake up Sunday morning and think kickball.”

Mary King, Larned senior, considers herself one of those people. King, who plays for Sacred Sword this season, has participated in the Kaw Valley League for three years.

She also decided to play in the Lawrence league at the beginning of the summer to prepare her for the upcoming Kaw Valley season. Her Lawrence league team won the championship.

She laughs about her fascination with kickball with her friends but swears she’s not joking.

“I say to people ‘I don’t feel alive unless it’s kickball season,’” King said.

That’s exactly the kind of attitude that drove Mitchell to become the commissioner of the league. He emphasized that it was the players and their attitudes that made the league special.

He said the best example of this came two years ago during the league’s championship game. The league held the game at Hobbs Park, a venue that is fully equipped with a fence, infield and bleachers, hoping to encourage spectators to come watch.

It worked. Five hundred people showed up to watch the event and the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association even set up a concession stand. After the championship game, Mitchell knew Kaw Valley kickball had become more than just a league — it was a community.

Now, every week a ‘game of the week’ is played at Hobbs Park on Sunday night after all the other league games are finished. Mitchell said even a slow night brought 200 people to the weekly spectacle.

“It’s become a signature event,” he said. “Other people in the league want to watch other people play.”

With the number of players in the league expanding every year, Mitchell expects more people to show up at Hobbs Park. He said he thought the 2008 championship game at the end of the summer would set a new attendance record.

Mitchell said the ‘ku.edu syndrome’ was starting to hit the league because every year during sign-ups, more new players are listing KU e-mail addresses. Using the addresses as his barometer, Mitchell estimated that around 25 percent of the league was comprised of students.

KU students also have the opportunity to join a kickball league made specifically for them. KU Recreation Services is trying to implement a summer intramural kickball league.

But Ben Prahl, Corvallis, Ore., graduate student and intramural manager, said only one team had signed up so far. Prahl said perhaps students already being involved in other leagues had hurt the recreation center’s initiative.

“To be honest, we didn’t really know Lawrence had a kickball league,” Prahl said. “We had just been talking about, not only kickball, but starting something new to see if people would respond.”

Even though the response hasn’t been overwhelming so far for the league, King said she could imagine kickball becoming a major college pastime at Kansas.

She said kickball served as a perfect combination of competitiveness and spending time with friends in a social setting. It can also bring back memories of athletic glory days.

“In high school, I was really athletic and did dance and volleyball and a billion other things,” King said. “Kickball gives me a little bit of an outlet for an athletic activity.”

Students interested in signing up for the intramural kickball league should either call 864-0787 or e-mail imsports@mail.ku.edu.

— Edited by Rustin Dodd