The Volleyball Firing Squad (1967, date approximate)

Among Jack Cronin's innovations was the volleyball firing squad, in which he would line up a miscreant student against the side wall of the Wildwood School gym and then assemble a half dozen members of the safety patrol as a firing squad, each armed with one of the scuffed or semi-deflated volleyballs usually used in dodgeball games. At the count of three or six or whatever, Fat Jack would yell fire! and the six patrol members would simultaneously whip the volleyballs at the delinquent, who would cower against the wall as the balls smashed with deadly aim against his chest, legs, and side. Like everything else done in that enormous, high-ceilinged gym, the sound of the six volleyballs richocheting off the victims's body to bounce off the floor or tile wall made an incredble racket.

I'm not sure Fat Jack actually staged more than one of these executions. The only one I witnessed was against Randy Peterson, a kid I hardly remember except that he was always in trouble, had bristly dark hair, and usually wore a white t-shirt to school. Fat Jack may have had too many beers with the school janitor, "Munchy" Myers, when he lined Randy Peterson up against the gym wall and I seem to recall he might have even been suspended from teaching, perhaps following a complaint from the boy's parents. It is true that Jack disappeared from Wildwood for six months or so. Though I also think Ed may have once told me that Jack's suspension had something to do with a reaching up under a third grade girl's dress to pat her behind (also when he'd had a few too many Old Milwaukees) so maybe Randy's "execution" went by unprotested by his parents.