USA Dodgeball - About Us (2024)

Alfred Kwon

Alfred has been playing dodgeball for more than half of his life, starting in the spring of 2003. Since then, he has been involved in the sport at every level, from participating and growing the sport at the recreational level, competing collegiately in the NCDA, participating competitively in Elite Dodgeball and the USA Dodgeball Premier Tour, and coaching Team USA in 2022. He is excited to be a member of theUSA Dodgeball executive board and is passionate about growing the sport that he loves so much.

Nick Factoran

Nick has been an integral part of the dodgeball community since 2010. He has played several roles over the years, including playing in the men's national team in 2017. Most recently, he served as the team manager for Team USA for their participation in the 2022 World Championships in Edmonton, AB, Canada. He is currently an Area Operations Manager for IWG in Orange County, CA where he lives with his beautiful wife and 2 amazing children.

Kate Kerins

Kate started her dodgeball career in 2009 after being discovered while waitressing at a Texas Roadhouse. She fell in love with the sport and community aspect of it immediately, and went from playing one night a week to four nights a week. In October of 2011 she started planning a trip for her and her friends to compete in a national tournament held in Las Vegas, and in 2012 Davis Dodgeball and the Badgers competed (and got destroyed) in their first major tournament outside of their home league with Social Boston Sports. When Kate got back to Boston she reached out to SBS and told them they needed to run 8.5” rubber leagues with barricades in actual gyms. They decided it would be easier to hire her as a contractor and just get her to do all the things she was demanding. In May 2014 she left a career in non-profit fundraising and started working full-time for SBS. Fast forward to 2017 and now Kate runs Social Boston Sports, which recently became part of the Volo City family. Kate is proud to have helped organize Elite Dodgeball Nationals in Boston this past August, and is grateful to have been recognized as the People’s Champ.

Joe Colella

Joe Colella was first introduced to dodgeball in 2007 at a country bar on Sunday nights where bad lighting, small courts, and no blocking was where he began his love for dodgeball. Since then, Joe has been competing at the highest level of dodgeball in the United States. Along the way, he has logged countless volunteer hours on various dodgeball projects and committees such as Referee and rules committees at both national and international levels. Both his educational background in accounting and his professional career in the financial market as a Sr. Analytics Consultant; he has developed a software program specifically for the dodgeball community to provide tournament organizers an easy step-by-step process to quickly create round-robin schedules, scorecards, results input, and real-time bracket updates. As the elected Treasurer of the executive board, Joe will be focused on providing additional revenue streams that will directly impact the member's experience and strengthen the relationships between USA Dodgeball and its partners.

Samantha Sayward

Samantha Sayward has been a dodgeball enthusiast since she was a teenager working atCamp Bournedale in Plymouth, Massachusetts. However it wasn't until 2018 she started playing in the local adult recreational league in Philadelphia. In 2022 Samantha started her own league, Philly Dodgeball, and is dedicated to growingthe sport locally and nationally. Samantha has worked in the non-profit industry for over 6 years and currently serves as the Senior Walk Director for the Alzheimer'sAssociation. Samantha is also a U.S. Navy Veteran having served over 5 years active duty as a Hospital Corpsman. In the Navy she served at Naval Hospital Sigonella, Italy - working in the lab and at staff education and training where she became an EMT and EMT instructor. She was also stationed at the Naval Health Clinic New England in Groton, CT where she specialized in physicaltherapy.

Deanna R. Darnes

Mark Acomb

Mark Acomb started playing in organized dodgeball in 2008. In 2010 he set out to create an organization that was the sole purpose of hosting highly competitive tournaments for the players and by the players. With a demand, Elite became the first and only nationwide tournament series to unite the coasts under a single rule set. Elite’s growth has been exponential over the last few years creating a place for top players and teams to compete.

Mark Acomb

Mark Acomb started playing in organized dodgeball in 2008. In 2010 he set out to create an organization that was the sole purpose of hosting highly competitive tournaments for the players and by the players. With a demand, Elite became the first and only nationwide tournament series to unite the coasts under a single rule set. Elite’s growth has been exponential over the last few years creating a place for top players and teams to compete.

Jake Mason

Jake is the founder of WeHo Dodgeball, one of the largest dodgeball leagues in California. He has been a member of the dodgeball community since 2008 when he first put on a striped shirt and short shorts for his first team. Since then he has been actively involved in almost every aspect of dodgeball nation-wide including the Elite National Championships, UDC, The San Diego Classic, as well as the WDBF World Championships in Melbourne and Toronto. Jake also runs the Sin City Dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas which is one of the largest tournaments, as well as the largest LGBTQ dodgeball tournament, in the world.

Kate Kerins

Kate started her dodgeball career in 2009 after being discovered while waitressing at a Texas Roadhouse. She fell in love with the sport and community aspect of it immediately, and went from playing one night a week to four nights a week. In October of 2011 she started planning a trip for her and her friends to compete in a national tournament held in Las Vegas, and in 2012 Davis Dodgeball and the Badgers competed (and got destroyed) in their first major tournament outside of their home league with Social Boston Sports. When Kate got back to Boston she reached out to SBS and told them they needed to run 8.5” rubber leagues with barricades in actual gyms. They decided it would be easier to hire her as a contractor and just get her to do all the things she was demanding. In May 2014 she left a career in non-profit fundraising and started working full-time for SBS. Fast forward to 2017 and now Kate runs Social Boston Sports, which recently became part of the Volo City family. Kate is proud to have helped organize Elite Dodgeball Nationals in Boston this past August, and is grateful to have been recognized as the People’s Champ.

Felix Perrone

Felix began his dodgeball journey in 2004 as a young lad, but really started focusing on developing the sport of dodgeball in 2009 when he took on administrative roles within the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association. Putting efforts toward legitimizing the NCDA, he has worked with several amazing people throughout the years to become the premier governing body for competitive collegiate dodgeball in the United States and was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2014. Since Felix joined the NCDA in 2008, the organization has almost quadrupled its membership and is seeing increased amounts of interest in starting new teams every year. In the NCDA, Felix has held the administrative roles of League Expansion Officer (2009-2013), Director of Nationals (2011), was the first elected Treasurer of the organization (2013-2015), and is currently serving his second term as President (2015-present). He is very excited to work with yet another incredible team to really bring together all forms of dodgeball and dodgeballers across the country.

Alex Benepe

Alex is the creator of international, competitive real-life quidditch, a full-contact gender-integrated sport. He and his friends invented the rules in 2005 at Middlebury College, and he founded the International Quidditch Association (IQA) in 2009 and then branched off to US Quidditch in 2014. USQ grew under Alex’s leadership from 20 students playing on a single college quad to a fully incorporated national sports league with more than 4,000 members, 5 full time staff, over $400,000 in annual funding, and a dozen championship events with major municipal partners annually. The IQA has gone on to host its first true World Cup in 2016 in Frankfurt, featuring 21 nations and 3,000 spectators. Alex serves as an emeritus board member for USQ and full board member for the IQA. Currently Alex is the Senior Director of Innovations for Sky Zone, an active entertainment center, where he is focused on creating and deploying major new attractions, programs, and sports in Sky Zone’s 200 locations globally, which serve 17 million guests each year. At Sky Zone he has overseen the Ultimate Dodgeball Championships, a global trampoline championship with hundreds of teams, featured as part of multi-year deals on ESPN and Snapchat and earning over 150 million views annually. He also over saw the development and launch of the Sky Zone GLOW program, a weekly blacklight party at Sky Zone that has deployed in 116 locations and served over a million guests. His current project at Sky Zone is SkyWars, a battle game on trampolines played with Nerf blasters. He is very excited to apply his experience to USA Dodgeball, working with an awesome, passionate team to unite and grow the sport nationally in the US.