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Fountain ball gives political consultants brief break during busy campaign season

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – In the midst of heavy summer campaign seasons, only one thing has offered those who work at Axiom Strategies a brief respite over the years from the hard-charging and frenetic world of political consulting.

Fountain ball.

No, you probably haven’t heard of it, because it is a game made up by those who work at the well-known political consulting firm based in Kansas City, Mo.

The concept, though, is simple: All you need are six people, a football and a fountain. Two teams of three are formed and one team tries to throw the football into the fountain while the other team tries to keep that from happening.

Consider it football for the business class.

And while one may have to suppress a desire to chuckle, associates past and present say the game – let’s not call it a sport just yet – helped them relieve stress and lower blood pressure over many a brutal workday.

Christian Morgan, for example, was employed at Axiom from 2009 until 2012 before he took a job in Washington working as chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner. Morgan remembers fountain ball helping him relax and have fun during an otherwise relentless work schedule.

“That job is pretty high charged and energetic and high anxiety,” Morgan said. “You have to let off steam and this turned out to be a great way to do that.”

In fact, as Morgan recalls, he was there the day when someone inadvertently threw the football into the fountain during a game of catch.

Voila. Fountain ball was born.

“I bet we played that once a day once it got a little cooler,” Morgan said. “Especially in the last several months of an election year, we needed a little break every day.”

Morgan wasn’t aware that fountain ball still existed, but learned the tradition lived on when he saw a picture on Facebook of some of his old Axiom colleagues playing the game recently at a company retreat.

fountain ball facebook post axiom“I didn’t know they were still playing, but apparently they are,” Morgan said.

Morgan said the best fountain ball player he worked with was Sam Cooper, who still is an associate. For the last year, Cooper worked on the Ted Cruz presidential campaign. But the former high school football player said Thursday he has still made time for fountain ball.

“It is just fun,” Cooper said. “When we had our retreat, then we had a company-wide fountain ball tournament. People love it.”

The game started before Cooper was hired, but he said it was invented by company founder and principal Jeff Roe. Like Christian Morgan, Cooper said he is grateful to have a fun activity that will get him out of the office for a few minutes.

“The days do get a little long in the summer and fall and it’s a good way to break up the day,” Cooper said. “We’ll play 10-15 minutes and then get back to work.”

But some take it a bit seriously, creating brackets and mocking the losing team – all in fun. And no one just stands around and watches – they will be strongly encouraged to play, he said.

“We’re all in politics and we are super competitive,” Cooper said. “So everybody’s playing to win.”