68)Left-Right-Across*

Supplies
* one ball (any size) for each player
- can range from tennis balls, to basketballs
* tape/construction paper/etc to mark each player's space.

Set-Up:
Create a square out of placemarkers, one for each participant. Each placemarker should be directly across from another.

How to Play:
Have group form a square, with one person standing on each spacemarker. Hand out the balls, one to each player. Facilitator may at any time, call out, "Left," "Right," or "Across." At that point, each player must throw his/her ball straight up, and rush in the direction called, to catch the ball from that position.

As a team-building game, explain the rules, and ask the group how many times in a row, they can suceed in getting everyone to catch the ball. Then have them try, and create a new goal based on how they do. Give them several tries at improving their numbers, then discuss how they worked together.

Hint: Try to let them figure it out themselves, but if after several attempts, they haven't caught on, help them to realize that they are more likely to succeed if they make the effort to throw the ball straight up, than if their primary goal is to get to the next spot.
Questions you can ask to get them thinking:
What's making it harder?
What would make it easier?
Where are the balls going?
Where should the balls be going?
Etc.
Team Builders: The point is to work together. If they come up with a solution that seems to break the rules, but it works (ie: moving placemarkers closer together), then congratulate them for coming up with a solution.

Variations
I've seen a similar game done without the teambuilding element, using thick dowels of sizes that varied from knee to waist-high. These dowels were held so that one end rested on the ground, as the command was called. The goal was to catch the next dowel before it hit the ground.

*(my invention) (well, kinda)