It's time to choose up sides for the dodge-ball game at Salt Lake City's Garden Park LDS Ward, where several dozen special-needs Scouts gather.
But as captains Roger Lamping and Michael Keller begin picking their teammates, Nathan Bond ambles into the middle and makes a wisecrack:
"Am I going to be the ref?" Bond asks.
It's a perfect setup for Paul Rich, one of the leaders.
"You're the target, buddy," he yells across the gym to Bond.
The humor captures what is, for both Scouts and their leaders, a relationship centered in joy.
"I'd pay to come to this," says Laird Swensen, a 27-year-old Salt Lake Community College student who just started "sneaking in" to be one of the volunteer leaders. "This is the best part of my life. You can't come away from here feeling bad."
The Pioneer Region Special Needs Troop No. 1257 draws boys and men -- there is no maximum age -- from 25 stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Some come from a group home; others are driven to the east side's Garden Park Ward by parents or siblings. The 35 Scouts range in age from 14 to 63.
For 25 years, this troop has given Scouts with special needs a chance to socialize and grow in all the ways that Scouting -- celebrating its U.S. centennial this month -- aims to mold citizens.
A number have become Eagle Scouts, says Jim Haley, who still attends with his 37-year-old-son, Daniel Haley, even though the dad retired two years ago after 19 years as Scoutmaster.
In so much of society, those with special needs are "shoved in a corner," Jim Haley says.
At Scout gatherings, they make friends and gain confidence.
Take a recent meeting in which Daniel Haley was working on a cinematography merit badge. He had found a video camera in a church Dumpster and fiddled with it until he got it working.
On this night, Daniel holds the camera on his shoulder, standing perfectly still and filming while four other Scouts perform a skit in which a farmer, his cat and his dog are unable to pull up a turnip until the mouse helps, too.
The narrator, leader Joel Green, delivers the moral of the story: "Sometimes, the little things can make all the difference."
Jim Haley says the troop serves as a good example of people from all walks of life coming together.
"These guys don't care where you're from. They just care how they're treated," says Haley, who worked as a prison guard for 25 years. "These guys helped me deal with the stress."
The troop goes to camp each summer and helps with food drives.
Sometimes, mainstream troops join the Special Needs Scouts for meetings that are eye-openers, Haley says.
"They [mainstream Scouts] learn that these guys' wants and needs are the same as theirs."
Grant Taylor, who replaced Haley as Scoutmaster, says he is constantly surprised -- and moved -- by the Scouts he has led for two years. "They are such great people. It's just fun!"
Another leader, Even Madsen, says working with the Special Needs Scouts is the best assignment he ever has had. He is president of the Pioneer Region Young Men's organization for the LDS Church.
"I've had a lot of calls in my life, but this is it," Madsen says. "I tell my wife that, at my age, this is my ticket."
Madsen wishes more families would send their sons and brothers to Scouts. "We know they're out there."
Randy Grove is one of the Scouts who looks forward to Thursday nights.
"It's very fun," Grove says. "I make a lot of friends."
Swensen, the one who "sneaks in" to help at Scout meetings, says Grove isn't the only one.
"If they had this seven nights a week, we'd all be here."
