Around here EVERY playground has tetherball, even if the balls are deflated or missing.

I always hated it because everyone else was always taller than I was, so I ended up jumping futilely as my opponent kept the ball up where I couldn't reach it and wrapped it for the win.

Connie, our elementary school had just various lengths of solid, round, braided poly rope melted at both ends for jumpropes...and seriously, the weight and heft made them by far the best cheap jumpropes I've ever used. (If you spring for more money, the best rope period is the solid-plastic ropes that weigh and coil like a thick licorice whip.)