Bocce Could Be A High School Sport

First off, I will confess and get it over with quickly.

I have watched the game of bocce being played, but that's it. Don't know the rules or how points are scored. That's not to say I won't learn. In fact, that's now on my list - and here's why?

Bocce could be coming to a school near you.

From what my friend tells me, and he plays the game like I swim (and that's quite a bit), it's something between curling and bowling - but on grass. The court is about 10 feet wide and 76 feet long. Players have eight balls to throw to the pallina - or the target. Apparently, this game requires lots of skill and lots of luck too. Seniors play it quite a bit and now the kids are wanting in.

So much so, that on Friday at St. Marcellinus Secondary in Mississauga (that's the school that has an artificial turf and the Argonauts sometimes practice on it), something like 17 schools from the Region of Peel will have an invitational tournament. If things go well, look out.

Kathy Knafelc at the Peel District School Board told me that a motion will be made at the Region of Peel Secondary School Athletic Association annual meeting in June for bocce to be added to the list of some 30 other varsity sports.

No champ will be decided this Friday. No final. Just a tournament and teams are made up of four players, two with a developmental disability. This isn't the first inter-school sport for people with disabilities. There's swimming and track and field.

What's next beach bocci? All kidding aside, I like the idea.

Comments

[Scott Douglas]

Is this the joke of the day?
Have we not lost our marbels. What's next in our schools - ballroom dancing and poker!

[J.L. Gallagher]

Leave it to Peel Region to come up with this. Maybe Mayor McCallion is the pusher of this. Keep tuned in because salmon fishing is next.

[Coach Greg]

I have been a long time follower of your work and you are to be commended for the great job you do to highlight students. I keep reading all this nonsense from people and hear the chatter in my school from certain people who can't stand when you write stories about things they do not like. They don't understand what you do. One thing. Let us all know when you go out to cover a bocce game. That I have to see with my own eyes and then I'll know that it's time for you to pack it in.

[chris starkey]

If accepted, I think this would be the first sport in ROPSSAA (perhaps other Associations as well) that has students with developmental disabilities competing with and against their friends in the regular academic program. Sounds like a great way to make new friends with kids in your school that you might never get to meet otherwise. Good for St. Marcellinus and I hope that ROPSSAA sees the value of recognition.

[John M.]

Girls and boys on the same team in bocce. Sounds like it could work and be fun for people. I am waiting for someone to complain that it's not right to have kids with developmental disabilities competing against each other. Within time, someone will beef. When I read what has been said by other people, it wouldn't surprise me if its that OFSAA group that starts to complain questioning things and wanting control of everything that has school and sports in the same sentence.

[Mr. Anderson]

I wonder if this league is doing this for publicity or sincere and does Mr. Starkey really think that these kids in the same school will be friends.
I would appreciate a follow-up to see if the students with developmental disabilities get to hang out with the others. Something tells me that's not going to happen. Too bad.

[J. Lee]

What has taken these people so long and why just bocce?

[chris starkey]

I doubt that this is a publicity stunt and I would bet that this is coming from teacher-coaches who are just hoping for greater understanding within the walls of their schools. I know of 2 kids (one in regular stream, one with challenges) who have gone to the same school for 3 years and have never seen each other). Will the bocce kids hang out at the mall together or meet up at house parties? Probably not, but that's not the point either. This sport will attract some of the top kids in the regular academic streams...not the best athletes necessarily, but the kids who see it as a great opportunity for others, not themselves.
I also think that if he attended the tournament and later on did a "top 10" list of his year in sports, Mr. Grossman would name it as one of the highlights of his sports reporting year.