Balls fly at blindfolded students throughout the game of goalball
Not knowing where a 3-pound ball, flying 45 mph across the floor can hit you while blindfolded is nerve wrecking. But for the USU goalball team, the ability to defend their bodies from the momentum-attacking ball comes naturally.
Goalball captain Nick Gasawa, freshman in international studies, had his first exposure of goalball at age 14 at a blind sports education camp in Kalamazoo, Mich.
“I saw goalball and I started playing it,” he said, “and I got hooked.”
In junior high, Gasawa said he had his eyesight and could wrestle and play football like other students, but by the time he was 14, he has lost most of his sight and goalball became the best option.
According to goalballnetwork.com, goalball was a game designed originally in 1946 by Austrian Hanz Lorenzen and German Sepp Reindle, in an effort to help in rehabilitation of a visually impaired World War II veteran. It then became a true sport in the 1980 Summer Paralympics. Gasawa said it is a sport many individuals may not appreciate.
“When people hear that it’s a blind sport they don’t take it seriously,” he said. “It is a fast-paced, physical and intense sport that takes athletic ability. I’ve known several people who are pretty athletic and try to play it and they were lost. It just takes time to get it down.”
Gasawa said goalball is unique in the way the game is set up. He said it is comparable to handball.
“It’s hard to compare goalball to anything else unless you’ve seen it. It’s kind of like handball on the floor,” he said.
Since the game of goalball is based on using hearing and touch, Gasawa said competitors have to feel their way around and listen for the ball.
Goalball is played with two three-man teams. The object of the game is to get the goalboal into the opponent’s goal. Whoever has the most goals by the time the two 10-minute halves wins the game.
The positions include two wingers and one center and is played in an indoor court. The court measures 18×9 meters with rope taped along the boundaries of the floor so players can feel their way around the court and keep inside the boundaries.
The ball weighs 2.76 pounds and contains eight holes embedded with noise bells so players can listen for the ball when it flies across the court.
The goal is as wide as the 8-meter court and competitors are to defend the goal with their whole bodies. Players do this by diving across the floor with their full-body length.
Because there are different degrees of eyesight, Gasawa said goalball athletes wear blacked-out shades so everyone is completely blind during the game.
The ball is then thrown across the floor and has to stay on the ground or it becomes a penalty if thrown in the air.
Once a ball is blocked, players have 10 seconds to get rid of the ball or else a penalty is given. The player has one chance to block the ball that is thrown by the opposing team.
Gasawa said competitors need a good reaction time to get in front of it before it passes you.
“Sometimes you get hit in the face, which isn’t fun, but it’s all part of the game,” Gasawa said. “You want to get hit in goalball because you don’t want to get scored on.”
Goalball players are geared up with hockey-padded pants, elbow pads, knee pads and wrist guards.
“You hit the floor a lot and it isn’t very soft,” Gasawa said.
Gasawa said in order to be a good goalball player, players need to have good flexibility and basic total body strength.
“This game does take explosion. You’re up and down and throwing and you’re in these funky motions and twisting around,” he said. “This game takes balance. If I put eyeshades on you, and made you twist around, it may not be that easy.”
Gasawa said good mobility and being steady on your feet is also good along with leg strength.
“You don’t have to be an Olympic marathon runner but you definitely have to have physical ability,” he said.
A good combination of body strength and endurance are key aspects for a competitor’s physical condition.
“For 20 minutes we are up and down, blocking, sliding and getting hit,” he said. “The more tired you get, the less you want to get down to slide and block and the more you’ll get scored on, which is not a good thing.”
Gasawa said tracking the ball to hear and know where it’s coming from takes time to learn and to become skilled at it. He said reflex actions are key.
Goalball supervisor Cathy Morgan, sophomore in print journalism, has been playing goalball since age seven.
Morgan is one of two females on the team. She said members have the option of wearing gear and she refuses to wear the hip padding.
“I just don’t slide as far when I wear them but most people wear them,” she said.
The USU goalball team practices co-ed, but during competitions, men and women are strictly separated. The team currently stands at six members.
If anyone would like to join or try it out, practice is open at 7 p.m. Fridays in HPER 213. E–mail Nick Gasawa at n.w.g@aggiemail.usu.edu for more details.
–candice.sandness@aggiemail.usu.edu