Out of sight: Goalball, a Paralympic sport, for the legally blind, involves three-pound ball at high speeds

For most people, when a three-pound basketball is flying at 45-50 miles per hour in their direction, they move-it’s human instinct.

Not for those playing goalball. They are trained to dive in front of the potential harmful projectile, blocking it with any available part of their body.

And all without the ability to see where the ball is going to hit them. No bracing for impact. No tightening of the stomach before the three-pound orb strikes the midsection. Just contact.

“(It’s like) reverse dodgeball, or suicidal dodgeball,” said Marty Langworthy, president of the new goalball club at USU.

Goalball is played on a volleyball-sized court with raised lines that assist the six players-three on each team-find where they are, because they are wearing blacked-out goggles to level the playing field for everyone, even though every competitor is legally blind.

Players throw the three-pound, basketball-like goalball, filled with sleigh bells, across the court close to the ground-some spinning like a discus hurler to do so-in an attempt to sneak the ball past three defenders crouched in a V-formation, ready to dive to stop the ball from getting into the goal behind them. The defenders have to use their hearing to locate the goalball and dive horizontally in unison to prevent points from being scored.

“You watch goalball and it looks like a simple concept,” Chris Dodds, vice president of the club, said. “You’re like, ‘Oh that looks easy,’ or whatever. When you actually put the shades on, it’s a whole new world. You’re not used to using those senses. You’re not used to being mobile without your sight.”

Dodds said it can take years to gain the court awareness to compete at the Paralympic level-something he’s done since 2001, including winning a bronze medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens with the U.S. National Team.

There is also a lot of communication between players on a team, which helps them get back in position, Langworthy said. But with the exception of some communication between teammates and the jangling of the sleigh bells in the goalball, the sport is a quiet one.

Since the competitors rely on their hearing to locate the ball, spectators are required to be silent during the action.

“You’ll be in the game and you can hear a pin drop-other than the goalball, it’s really quiet,” Dodds said. “In Athens, it made me laugh. It was so quiet, and then you’d score and there’s just this eruption of people cheering. It’s kind of backwards from what you’re used to.”

A combination of the constant contact with the ball and repeated dives on the hard courts makes injuries common in goalball. Langworthy said he broke a growth plate in his right ankle, tore his Achilles tendon and tore a ligament in his wrist off of the bone. Dodds’ worst injuries have been in his hip and shoulder.

The bodily punishment doesn’t seem to be a deterrent for the two athletes who finally found a game they could play competitively despite their visual impairment.

Dodds, a 24-year-old family, consumer and human development major, started playing goalball in 1999 as a way to continue playing competitive sports-such as baseball and soccer-that he had to give up because of an eye condition he knew would continue to worsen.

Langworthy, a 27-year-old exercise science major, has a similar story about the start of his goalball career, although his came a little later in life, in 2002.

“I loved physical sports,” Langworthy said. “I played football and wrestled and all that stuff, but now it’s just kind of hard, losing vision as you get older, so it gives athletes a chance to play.”

Dodds is probably one of the reasons Langworthy still plays goalball. In the first year Langworthy played at Western Michigan, he competed against Dodds-one of the elite goalballers in America-in a tournament in Utah and was able to hold his own, Langworthy said. This gave him confidence, and in Langworthy’s second year of playing goalball, he was invited to the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

“That was awesome, because you walk into the cafeteria and there’s the women’s soccer team, there’s Rulon Gardner,” he said. “It’s more of a wow thing.”

Unlike Dodds, Langworthy isn’t on the current national team, but it’s his quest to make the team that was the catalyst for the creation of the club at USU.

Langworhty said he and some other goalball players were having a hard time getting excused from some of their classes to go to tryouts. They counteracted the problem by creating a new club this semester that has seven or eight members, including one female, he said.

“We kind of took it to the next level, to the president and he fully backed us,” Langworthy said.

Goalball is a Paralympic sport for the legally blind, but Langworthy said the club-one of the first of its kind in the U.S.-is for anyone curious about the sport.

Only those that meet specifics for visual impairment will be able to compete in the two tournaments the goalballers plan to travel to this year-including Regionals in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Nationals in Salt Lake City in June. Four club members will be playing on the state team, the Utah Explosion, which should be a threat at Nationals, Dodds said.

“We really, strongly encourage people to come find out what it is,” Langworthy said.

But if getting pummeled in the name of sport doesn’t sound appealing, he said they are also looking for volunteers.

“Us being all blindfolded, we need people that can see to ref,” Langworthy said.

The club meets in Health, Physical Recreation and Education building Gym 213 Fridays 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays 9 to 11 a.m. Those interested in attending practices or joining the club should e-mail Langworthy at martin.langworthy@aggiemail.usu.edu.

For more information on goalball, check out www.usaba.org, www.usgoalball.com or www.utgoalball.net.

-da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu

marty langworthy performs a goalball serve in the HPER Friday night.