By B.A. Whelton
“Quiet please,” the referee said. “Play.”
Everyone in the bleachers is silent as three players on each team use their bodies to slide across the court to make sure the ball doesn’t make it in their net. Using nothing but the sense of sound and touch, the players make sure they are in their position to the other team from the ball rolling into their 30-foot-wide net. This is goal ball.
“Not many people know it exists,” said Hector Lara, a 17-year-old student at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and member of the boys’ goal ball team.
Goal ball is a sport for the blind and visually impaired, created by the blind and visually impaired. There are three players on the court for each team. Each player must be wearing goggles over their eyes that completely block out all sight from being able to see the court. There is one ball the weight and size of a big medicine ball that inside contains a bell that lets the players know where the ball is being thrown across the court. They must use their bodies to slide across the court to block it from getting in their net.
“I don’t think I’m good at describing it, it’s one of those things you have to see or play,” said Mark Gronquist, the school’s recreation director and also the boys’ coach for the team. “When I describe it, I feel like people have an imagination of what people think it is and then it is totally different.”
“I think a lot of people are surprised when they see it,” said Adelyn Granger, a 17-year-old student at TSBVI and member of the girls’ goal ball team. “Especially our volunteers they will be surprised because they watch it all the time and think it’s scary, but when they actually play they have so much more respect.”
“It’s not just a couple kids rolling a ball back and forth — it’s pretty intense and very physical,” Gronquist said. “It’s all done with their knowledge of the sport and their mobility skills.”
“It’s all awareness,” said Davieon Perez, a 17-year-old student at TSBVI and member of the boys Goal Ball team “It’s knowing where you are at the court at all times.”
Gronquist calls Goal Ball “the premier sport for the visually impaired that is the only team sport.”
And experts call team sports are important to everyone.
“The process of working together and trying to be unified for a common goal is a great life lesson,” said Geoff Rich, a specialist for the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at UT.
TSBVI recently hosted the 2017 USABA National High School Goal Ball Championships from November second to the fourth. They had teams compete from all over the U.S., with eight boys’ teams and seven girls’ teams. Florida usually hosts the event. This year was the first time the school hosted this tournament because administrators wanted to bring goal ball to this part of the country and get more teams to participate. The school came in second with the boys’ team and third with the girls’ team. The Florida teams won first in both the girls’ and the boys’ divisions.
“We have medaled the last four years for second or third, both boys’ and girls’ teams,” Gronquist said.
To get ready for the tournament Gronquist had the girls’ and boys’ team play against each other during practice. They ran through drills, practiced rolling to the spots in good form and practiced game-like situations.
“We have to play against the girls and to try to make it more intense and difficult,” Lara said. “Since our girls can throw as much as some of the guys, we have to split the team.”
This sport is not commonly known outside of the blind and visually impaired community. Some TSBVI students said they themselves did not even know it existed until they started attending the school.
“A lot of people, when I tell them they should try goal ball, they say they can’t play since they aren’t blind, but it’s for everybody,” Granger said. “You don’t have to be blind.”
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