Author: Worthy

I am an attorney and a practicing social worker. I am also a member of an all- women extended family. One of three sisters; myself the mother of three sisters; my grandmother, one of five sisters. When we visit a park with our boyfriends, husbands and fathers, what a disappointment. We watch the boys play. We all would like to participate but only they have drop-in walk-on playfields, a variety of sports and recreation facilities. The non-males – and the disabled – are excluded. There is nothing there for them designed for their participation. The amenities provided in our parks are all unsuitable for a mixed family or for all-girls play or for boys and girls of a family playing together. They all require rivalry against others – recreation to defeat or “beat” others. Where are the ballplaying facilities in our parks where we play alongside each other like at golf and bowling w/o offense and defense, without body contact, aggression or banging into one another? Unfortunately all the sports and features in our parks such as basketball, soccer, football and all fast-moving defeat-others ball play are fundamentally exclusionary and marginalizing.
Invariably these play/sports activities conduce to aggression, to bullying, to the exclusion of members of my family. There is nothing, not a single sports facility for a family to drop-in to play ball together w/o running fast and banging bodies as at bowling and golf, recreation assets that do not belong in our parks. The social worker instinct in me makes me alert to the discrimination of the elderly and the disabled and of women who are excluded from our shared commons. The attorney in me seeks equality and fair play.
We should ask, where are the shared spaces designed for the feminine side of park attendees? Where are the sports that are not body-banging, non-aggressive and not fast moving? We are deprived of play facilities that are non-competitive or self-competitive. We should be providing ball-playing facilities designed for the participation of all visitors, male and female alike, essentially all our neighbors, not only for the men and boys, athletes and jocks, participating in bang-one-another recreation and sports. My girls want none of that. They invariably face discrimination in our parks having been provided so little share of our shared spaces. Drop-in walk-on participation is what they’re looking for in recreation, not organized teams whose purpose is to defeat others.
Women are so far left out and so acclimated to marginalization that they are not even conscious of their being left out, sidelined and discriminated in our so called shared commons. The same for people with disabilities. When was the last time you saw a teenager using a wheelchair or a young girl or a grandparent with mixed-age grandchildren waiting for next at a basketball court? Never.
There is an exception that not only proves the rule but highlights what could be a model for our parks. At King Farm in Rockville – and hundreds of recent communities across the states –take note of the Bankshot Playcourt designed for non-aggressive, non-competitive ball playing, or “self-competitive play.” The participation at Bankshot is intentionally alongside other participants of all ages and genders like at bowling and golf. No opponents necessary except yourself. That concept embraces everyone at play. Bankshot as a tangible example reveals what can be derived from drop-in individualized play that is designed for including the differently-able as well as my full female family. When there are so many full contact combat-like sports facilities and recreation intended to defeat others, park designers should get to work creating many other non-aggressive non-competitive playcourts and fields that include us all.
Ariella Klein
Board member-The National Association for Recreational Equality
Nareletsplayfair.org

In a novel by Anthony Horowitz the private detective Atticus Pund “prides himself on understanding the inner workings of the human psyche.” He contends, “the more obvious the answer, the more difficult it can be to find.” Sometimes something is so obvious you slap your forehead in wonder why you didn’t understand this or know this previously. It even bothers you. You should’ve known.

I remember a movie of some years ago in which the good guys and bad guys were looking for a missing large amount of money which was not in the empty envelope where the cash should’ve been. Instead the treasure was in the rare postage stamps in plain sight on the envelope. The good guys and the bad guys all fondled the envelope, shaking the contents out repeatedly and were looking at the treasure without realizing it. Right in front of their faces! No one noticed until the end. The solution was right before their eyes and they never took note. More often than one would think a very simple solution or a remedy to a deep and long-standing problem remains unseen for a long period of time despite its ongoing appearance right before our eyes. Sometimes society stays purblind to the obvious and it invariably disadvantages and hurts the differently-able, the 24% of the marginalized population including the autistic community, Gary in a wheelchair and the elderly.

For many years whenever I delivered a lecture I would begin with posing a riddle. Whether at a large group or small I would ask, “Are you ready for riddle?” And invariably my listeners would lean forward. Everyone loves a riddle:

“Name the three ballplaying sports you play alongside each other, not against each other; where there is no offense or defense; and your opponent can show up tomorrow.” At once I then ask why is the riddle important. I answer that question by pointing out that playing alongside one another self-competitively, against the challenge of the course rather than against rivals, accommodates participation of full diversity and widespread multi-generational, multi-age and gender groups with or without disabilities. Show up anytime the mood strikes and the weather suits. No organizing plans required. No one to defeat. You do not have to beat others to be a winner.

Opponent based sports are by their nature discriminatory. There is no universal design inviting for full participation such that everyone could be participants in a drop-in walk-on accommodation. At golf and at bowling participants play the course regardless of whether there are others participants. They are self- competitive. Italian bocce is not. South African bowls is not. The Italian bocce players humored me. In South Africa the seasoned bowlers tolerated me out of politeness. Playing to defeat others, these underhand rolling sports are discriminatory because you play against skilled opponents and physicality matters.  All the familiar conventional sports facilities communities provide including baseball, football, soccer, rugby, tennis, pickle ball and all sports with teams of offense and defense are exclusionary for the differently able. We often ask, when was the last time you saw a wheelchair would-be participant waiting for a game? Only American bowling indoors and Bankshot outdoors lineup alongside golf and mini-golf as self competitive, non-contact ball-playing participation.

The riddle I pose stumps very few for very long. Golf is submitted quickly; bowling after a while but soon enough. I then feel obliged to bring Bankshot to the attention of my audience and follow up with the less obvious question, why so few self competitive sports, the sports that are inclusive, which provided diversity only a swimming pool can match, why so few that it’s next to nothing, particularly in our shared commons where bowling cannot be played and golf cannot be drop-in walk-on available without cost for a community.

What should be obvious and as plain as day but is not apparent to entrenched recreation professionals schooled in teams and competition. There should be strong interest in providing total mix facilities based on the diversity of universal design in priority well before the segregating fast moving sports that sideline the differently able are provided for a community. First built should be sports and other recreational facilities that everyone can do. All ages. All degrees of ability and disability.

Ballplaying sports receive the most attention, budget and space. Therefore ballplaying sport where you play without opponents, alongside one another not against others, without huddling, team play, pushing and shoving and physical contact. That’s the place to start. There are not enough of these. Sport ultimately comes from Sparta. There are quite a sufficient number of warlike sports where inevitably there are winners and losers and one “beats” others at sport. But you can be a winner without defeating others.

When Gary rolls through a park in his wheelchair past the many children at play he moves right on. Sidelined and excluded, there is no ballplaying sport for him to drop in walk on and participate at with other children his own age and indeed with the rest of the community of all ages. And Larry’s two kids with different stages of autism? They too trudge through the park. They would like to stop and play some ball but not by having to take on others who are rivals and they can’t chase off the children from the different courts so they can be included. What sports are there for them that are drop-in, walk on when the mood is right without supervision or recreational professionals to play alongside others? There should be many such opportunities for all members of society in our shared common space, in the parks, in our fields of play.

Here’s a response and remedy to the riddle: when a new Park is being built or an established park is being renovated, start not by providing fast-moving, aggressive, contact recreation and sports marginalizing and side-lining so large a swathe of our neighbors. And not a skate board facility costing big bucks. Start with total mix diversity based on universal design. Investing in our commons must be for the service and benefit of all elements of the community not just the jocks and the athletes and the well-connected and those with the loudest voices – the tennis and pickle ball tribes, for example – who invariably get their way  – large space few players expensive to build and maintain servicing a small segment of residents – but exclude the largest majority of our community including the differently-able and the elderly, including myself at 85 and counting.

The thinking behind the ADA was well meant but access is hardly the objective without inclusion. There is no point to ramps rolling to exclusion. Universal design is a synonym for inclusion. Alongside play that is self-competitive should precede any and all use of our shared commons.

The three alternatives refer to how things have changed now with the virus among us. New rules have now been enacted to provide guidance before returning to a new normalcy. We know what for now we must abdicate: all sports conducted indoors. Bowling too I’m afraid. All sports that are body contact, sports that share a ball, team sports of every sort and all sports played in close proximity with others. No huddles, no scrums and no boxing out. These, for the time being we must abdicate and abandon. Sports that fans attend as spectators and congregate at the ballpark are a thing of the past and perhaps the future but not the present.

Some sports are tolerable – even before the epidemic – and a few could be modified or adjusted for participation during the virus plague. They are to be tolerated rather than embraced because they are not inclusionary or diverse and player-ship is limited in meeting the recreational needs of only a small percentage of the population. These sports include tennis, pickle ball and the like whereat players are of the same skill level.

They are not well suited for diversity or for families or for drop-in participation by wheelchair users, individuals with autism, with mobility issues, or with other limitations including restrictions as we age. Nevertheless, in stages or phases with new behaviors understood and assured, the net sports can be played with participants at a distance – and with only family members really – according to prepared arrangements and with a new set of etiquette. These are sports played out-of-doors even as they exclude far more than they include.

The third category is advocacy. Long walks along the trail, taking the family fishing, horseback riding perhaps, these are obvious with proper precautions. What else is out there that really works well and merits advocacy for ball playing sports without boxing out, pushing and shoving, without passing the ball to one another, without close interacting with one another, without offense and defense and with sufficient distance between participants? Bankshot Sports. Before gradual, deliberate, return to conventional sports: Step one, phase one, must be sports played by participants at a distance.

Bankshot basketball in particular is played with a basketball or any ball in a game without opponents. The challenge is in the course itself, self-competitively played with or without any other participants. Think of minigolf with a basketball and participants proceeding from station to station that are 6 feet or more apart. The sport requires making difficult trick shots that become increasingly more challenging as one proceeds through the course of exceptionally attractive structures called Bankboards.

Hundreds of these Bankshot facilities have been provided by communities in neighborhood parks for all to enjoy while moving their bodies and acquiring the necessary skills as in every other sport. There are tens of thousands of Bankshot players throughout the country and abroad. There should be many more of these Bankshot facilities and other sports built upon the model of inclusion and diversity exemplified by self competitive “alongside” participation in sports.

Where are the innovative, creative designers and recreational architects upon whom we can call to bring about many sports and recreational facilities that are self competitively played, now that the virus is among us? Our playgrounds and play fields are extremely out of balance providing for the aggressive, highly competitive, body contact opponent-based team-oriented defeat-others sports. Our communities need many other diverse sports facilities and recreational opportunities for which we can and should advocate. There should be, like Bankshot, many others: self competitive, mainstreaming, inclusive and purposefully integrative such that all members of a community, not only the athletes and the jocks, can be accommodated safely.