It's the quintessential Italian sport, now played worldwide, attracting people of all ages and rivaling soccer in its popularity. Bocce, a form of competitive lawn bowling, has emerged from your grandfather's bocce court as a serious contender for the Olympic Games, falling just short of the requisite 16 countries. And it's become more common to see women participating and competing at elite levels. Just ask Mill Valley, California, resident Teresa Rea, who, along with her teammate Jolene Kramer, won the 2019 U.S. National Bocce Championship Women's Doubles Gold Medal.
Teresa, who is represented by the Marin Bocce Federation, sat down with me to discuss bocce basics.
How did you get started with bocce ball?
In 1999, someone suggested that I join their league team. I'd never played, and I played 20 years of volleyball. So, they knew I had hand-eye coordination, which is probably the one requirement for this sport. And so I've been playing in leagues at Marin Bocce Federation ever since. But in 2004, I discovered there were regional leagues and regional tournaments. Sometimes, it's four-player: four men, four women, two men, two women… There are three-player tournaments, there are two-player tournaments, and there are singles tournaments. They're all around what's called the Western Sector of the United States Bocce Federation. That is the nationwide organization that represents us with Canada, with Europe, with South America.
In 2004, I began playing in those tournaments and upped my game. About two or three years later, I began playing Punto Raffa Volo, the principal Italian game.
What exactly is Punto Raffa Volo?
Punto means pointing. You're bending over and lagging the ball. Raffa is a running shot where you approach a fixed line, must then throw your ball, and clear a line about 12 feet out. And then, having called your target shot, you're aiming for a specific ball down the court. Volo is similar, but you run to a different line, and you have to hit your designated target ball on the fly.
And there's a high degree of precision in it that does not exist in the open play that many Americans play. You can't bump another ball more than 40 centimeters in our game. If you do, there are a lot of rules. Balls are all marked, and things can be put back and removed from the court if you don't hit your target. So, I've been playing that ever since.
I had the opportunity to represent the United States and play in the United States Bocce Federation Nationals, which occur the last week of every June, sometimes in California, typically Chicago, St. Louis, or Boston. That attracts players from around the country to play several different formats. And then, in 2019, probably the best moment was when my teammate Jolene Kramer and I won the gold medal in the women's doubles.
What are the basic rules of bocce?
The object of the game after you've thrown the small ball, or pallino, out onto the court past the center line is to get at least one or more of your balls closer to the pallino than the opponent. And you take turns trying to do so. You may either be trying to get closer or bump them out and leave yourself there to be closer. And if you get one of your balls, only one of your balls closer than any of theirs, you get one point, two, three… If all four of your balls are closer, you get what's called a casino.
That's a simple open game. The object of Punta Raffa Volo is still the same. You want to have more of your balls closer to the pallino than the other team. Only the team with the close balls gets points in a given frame.
What's another popular style of bocce?
There is another game called Volo that's part of this collection, and you play with metal balls, and there's lagging. It's about 50% lagging and 50% shooting. And that's mostly men, I would say. Yeah, it's 90% men because it's all about throwing the ball the entire distance of the court.
What's the history of bocce?
Well, I mean, we all suspect that it started with a couple of cavemen saying, "I can throw this rock closer to that rock than you can." It's evolved in each country because bocce is the Italian version of boules lawn bowling. Boules and pétanque are French, and lawn bowling is English.
It evolved predominantly in the countryside on crushed oyster shells or dirt courts, which leads to a somewhat lumpy terrain that's played on. But it has evolved to the point where most of the Italian clubs are indoors, and it's a synthetic rubber surface that is mostly flat. I've only met one pair of courts that was literally perfect. Everything else has its little idiosyncrasies because the earth under it moved, or the building shifted, or whatever.
What is it like to be a woman playing this stereotypically male game?
Well, amongst the players, the presumption is that the women will only do the lagging [the typical rolling style]. They'll not do the shooting [aiming to displace another ball on the court]. That has eased over the decades that I've been playing so that there's every reason to believe a woman's as likely to be a shooter as a man.
Young boys tend to gravitate to the sport because of the chance to shoot. So very often, you'll see if it's a mixed doubles foursome, the woman will be doing the first two balls and lagging for position, and the man will be doing the latter half. When they created the categories for women to play doubles together, many more women learned how to shoot. And now, probably 60% of the men shoot, but at least 40% of the women do.
Have you been to Italy?
Oh, yes. Twice. My best friend from high school married a Fiorentino, and the three of us and their two kids went roaming through Tuscany. Multiple times, we saw men out playing bocce on their dirt courts. Once, in Cinque Terra, I also saw a bocce court right near the beach.
Do you have a favorite Italian dish?
Probably eggplant parmigiana.
What do you do when you're not playing bocce?
I'm retired now, but I was a land-use planner for 30 years.
So, what's next for you?
There are still tournaments, and I'll probably participate in a fundraiser in October. The beauty of fundraisers is that you can have players of all levels who care to join and play, and you're making money for a nonprofit that needs support.
>>Looking to join a bocce club? Here are some tips.<<
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