New York, NY —
Most every weekend during the summer, hundreds of women gather to compete in a sport that you may have never heard of. It's called netball, and while it was invented in the U.S., it's been brought back to life in this country by immigrants, mostly from the West Indies . WNYC's Morning Edition team went to Lincoln Terrace Park in East New York recently to check it out.
MARKS: I love this. I love the sport and it's for women of all ages and sizes. You can use anybody because passing and catching -- the skill of passing and catching is very important to this game.
Karen Marks is the coach and founder of the Islanders Sports Club, one of dozens of netball teams in the city that compete each weekend, most often in Brooklyn. There's a new netball court at the Parade Grounds in Prospect Park, but Lincoln Terrace is the heart and soul of the netball scene. Vendors serve Caribbean food like mangoes and breadfruit. Kids play along the sidelines. And with two or three games going at once, fans, young and old, male and female, line the chain link fence.
PLAY BY PLAY: There's a toss-up. Simultaneous contact. Umpire tosses and Goal Defense gets the ball, passes to the Goal Attack, takes it back to Wing Defense and Wing Defense back to Wing Attack, and passes it to Goal Shooter and tips outside. Umpire makes a call: it's tip out by the Goal Attack.
REPORTER: The game looks a lot like basketball. The goals are two hoops set up on either end of the court. But in netball there's no dribbling. You can only get the ball down the court by passing. There are seven players to a side. They can't stray from certain areas of the court, and only two are allowed to shoot. Oh, and the hoops? They have no backboard.
JACK: That's hard. It is. It's very hard.
REPORTER: Keisha Jack of East Flatbush who plays with the team Flying Target says she likes netball because it requires a lot of focus and skill.
JACK: You're doing six things at the same time. In basketball you call it traveling; in netball you call it stepping. You have to be careful not to step. You have to watch to see who to pass the ball to properly.
REPORTER: netball is big and not just in Brooklyn. It's popular around the world, mostly in British Commonwealth countries. There are leagues scattered throughout the U.S., but coaches here say they have some of the strongest players in the country.
Coach Jackie Farrell is hoping to get some of her team members on the U.S. national team that will compete in the sport's World Youth Tournament in Florida next year.
FARRELL: I can safely say seven people from our group should get selected, because our playing is that high.
REPORTER: Islanders Coach Karen Marks.
MARKS: You have some Shaqs on here. You have some Kobe Bryants and whole lot of Muggsy Bogues. (laughs)
REPORTER: On the court, the competition can get intense, but once off the court the players often hang out together and enjoy each others' company. Ranish Davis, who plays with the Crusaders, knows many of her teammates from growing up in Jamaica .
DAVIS : We do other stuff besides netball. We have fashion shows, boat rides we have a lot of fun. We have picnics together. It's all good! (laughs)
REPORTER: Looking good is another part of netball. The players wear pleated skirts and matching tops that kind of look like old-fashioned tennis or field hockey outfits. And every year, there's a parade at which teams go head-to-head in a battle of the uniforms.
DAVIS : Basically, uniforms must be the same color in every unit: the shirt, the skirts, the style, the socks, the shoes, everything. And we do an extra thing with the hair style. So all our hair styles come the same on the day, because we want to have that extra edge.
REPORTER: As the sun set on a recent tournament in Lincoln Terrace Park, hundreds of people begin to set up lawn chairs on the blacktop to watch the evening's big game between the Upsetters and Flying Target. League organizers say both teams so far are undefeated.
Islanders Coach, Karen Marks:
MARKS: This is what I love about this game. And it could be intense, especially when you have competition like this and the girls get really -- just like basketball -- very competitive.
REPORTER: More big crowds are expected to turn out later this month for the 7th Annual Caribbean Cup competition. It's set for the courts at Lincoln Terrace Park in East New York on August 29th.
» www.netball.org
» nysol.com
» usanetball.com