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SPORTS
Players ready to take street sport to the masses
RASCball inventor Mike Crosky, right, defends against Kevin Hine in the first period of a RASCball game at the roller hockey court on the Ohio State campus Sunday, July 13, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Columbus Dispatch, Neal C. Lauron)
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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- With his teammates and opponents clustered at the opposite end of the blacktop, Rich Baughman caught an unexpected breakaway.
He charged ahead, gripping a cantaloupe-sized soccer ball, for what seemed an easy score.
But he had no time to strategize.
Goalkeeper David Dunlevy barreled unexpectedly toward Baughman, slamming a husky, padded shoulder into a bare torso with an audible thwack!
"I was like 'He's not going to hit me,' " said Baughman, 23. "Then, all of a sudden, I'm on my back."
The tumble didn't deter play: There's no crying in RASCball.
The high-intensity game, invented in 2001 by West Side native Mike Crosky and his high-school buddies, isn't for the faint of heart.
Yet its agile players attest that RASCball involves much more than body-checking -- which the rules allow, as long as it "pertains to the strategic flow of play."
The game resembles three sports in one: football without the frequent stops, soccer without the feet (although players are permitted to score by kicking the ball) and basketball without the limited-contact defense.
"It gives people a comfort zone while branching out to different sports," said 24-year-old Ian Gruber, a longtime soccer player.
"There's really no one type of athlete for RASCball."
For the original ragtag group of six longtime friends, the past seven years have brought change and growth.
"Before, it was just a game and nobody cared," said Crosky, 24. "Now, people walk by and say, 'What is that?' "
Having developed a roster of three dozen players, a 35-page rule book and a marketing plan designed to attract investors and corporate sponsors, Crosky wants to further RASCball.
He plans to reach out this summer to the SportsOhio complex and the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department to gauge interest in men's league play.
Eventually, he would like to see youth and women's teams, too.
Parks Department spokeswoman Terri Leist hadn't heard of RASCball.
A formal process to create a league doesn't exist, she said.
Still, she didn't rule out the possibility.
"If we get a lot of calls and interest, we'll do what we can to accommodate it," said Leist, noting that another off-the-radar sport -- cricket -- was added to recreational offerings six years ago and has since grown substantially.
RASCball, played on a roller-hockey court, begins with a miniature soccer ball (size 1) thrown from the sidelines into the center of the court, where all players huddle in a "jumpoff" (like a rugby scrum).
During two 35-minute halves, two teams of five players each (plus a goalie, called a netminder) try to pass the ball down the court in hopes of scoring -- achieved by throwing it, kicking it or bouncing it with the head.
Players, who police themselves for fouls, are almost constantly in motion. Protective padding is optional for all except the goalies.
As in hockey and lacrosse, players can travel behind the net and score by reaching over or around the net.
RASCball is often compared with the Olympic sport of team handball, but the games have notable differences.
The newer pursuit, for example, allows players to kick a goal, possess the ball for more than three seconds and smack the ball from an opponent's grasp.
The scoring differs, too: In RASCball, a throw generates one point; a kick, two; and a headed ball, three. An additional point is tallied for each score made from beyond a dotted "bonus line" (45 feet from each goal).
"They're much more different than they are the same," said Crosky, who devised the RASCball rules.
The original six players, in fact, hadn't heard of team handball when they started meeting.
Once called simply "the Game," RASCball (for Revolution in Athletic Street Competition) began as a way to kill time at Westgate Park -- known for pickup basketball and street-hockey games.
Typical neighborhood setbacks provided the catalyst: When they lost a hockey puck, the guys would use a tennis ball; when some didn't have their in-line skates, they'd use their feet.
One day, bored, they ditched the sticks and wheels, tossing a ball with hockeylike rules instead.
"We were broke kids," said 23-year-old Tim Beem, adding that the adopted guidelines quickly caught on.
"A couple of weeks later, we completely stopped playing hockey -- and it just kind of snowballed.
"It was the weirdest thing."
As the rules were refined, an official name was christened.
The players moved in 2003 from Westgate to the street-hockey court on W. 11th Avenue, at the south end of Ohio State University.
Anywhere from 12 to 20 practice on Thursday nights and face off on Sunday evenings.
Players used duct tape to line the court until about three years ago, when Crosky found the game markings painted there.
He doesn't know who did it, he said, but takes the gesture as an encouraging sign.
Crosky touts the game on a Web site (www.rascball.com) and recruits players by word of mouth, with posters on college campuses and through Facebook and MySpace.
Beem, meanwhile, has been reached online by young men in Circleville, Lancaster and Dayton who want to start satellite teams.
Although the players dream of one day taking RASCball to the masses, Crosky said, the humble, do-it-yourself origins remain a big part of its appeal.
"It's definitely competitive -- but loose enough where we have a good time," he said.
"There's a camaraderie that comes with it."
