Bocce:  Moving at its own pace

Promoter Rico Daniele is not only trying to encourage families to play the sport, he wants to bring it into the schools.

By Ron Chimelis
Staff Writer
August 18, 1997

SPRINGFIELD - The scoreboards at Forest Park's two bocce courts are designed like clocks, with arrows pointing to a team's current score in a game that takes 12 points to win.

There's irony in that design because the sport itself, admittedly unknown to large segments of America, remains timeless - and ageless.  That was evident during yesterday's Universal Bocce Bowl, in which Ludlow's Portugal Montalegre team won two of three games against Springfield's Elks Neptune Club.

"It seems easy, but it's a little difficult to play it well," said Elks Neptune coach, Rico Daniele, bocce's most tireless promoter.  "But it's perfect for families because you can play it at any age.  We need to get familes back together, and this is one way."

It's easy to have misconceptions about bocce unless you're personally involved with it, and even bocce's biggest fans know that most American's aren't.  The biggest fallacy may be that it's more parlor game than sport, which underrates the skill involved with playing it well.

"There's also a lot of strategy," said Portugal Montalegre's Gary Evangelista, 43, who took up bocce three years ago.  "It's just a great pastime."

Another misconception is that it's played solely by Italian-Americans, who make up a healthy segment of bocce's local population but far from all of it.

"It's for everybody," said Daniele, 46, who chose Portugal Montalegre as one Bocce Bowl team partly to recognize the Portuguese involvement in bocce.

"It brings families together, and it brings cultures together,' he continued.  "The Thompsonville Conn., team is mostly Irish.  They play bocce in Germany, Japan, China.  They play it in Monaco."

They play it in the United States, too, through it's a well-kept secret.  Non-players sometimes call it "bocce ball," which is no more correct than saying Tiger Woods plays "golf ball."

"The Portuguese and Italians play it, and I'm sure the Greeks have their own variation," said Elks Neptune player Joe Federici, 65, who has played for six years.  "But the best part is that it's for both young and old.  And they say that the family which plays together, stays together."

For a sport whose origins can be traced to 5200 B.C., bocce has some modern traits.  It has its own Web site.  The Bocce Bowl was covered by local cable television.  And most significantly, yesterday's event drew plenty of children, some playing on a miniature, board game-sized bocce court while the Bocce Bowl went on nearby.

I just learned today," said David Estabrook, 11, of Holy Name School.  "It's a little harder than it looks, but I like it a lot."

"Younger players want to get involved," Evangelista said.  Maybe it used to be all older people, but not anymore.

Through the game has many nuances, the fundamental rules are easily understood.  Players roll bocce balls down clay and brick dust alleys that are 76 feet long and 10 feet wide.  The goal is to score points by positioning shots closest to a neutral, much smaller ball known as the "pallino."

Yesterday's Bocce Bowl was attended by John A. Piccoli, Jr., whose involvement dates to the origin of the Western Massachusetts Italian-American Bocce League in the 1930s.  Daniele alternatively played, supervised and broadcast, relishing it all.

"I'm like a kid with this he said.  His dreams include rights for the Forest Park courts, now in their first year and nicknamed Pluto and Mars. But his real goal is to convince more people that bocce is not an alien, out of this world sport, but one for all ages and all cultures.

Daniele is now campaigning to bring bocce into the schools.  But he said it took him nine years to get the courts built at Forest Park, where bocce lessons are given every Friday night.

He knows these things take time.  But he's not giving up because Daniele believes bocce, after all, is a sport for all time.

"A 60-year-old man can't keep up with his children in a sport like soccer, for instance, " Daniele said.  "But he can play bocce with his whole family.  I really think we need more activities like that."

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