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Total Mix Bankshot Basketball Debuts in Salisbury!

Every community is looking to tone down aggression, especially on the playing fields. Salisbury Parks and Recreation Department has introduced a cool, new basketball sport that does just that - a whole new ballgame! Described as "Total-Mix" sports, Bankshot Basketball leaves no one on the sidelines. This non-aggressive ball game requires no running or jumping; speed strength and stamina are not factors. But don't be fooled, Bankshot is also a challenging sport with regulation rims but "boards" like you've never seen before with twists and turns, angles and shapes. Players must practice to develop a good shooting touch and focused concentration.

Bankshot's "all-can-play" game-plan is as contagious as basketball fever. Its goal is to build and bridge communities, not necessarily to defeat an opponent. What better way for a recreation department to score its goal of total inclusion than by having boys and girls, seniors, and athletes of all abilities together on a Bankshot Basketball court? By including people of all backgrounds, cultures and physical abilities, Bankshot maximizes companionship and eliminates violence. Because you play against the court and yourself, not other players, you hear a lot of support and encouragement. Brute force is replaced by cooperation.

The game's inventor, Dr. Reeve Robert Brenner, designed the game in 1978, so that he could play alongside his cousin Janis, an accomplished wheelchair athlete. Dr. Brenner was especially determined to design a sport which they could play together that did not put either one of them at an advantage. Due to its inclusive design, Bankshot is a "win-win" sport.

So how is the game played? Bankshot participants must navigate a course similar to miniature golf; however, the variations are offered in the uniquely configured "Bankboards." Scorecard in hand, players track their scores as they proceed through a course of angled, curved and unconventionally configured brightly colored Bankboards, shooting increasingly difficult bankshots through the rims. The number of stations played depends upon the size of the court. Some stations demand ricochets and caroms off two Bankboards and one diabolically maddening shot requires deflections off three Bankboards and through two rims. In this derivation of basketball, there are no swishes or slam dunks allowed.

The Salisbury Parks and Recreation Department introduced Bankshot to Cannon Park in early fall after learning of the game's community-enhancing successes from a growing number of Bankshot courts springing up in the United States and abroad.

Recreation Program Manage, Kenny Roberts, a new Bankshot fan, believes the game lends itself to everyone being involved and interacting. The department foresees Bankshot as a growing and on-going opportunity for creating and building community, based on inter-age and inter-ability friendships developed in the exercise of Total-Mix recreation. Other sports separate or exclude segments of the community while Bankshot reaches out to everyone because it is a non-aggressive game. "We now have to communicate that message on the court and in the community. It's a worthy project," states Roberts.

Like all sports it takes awhile to learn and become skillful, and as other sports do, Bankshot begins with teaching. Some of the players are aggressive. It takes time to teach non-aggression. It doesn't come naturally. You have to teach patience and practice skills which also do not come easily or quickly. But what you do get at once on the court is a large diversity of players who otherwise would never get out on any sport court. Now they're playing Bankshot, a really neat new sport and they are playing side by side.

As Kenny Roberts says, "Anyone and everyone can play Bankshot. That's its best strength. Everyone gets on the court playing as equals regardless of size, shape or stamina." Before Bankshot, communities were limited in their inclusion of special populations and the non-athletes of the neighborhood. Not so anymore. Salisbury how has a sport with a social mission. The new game in the city is not only totally inclusive, it is also totally fun and challenging for all!

-North Carolina Recreation and Park Review, Spring 2002

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