Angleball

American Angleball Championship 2015

Angleball is an American indoor and field sport that was developed during World War 2 at Brown University by collegiate Hall of Fame football and basketball coach Charles "Rip" Engle (March 26, 1906 March 7, 1983), as a way to keep service men and women, students and athletes fit.[1] Engle served as the head football coach at Brown University from 1944 to 1949 and at Pennsylvania State University from 1950 to 1966. Engle was also the head basketball coach at Brown from 1942 to 1946. Angleball can be played with varying levels of contact: no-contact, touch-contact, and full-contact; this is similar to flag, touch and tackle football.[2] Currently, angleball is played for conditioning in the NFL and by groups across United States and in Canada, Africa, India and Asia. Because of the sport's military heritage, angleball also inspired a game-type in the world's best selling video game, Call of Duty, called Uplink[3]. Angleball is inspired by North America's first sport, the Native American sport of anejodi.[4] Competition angleball rules and regulations are governed by American Angleball which also manufactures and distributes the equipment in the United States[5]. International Angleball is in infancy and can be contacted through American Angleball for membership inquires and general questions - current members include English Angleball, Indian Angleball, Ugandan Angleball, Canadian Angleball, South Korean Angleball, Basque Country Angleball and Burman Angleball[6]. Angleball is played by 500,000 people in the United States as estimated by the group sizes of verifiable American Angleball set users.

Gameplay

Two large target-balls are placed on standards at opposite sides of a field; the height of these standards has varied at a group level since angleball's inception in 1942 from as short as a foot - the ball literally sitting on a field cone - to as tall as 12 feet [7]; American Angleball has set the competition standard at 9 feet which is consistent with Charles "Rip" Engle's instructions [8] as well as having game-play significance with regard to the average athlete's height to prevent giving too much advantage to players with attributes that were not earned through exercise or practice. The objective of angleball is to knock down the opposing team's target-ball using the angleball. The angleball can be run or passed. A goal is worth one point. The means of stopping the offense depends on the level of contact that the group has decided on: in non-contact angleball, the ball-carrier is only allowed 3 steps with the ball; in touch angleball the ball-carrier must pass within 3 seconds of being tagged; in full-contact angleball it is a turnover if the ball-carrier is taken down. Take-downs in full-contact angleball are distinct from a traditional rugby or football tackle, and must be made using primarily the hands, secondarily arms, and tertiary the body; this nearly eliminates safety risks while requiring even more strength and skill than a traditional tackle. Fouls in competition angleball result in an automatic point for the opposition eliminating the strategy of fouling seen in other sports. It is also often played that a pass cannot touch the ground, and that a circle key surrounds each standard that the offense cannot step inside; club variations are welcome within the angleball community. Complete competition rules can be found on the American Angleball website . Angleball can be played with as few as 1 v 1 all the way up to 100 v 100 with a standard at both ends of a park or camp - it has been done [9] - however for satisfying game-play comprising the complete pass, run and shooting game it is suggested by American Angleball to play at least 3 v 3.

The American Angleball Championship is the premiere cash prize angleball competition. It is full contact. In 2017 it will be mixed gender, requiring 2 male and 2 female fielded players at all times; contact can only be made with the same gender - arguably the first full-contact, mixed gender athletic competition in history [10].

History Notes

The first high school angleball game played was in the late 1960s at Pioneer Ranch in Tidioute, Pennsylvania, when the Corry High School Beavers football team hosted the Titusville Rockets team. Corry's athletic director and head football coach, Lou Hanna, and Titusville's athletic director, Roy Van Horn, had been teammates on the 1939 Slippery Rock State Teachers College undefeated championship football team.[11] The game was won by Corry.

Van Horn was the owner of Pioneer Ranch, a boys camp on the Allegheny River near Tidioute, Pennsylvania. With Hanna, he founded the Northwestern Pennsylvania Football Camp at Pioneer Ranch in 1961, the nation's first summertime football camp for high school gridders, and hired Penn State's coaches to staff it.[12] It was here a relationship with Rip Engle was formed, and they were first introduced to angleball.

In the mid-1990s the game was also introduced to students at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana by Philosophy Professor, Dr. James Spiegel. On October 4, 2009 Angleball was introduced to a group of about 20 people in Tucson, Arizona. It remains a favorite in Gym classes at Bellefonte Area High School in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, Penns Valley Area High School in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Park Forest and Mount Nittany Middle Schools in State College, Pennsylvania. Angleball sets are manufactured by the American Angleball company and are being used in the NFL and by Colleges, camps, schools, and all age groups throughout the United States and Canada. In 2011 at the 100th year celebration of the Dept. of Kinesiology at Penn State, an American Angleball set was featured in "The Ball Games of the World Exhibit" presented by Dr. Ken Swalgin, Associate Professor of Kinesiology. The exhibit includes over 80 balls, equipment, and posters depicting ball sports from around the world. Ball sports are categorized as follows: handball games, bowls and bowling, ball and bat games, racket and paddle games, football games, ball and raised goal games, invasion goal games, and other ball games.(Swalgin, K.L. 2011).

In 2012, an American Angleball set was adopted by the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles for preseason conditioning.

In September 2013, American Angleball sponsored the first angleball match in Africa (Masaka, Uganda) with the help of Sporting Is The Answer.

References

  1. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19660525&id=8wYrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SZgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6627,5645232
  2. Vickey, Ted (2008). 101 Fitness Games for Kids at Camp. Coaches Choice Books. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-58518-070-7.
  3. "Uplink (Game Mode)". Call of Duty Wiki. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  4. http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Culture/General/Stickball%28anejodi%29.aspx
  5. http://www.angleball.net
  6. "American Angleball". American Angleball. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  7. "Lebanon Daily News from Lebanon, Pennsylvania on August 9, 1966 · Page 12". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  8. "The Pocono Record from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on May 25, 1966 · Page 15". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  9. "Lake Ann Camp on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  10. "American Angleball". American Angleball. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  11. , Roy Van Horn, Slippery Rock Hall of Fame.
  12. Dohrmann, George (2001-06-25). "Sweat Shopping: Though rife with NCAA violations, college-run football camps have become bull markets for recruiters". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 2008-03-20.

External links

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