LIFE

Dorothy wins! Gender revolution at linear bocce tourney

 

Jen Norris, relaxing before the tournament. She was runner-up in Saturday's historic event.

After three years of male domination, linear bocce at last has a female champion.

The historic development unfolded Saturday at the sport's North American Championships, held in Indianapolis.

Forty-one-year-old right-hander Dorothy Henckel bested a field of 74 players, including two past champions, to claim the title and become the sport's first female champion.

Women actually finished one-two, with Jen Norris taking runner-up honors.

Many sports separate the genders, but linear bocce throws all human beings in together. It is a fairly new sport, invented in 2014 by IndyStar reporter Will Higgins, but is catching on fast. While traditional bocce is played on manicured courts roughly 60 feet long, linear bocce is played in rutted, uneven back alleys that go for miles. Traditional bocce is played back and forth, like horseshoes, but linear bocce is played in one direction.

At the North Americans Saturday, play began in the alley between Park Avenue and Broadway Street at 42nd Street and headed north, finishing in the 4900 block.

Party atmosphere: Despite the high tension of the competition, linear bocce tournaments typically are pretty relaxed events.

"I feel like I started out not so good," said Henckel, a medical device industry consultant from Indianapolis, "but after the third roll I sort of 'got it' and I pulled ahead and annihilated."

Henckel was a three-sport athlete at Lanesville High School in southern Indiana. But it was a small school, she noted, and nobody got cut. She had never before played linear bocce, and hadn't played any bocce for 10 years, her lack of experience a reminder of the role luck plays in this fickle, heartbreaking sport.

Numerous unfair bounces caused by the alley's hard-to-read surface are thought to be the reason so many players drink openly during competition.

Sasha Williams, a former high school basketball star from Kentucky, shows proper focus at the 2017 North Americans.

"Being the first female champion in this male dominated sport is an unbelievable thrill," Henckel said after receiving her trophy, a handcrafted museum-quality piece made by alley bocce pioneer Jeff Ayers. "I heard someone call me 'the Billie Jean King of linear bocce.'"

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Each year the money raised by the tournament is given to a local charity. Past recipients have been Indy Reads and the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. This year, players were asked to nominate a charity and then cast votes.

The winner with 25 votes, nominated by 2015 North American champion Antone Najem, was St. Mary's Child Center, a nonprofit that offers full day and half day early learning programs for preschool children.

That group will receive a check for $1,300.

Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.