May 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 24

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

PROFILE

No Contest
Rabbi Reeve Brenner's plea for
inclusive, non-competitive recreation
" You wonder what kind of culture we have, " Rabbi Reeve Brenner
muses as he gestures at the multi-sports playing field at Mattie Stepanek
Park in Rockville, Maryland. " You've got football, soccer. Okay, I'm not
against it; it's a good thing to have in society. But that doesn't hack it. It's
only 10 percent of the population at best, maybe even 5 percent where their
needs are being met. "
As a former college basketball player who
continued to play the game until he was well
into his 70s, Rabbi Brenner does not seem
like someone who would be inclined to find
fault with competitive sports. However, it was
basketball itself that prompted him to rethink
the nature of play.
" It was the very fact that basketball was
so aggressive and exclusionary, and how
they always play against each other and you
always have winners and losers, " he recalls.
" It was this that triggered me into thinking
that we could modify all our sports in a way
that we could have both aggression as an option and also non-aggressive sports-sports
where you play against each other but also
sports you could play alongside one other to
gain civility and companionability. Playmates,
not opponents. "
Major sports foster aggression and combat, he argues, which need to be balanced
against other alternatives that nurture inclusion and socialization. He describes sports
such as bowling, disc golf, archery, and his own
game of Bankshot as " play without contest, "
because players confront only the parameters
of the game and not each other directly.
Inspired by a cousin who uses a wheelchair, Brenner invented the Bankshot basketball game in 1981 while living in Israel. The
courts have since spread to more than 200
locations in the United States and 50 abroad,
including parks, schools, and summer camps.
Often compared to mini-golf, the game involves banking basketballs into baskets off a
variety of contorted backboards. Bankshot
can be played by people of a wide range of
ages, heights, and abilities; in fact, a lightly
thrown shot often will careen into the basket
more easily than one that is thrown too hard.

22 Parks & Recreation

MA Y 2 0 1 1

On this day, Brenner is
showing the Bankshot court at
Mattie Stepanek Park to Gila
Baruh, an educator from Istanbul who is considering whether
the game would be a good fit
for an elementary school.
" When I first saw Bankshot, I
was not sure what to expect, "
she says. " But after seeing different aged kids
playing alongside in a friendly environment
helping each other, I thought it is an amazing
opportunity for integration. In my native country, Turkey, children from a special population either stay home or socialize with other
peers from the same population. This game
creates an equal environment for both abled
and differently abled people while developing
positive interaction between them. "
Brenner says the game is a reflection of
his theology, which he describes as a total
mix based on universal design. " My religion
is a polydox religion, which allows all people
in the tent, " he says. As a retired Jewish
chaplain for the National Institutes of Health
in Bethesda, Maryland, he has written books
on the sociology of both religion and
recreation.
Brenner strongly believes that the parks
and recreation field is neglecting a large proportion of children-those who have outgrown the playground but are not able to join
organized sports, either due to their lack of
athleticism, disabilities, or inability to put in
the hours of practice required.
" You go from the playgrounds all the way
up to the play fields....where is the middle
ground? " he asks. " You go to a recreation
center and you don't see anything for them.
They're sitting on the sidelines. We don't

www.NRPA .ORG

Inspired by a cousin who
uses a wheelchair, Reeve Brenner
invented the Bankshot basketball
game in 1981 while living in Israel.

provide anything for them....The non-athlete
is not going to stick around long at that because you've got to play against somebody.
Always against somebody and never alongside together in friendship. "
He also notes that athletic leagues are
broken out into different age groups, and often into boys and girls teams, so there is no
opportunity for mixed groups to play sports.
He becomes incensed when describing
sports that he says promote exclusion while
promising inclusion. It's hard to ignore the
added weight these statements have when
made at a place like Mattie Stepanek Park,
named in honor of a severely disabled boy
made famous by his message of peace. A
statue of him in his wheelchair forms the centerpiece of a memorial garden on the opposite side of the park from the Bankshot court.
" There is no balance; it is all skewed toward the very young or the very athletic later.
That's what we have now, " Brenner says.
" Let's turn the ship a little bit around so we
don't have all that aggression and lack of civility and beating each other....Someone
goes home always having lost. " 
-Interview by Elizabeth Beard

May 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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