SPORT REPORT : Thai Kicks

Kurt Sonderegger was a business student in Switzerland studying banking principles in 1987 when he saw his first sepak takraw match. “I was walking through a park in Zurich and I saw this guy doing trick kicks, working the buka really well,” he says. “I was totally intrigued. Takraw changed my life.”

He learned the rudiments of the game in Switzerland, and in 1988, instead of taking his degree to Wall Street, Sonderegger flew to Thailand to master the 500-year-old game. Sepak takraw, from the Malaysian word for kick and the Thai word for woven ball , is played on a 20-by-44-foot court by three-player teams, who thrust a grapefruit-sized wicker ball--the buka-- over a 5-foot-high net using any part of the body but the arms and hands. Points are scored when the buka hits the ground or goes out of bounds (only the serving team can score); the first team to get 15 points wins. “Sure beat the hell out of finance classes,” he says.

After a couple of weeks in Thailand, Sonderegger had a dream. “My goal was to put together the first U. S. team to compete in the world championships. So I went home to Rhode Island, loaded up the van and headed West.” Drawing on the L. A-area Thai community, Sonderegger, 26, formed a U. S. league in 1989 and has been competing and coaching ever since. At the world championships last year, he coached the Ventura Radicals to a silver medal in the new-country division, which includes Australia, China, Finland, India, Japan, Korea and Sri Lanka.

“ Takraw is catching on. Skateboarders, surfers and soccer players are learning to play,” he says. Teams have sprung up all over the West; last summer the Radicals beat 11 of them, winning the right to compete in the world championships in December. “Now,” Sonderegger says, “all I have to do is learn to speak Thai.”