Netball comes to Glendale

SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — The sounds filling the air in the Glendale YMCA gymnasium Saturday morning were familiar enough — the squeaking of sneakers running up and down the hardwood and the intermitent shrill chirp of a referee’s whistle.

The sights of the Inaugural G’ Day Netball Tournament, however, would likely be foreign to most American sports enthusiasts, a fact that the event’s organizers and participants hope to soon change.

Netball, invented in the United States in 1895 as an offshoot of basketball intended for women, has flourished in other parts of the world, particularly Commonwealth and Carribean nations.

As its popularity has grown in other cultures, modern netball has languished in relative obscurity in the country of its inception.

“All of us — from Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa — we’re all born with netball,” said South African-born Sharon Fluxman, a player for the San Diego United netball club. “From the minute that your mom is pregnant, and it’s a girl, you’re going to play netball.

“I guess its like football [in America], or baseball.”

The object of the sport is essentially the same as basketball, in that each seven-player team attempts to score points by passing a ball through a hoop on either end of the court.

There are quite a bit of variations from basketball, though.

Dribbling or running with the ball is prohibited, making netball a game of quick passing and moving without the ball.

Shots are attempted on a freestanding hoop with no backboard by designated players within a semicircle area extending outward from the baseline.

Defenders must retain a space of three feet between themselves and a ballhandler at all times.

Saturday’s exhibition was organized by the Santa Monica-based Los Angeles Waves Netball Club, founded in 2002, as a satellite event of the G’ Day LA Australia Week Festival which runs through Jan. 20.

Five teams participated in the 10-match showcase, intended to raise the profile of the sport in Southern California.

“One of the things we want to do is get Americans to start playing [netball], because until Americans start playing, it’s never going to expand,” said Waves player and Vice President Christina Campbell, originally from New Zealand. “We’re also looking to try to teach netball in local elementary schools.

“It’s a great game for little kids, boys and girls, to play because it’s non-contact.”

The burgeoning presence of organized netball in California can be credited largely to Fluxman. She founded the California Netball Association in 1998, three years after emigrating to the United States, and continues to serve as its president.

Clubs have sprouted up in Thousand Oaks, San Diego and San Francisco and provide a welcome sense of community for immigrants from netball strong countries.

While the rosters of the local club teams are stocked primarily with expatriates of such nations, the Waves and the Thousand Oaks-based Comets club each feature several American-born players.

“I was at a park playing basketball when some girls practicing netball next to the court pulled me in, and I’ve been playing ever since,” said the Comets’ Jessica Mort, a Thousand Oaks native and the first American-born player to join the team. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a competitive sport. It’s very unfortunate that its unpublicized and no one’s ever heard of it in the U.S.”

Added teammate Angie Dean, a former soccer player from Thousand Oaks: “This is a sport that can be easily adopted by American women of all body types and all strengths [because] it’s a team sport in nature.”

There are signs that interest in the sport is on an upswing.

The Waves, who are preparing to move to a new custom-designed facility in Carson this spring, will compete in the newly formed West Coast Super League.

The league, which begins play in March, will include all existing California club teams as well as club teams from Nashville, Las Vegas and Seattle.

Netball was featured as a showcase sport in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, an important step toward inclusion in the most high profile stage of international athletic competition.