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Ryan Landry and Laurie Roles are gearing up for a kickball fundraiser to benefit the community center. |
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Kickin’ up some community good-will
By Patricia Farrell
Banner Correspondent
PROVINCETOWN — For all its terminal uniqueness, there is one national trend that Provincetown appears to be following as opposed to either ignoring or setting.
In case you haven’t heard, kickball — the playground game of yore — is back, big time. Adult leagues are springing up across the country. And, as it turns out, all summer long there has been a vibrant and extremely well-attended game going on Tuesday evenings at 5 p.m. at Motta Field.
This upcoming Tuesday, Aug. 8, all this momentum will be put to a good cause, as event organizer Laurie Roles has arranged for that day’s game to be a fundraiser, currently being billed as “Drag Kickball: A Benefit for the Provincetown Community Center.”
Drag queens Miss Richfield 1981 and Cashetta are set to host the event and will be joined by several other local luminaries, including Kate Clinton in the perhaps not inappropriate role of referee. Tickets are $8 ahead of time (at the Nuthouse and Twisted Sister, both on Commercial Street in Provincetown), and $10 at the gate. The gate opens at 3:30 p.m., and kick off is at 4 p.m.
The game itself is the same as it ever was: a large rubber ball gets rolled toward home plate, a player kicks it and a lot of fun ensues.
As a recreational and social activity, kickball is being credited with breaking down all manner of barriers, including race, class, education and age. In Little Rock, Ark., for example, it is estimated that as many as 1,000 people are currently participating in summer leagues. For a city with a population of 185,000, that’s an extraordinary rate of participation.
Similarly, for its own weekly game, tiny Provincetown is drawing upwards of 30 players. And, as with many Provincetown events, the added audience participation is integral to the experience too.
In communities around the country kickball is being likened to the “town hearth” or the “community water cooler” — a place for people who might ordinarily stick to their own groups or cliques to participate together in something genuinely light-hearted and fun.
And as such it would seem the perfect fit for Provincetown.
Roles said the idea to start the weekly game came to her through her work as a full-time personal trainer. “I’m always looking for ways to make exercise more fun. If it doesn’t have that component at least part of the time, people tend to give up on it. Add to that the experience so many of us had when we were younger in organized phys. ed. classes and it just seemed to be the perfect way for a lot of people around town to get out and have some fun.”
As for choosing to do a benefit for the community center, Roles said the inspiration came from a deep belief that the earlier healthy habits become a part of people’s lives, the better those lives are bound to go. To that end, Roles has also recently started the increasingly popular Outdoor Fitness, a kind of playground circuit training that she describes as a seriously fun workout.
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PHS Sports
Nauset Sports |
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Aug 3rd, 2006