Old Bridge High School teacher Richard Torok uncovered a box with tchoukball sporting equipment, and has since begun a Sunday league at the school that anyone is welcome to join. OLD BRIDGE — As Richard Torok was sorting through a gymnasium closet at Old Bridge High School (OBHS) one day, he chanced upon a mysterious, dust-covered box.
It was labeled “Tchoukball” — a foreign word even to a sports and fitness aficionado like Torok.
“I found [that] it had been sitting there for a while, so I said, ‘I gotta look this up,’ ” the physical education teacher said. “I pulled it up on YouTube and I said, ‘Hey, this is pretty wild-looking.’ ”
Tchoukball is known as the fastest European handball sport in the world — and after one watches the game in action, it’s easy to see why.
Teams of seven vie against each other to score points by hurling a roughly kickballsized ball at a small, trampoline-like fixture that is angled towards the ceiling at about 45 degrees. A team scores when the ball ricochets off the angled fixture and hits the floor. If an opponent intercepts the ball before it hits the floor, no point is scored and possession is relinquished to the opposing team, which attempts the same feat.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF RICHARD TOROK Possession changes hands so often and players and balls fly through the air so quickly that, at first, tchoukball looks more like a fusion of gymnastics and juggling than any common ball sport. But once the eye recognizes the pattern of the game, it’s easy to see why the foreign sport is starting to catch on in the U.S.
Tchoukball became an immediate hit with many OBHS students after Torok dusted off the box and gave the sport a try. It has since achieved a cult following of high school students, recent graduates and a handful of Torok’s friends who get together to play the sport on Sundays outside of OBHS.
While attempting to learn more about the sport, Torok came in contact with an entrepreneur from Switzerland — the sport’s home country — who had moved to the United States to promote tchoukball.
“I asked him if there were any other teams around. He told me that 2,000 schools in the U.S. had purchased tchoukball sets, but nobody really played it outside of school besides one team in Massachusetts,” Torok said.
Torok’s Sunday team scheduled a match with the team from Massachusetts. The so-called USA Tchoukball National Championship took place on neutral ground in Connecticut last week.
The New Jersey team became the first U.S. national champions after edging Massachusetts, 69-62.
Anyone interested in participating in the Sunday tchoukball league at OBHS can email Rich Torok at [email protected], or search Tchoukball NJ on Facebook.
Contact Thomas Castles at [email protected].