by Cicero A. Estrella
(Reprinted from “The San Francisco Chronicle,” October 4, 2002.)
(Editor’s Note: Jessie Lorenz is an ACB member and president of Blind Students of California. She does a tremendous amount of advocacy work in the San Francisco Bay area.)
Jessie Lorenz listens and waits.
She is in search of rolling bells and the rapid squeal of rubber against hardwood. At the last second, she lunges sideways toward the noises — shoulder first, diving to the ground, arms extended, stretching her 5-foot, 7-inch frame to its limit across the floor.
Lorenz, a blind athlete from the Sunset District, becomes a human blockade to stop a ball that can travel up to 30 mph.
This was how Lorenz spent the second half of two weeks in Rio de Janeiro. Again and again, she would dive to the floor in search of a hollow, basketball-size sphere that contains nine bells. She stopped them often enough to help the U.S. women’s team win gold at this year’s International Blind Sports Association World Goalball Championships held Aug. 30 to Sept. 8.
“People were surprised we pulled it off. We were surprised we pulled it off,” said Lorenz, 23, of her team’s championship victory over rival Canada.
Lorenz was a huge factor in the U.S. women winning their first world title in a sport designed for the blind and visually impaired. Participating in only her second international competition, Lorenz quickly ascended from second-stringer to starting center. With Lorenz as a reserve, the team struggled defensively and finished round-robin play with a 4-1 record, including a 4-3 loss to Canada. Coach Ken Armbruster promoted Lorenz to a starter for the elimination rounds.
She played alongside offensive-minded wings Jennie Armbruster (the coach’s daughter) and Lisa Banta. The United States eliminated Spain and Germany, before decisively defeating Canada 6-2 for the gold.
“Our defense was not sharp [during round-robin],” said Ken Armbruster. “The center is supposed to dominate defensive play, but my wings ended up doing much of the blocking. We stuck Jessie in, and we didn’t give up much after that.”
Lorenz, who was born blind, found that she had an instinct for the game after finding out about it in a Michigan sports camp for blind children about 10 years ago. “Basically, my position is the goalie. There’s a lot of listening and tracking, which comes naturally,” Lorenz said. “I have to listen [in my daily life] for traffic sounds, a lot of other environmental clues. Goalball is just an extension of my tracking abilities.”
Goalball was invented in Germany in 1946 as part of the rehabilitation of blinded World War II veterans. It was introduced to the rest of the world 30 years later at the Paralympics Games in Toronto.
The game is played on an area the size of a volleyball court with boundaries marked by rope with tape placed over it. Teams consist of three members — a left wing, center and right wing — who field their positions on the court by feeling for the taped rope with their feet and hands.
Teams stand at opposite ends of the court and score by “throwing” (rolling is a more accurate description) the ball past opponents and into a net 9 meters long and 1.3 meters high. In the fast-paced game, teams go from defense to offense in a flash. After making initial contact with the ball, a team has 10 seconds to throw it back or risk a penalty. The ball has been clocked at 30 mph in women’s competition, 40 mph in men’s games.
Competitors are required to don eyeshades so those with partial sight do not gain an advantage. “I’ve spent my entire life in that state of being,” Lorenz said. “With goalball, everybody is equal.”
Paying attention to the bells is the key, which made the world championships that much more of a challenge for Lorenz. She had grown accustomed to playing in front of crowds of about 200, but attendance in Brazil was often six times that. The championship atmosphere charged up the crowds and brought the noise to a level Lorenz had not experienced before.
“It changes your concentration level,” Lorenz said. “There was one time I was yelling at one of my wings, and I knew she couldn’t hear me.”
Lorenz had always enjoyed participating in sports growing up in Colorado Springs, but found her choices to be limited. During middle school and high school, she swam and competed in track and field in the mile, the 800-meter race and the long jump. Although those are considered team sports, Lorenz’s events were very individualistic. She said she never really felt part of a team.
She also never felt comfortable being guided around the track by sighted runners, to whom she was attached by a tether the length of a shoestring. “My ability to play sports was somewhat limited,” Lorenz said. “I could not compete without help. Goalball gives me a chance to use all my abilities as an individual and still be competitive in a team.”
The game might have come easily to her, but Lorenz has worked hard to make the national team. Armbruster, who coached Lorenz for five years with the Colorado statewide team before she moved to the Bay Area in 1998, applauds her dedication to improvement. Lorenz, he said, was sixth on his depth chart (on a team of six) upon arrival in Brazil.
“I gained confidence in her. The girls playing behind her gained confidence in her,” Armbruster said. “She earned [the starting position].”
Lorenz practices twice a week in Berkeley with the Bay Area Outreach and Recreating Program, Northern California’s lone goalball club. Leading up to the world championships, her daily routine consisted of running five miles and lifting weights to improve her upper-body strength, which she scheduled around her duties as a disabled rights advocate for the Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco.
But the physical work, according to BORP coach Jonathan Newman, is just part of the reason for Lorenz’s rise as one of the country’s top goalball athletes. “She really grasps the team concept,” he said. “She buys into blending her skills into the teams’ skills. She does not let her ego get in the way of how the team does.”
Lorenz estimates she took only one of every 10 shots following her blocks at the world championships. The other 90 percent she passed to the wings, whom she knew were stronger and capable of faster and more accurate throws.
Lorenz continues to celebrate the team’s victory weeks after returning to San Francisco. She and friends have reveled with a few dinners and, admittedly, her training regimen has slipped lately.
But Lorenz will soon be back on the treadmill and hitting those weights. Besides wanting to prove more as an athlete, Lorenz finds comfort on the court.
“There’s a dignity to it,” she said. “Sometimes people look down on Paralympics or blind sports as something lesser, not as competitive. We’re competitive like abled sports. We have real athletes.”
Where to go: The Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program holds goalball classes at 7 p.m. Wednesdays at the Berkeley Adult School girls gym, 1222 University Ave., Berkeley. Contact Jonathan Newman at (510) 849-4663 or at [email protected].