POKATOK ORIGINS
On the day after Thanksgiving Day, 2002, my wife Carol and I took our children to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. After seeing the dinosaurs, gems and minerals and diorama collections we wandered into the Ancient Latin America gallery.
This small but beautifully appointed room featured an exquisite collection of Precolumbian Mesoamerican artifacts, though few, if any of them attributable to a “Latin America” period.
In the center of the room, but now removed, we viewed a display and several artifacts related to the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame, arguably the world's first ball sport. When the kids asked me where we might go to see such a game, I found myself at a loss.
Some time prior, a children’s book author, the late David Wisniewski, had come to their school in Pasadena, California, to present his latest work, Rain Player. The story follows Pik, a young Pokatok player as he challenges the Maya rain god Chac Mool to end his village’s drought.
Later we went to the movies and saw the amusing Road to El Dorado and there it was again, this time in a mash up of an indigenous culture and two improbable Spanish rogues bashing a balled up armadillo around with their hips.
The following spring we visited Cancun, Mexico and made a side trip to a spectacular environmental and cultural preserve called Xcaret [esh-car-ET] www.xcaret.com To our delight, they presented a spectacular show including a ceremonial version of the very same ballgame. The next day we visited Chichen Itza and walked the great ballcourt there and learned that both men and women, young and old, common and royal played various ballgames.
The week after we returned, we began thinking and designed an idea of what a modern, safe, sustainable, exciting, competitive, colorful and scalable game derived from this spectacle might look like and how it might appeal to a sufficiently broad and loyal paying audience to be economically feasible.
The following is the result of that effort.
FAQs:
Why Pokatok?
As the first outreach of the Modern Royal Ballgames program, this co-ed practice ballgame program, playable by ages 8 to 80, is designed to introduce and experience the unique combination of common ball skills that will be required to play Tlachball. We chose Los Angeles to begin in order to also fulfill our educational and cultural mission by presenting a fuller picture of the achievements of the Mexican and Central American peoples.
Why Home Depot Center / CSUDH / USC?
Because of their large and dynamic RecSports Departments, CSUDH and USC are ideal. Their region enjoys a prosperous and diverse community with high achieving high schools nearby. The campuses and the Home Depot Center appear to offer several viable sites for the ballcourt installation.
What is the ultimate goal of the Pokatok Program?
To create competitive collegiate, scholastic, youth and young adult sports clubs of volunteer players available to be recruited and trained to play Tlachball. In partnership with the Home Depot Center, USC and CSUDH we will work toward amateur and professional leagues and a 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics demonstration entry.
Where does the name of the game come from?
The Olmecs invented it over 3,600 years ago, but we don’t know what they called it.
The Mayas adopted it and called it Pitz,
The Yucutans called it Pok’ol’pok or Pok-Ta-Pok,
The Aztecs may have later called it Ullamalitzli or Tlachtli,
The Spanish, who banned it, called it Juego de Pelota or Pelota Mixteca,
The Mexican players today call it Ulama de cadera, de brazo or de manopla.
An apparent linguistic error in 1932 resulted in the perhaps onomatopoetic Pokatok, a whole new (derived from the world’s oldest) ballgame.
How were the rules determined?
For at least 3,000 years various kinds of games featuring rubber balls were played in thousands of places in the hemisphere; from the U.S. Southwest through Mexico to Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and the Caribbean. To date, no definitive set of rules has been found to have survived the Conquest. It has to be assumed that through these generations local inventions and variations must have been produced which went uncommunicated elsewhere. All we have are some 1300 ruined ballcourts and a few glyphs and carvings to deduce from, so we took the liberty of creating a set of new safe, sustainable, exciting and modern rules.
Who will play Tlachball?
The game will be suitable for general physical education students from middle school up - the actual game beginning in high school. Teams of 8 or 13 players per side will be mixed-gender, with speed and agility and ball-handling skill, rather than size and strength, determining success.
The archeological record portrays women intensely involved in all aspects of the game.
How would you describe it?
Although not ever having been played anywhere as formulated here, it can be described in terms of all the fast, modern, full-contact and colorful games that have been derived from it, such as soccer (whose #5 ball it will use) with hands, or netless head-to-head volleyball with feet, plus elements of basketball and hackey-sack.
What is the value proposition and what sorts of benefits are likely to be realized and contributed to the Tlachbol game?
• Culturally, the game will serve as a pedagogical vehicle introducing the public to a largely obscure people, period and place in history, and stimulate students to study and learn more.
• Artistically, it will produce a unique new set of sights, sounds and images to enjoy.
• Athletically, it will encourage those who are uninterested or incapable of competing in other mainstream games to become involved and active in a sport where all start out learning.
• Economically, it may create a new international audience and market while stimulating new local commerce, sponsorship and high-wage employment.
What are likely sources of funding for Pokatok?
We have received some funding from the LA84 Foundation (formerly AAF) and Nike Corp and intend to work very closely with University funding sources. We anticipate corporate and institutional funding from sources such as the Weingart and S. Mark Taper Foundations plus sponsorship and international sources as COFAC’s application for their Asociacion Civil (non-profit) designation in Mexico was approved in 2007.]
Won’t introducing and popularizing an entirely new sport be especially challenging?
Yes, but just as much fun as well.
