Toccer (2010-present)

[Young Drachma]

Rather than maintain the dynasty I'd started years ago, I felt like with the changes we've made to the sport that it was time for a new one to reflect where it's headed.

Tennis Polo (Toccer) was borne out of necessity. As tennis director at a residential boys summer camp, it rained too much and I needed a way to occupy my morning tennis classes. After trying a bunch of different racquet-based ball games, we came up with toccer and it stuck.

Over the years, I've worked on variations of the game and it's been played indoors, outdoors and retains its essence. But this was the summer where I knew it'd be tested. Spending the summer at a camp that's the domain of very good young athletes would test the sport against an audience of kids who were and are good at other sports.

For the first two weeks, I didn't even talk about it. It took the World Cup to finally start playing, in a self-styled "Toccer World Cup" that was well regarded. Due to concerns that every player having a racquet would cause injuries, I spent those two weeks trying to modify the game in a way that would keep it toccer, but make it safer. It finally occurred to me that we should remove the racquets from everyone but the goalkeepers.

This model worked fabulously and the 18-yard penalty area for a soccer was a natural area for us to prevent players from advancing in front of to attempt to shoot. Thus, a new era of toccer was born.

We started with people dribbling the ball in their hands, akin to how the racket game was played. But that became untenable quickly and it just started to make more sense to either 1) limit how many steps people could take with the ball or 2) outlaw running with the ball all together.

We attempted it both ways and in the end, allowing 3 steps became the standard. The "3-step rule" became canon quickly, people didn't take long to adjust to it and it made the game a lot more enjoyable to play and watch.

In past demonstrations of the game, it was never well evolved enough to need a referee. This summer? We had a stable of counselors who took pride in their toccer coaching abilities and refereeing skills. It took a few years, but this thing became a sport this summer and I can't tell you how excited -- reluctant, but excited -- I was to foster it's evolution as the weeks went on.

Weeks of playing with field players having the ability to run with the ball some, no need to acquire a dozen racquets before each game and the diminished danger factor as a result have really improved the game in ways I hadn't imagined. Girls toccer worked well too, so it wasn't reserved only for the boys game and on the whole...the game just reached a level that it hadn't in the past and it became clear that we'd come to a form in the road with it.

These changes include the introduction of a 2-point goal, the formalization of the offside rule, 3 step rule and an infraction system that managed to do what I've always wanted which was something unique to our sport, but without slowing the game down needlessly with endless penalty calls and things like penalty boxes or whatever. All penalties are team freeze penalties, which means effectively that when the infraction is called, the opposing team or player -- depending on the circumstance -- cannot move for that period of time. This include penalty shots when they're called.

The new rules will be posted in September 2010, but here are some of the new modifications we've come up with, tested and approved for the sport's future:

• Rackets will only be used by goalkeepers, while players in the field will not carry racquets any longer.
  
• Players are allowed three steps to run with the ball before passing it or attempt to a shot on goal.
  
• The area in front of the goal (referred to as the “layer”) is a semicircular line with a 15-yard radius. Offensive players are not allowed inside the layer, goals scored over the layer line are nullified. Defensive players are allowed inside the layer. A second semicircular line with an 21-yard radius are worth two points when goals are scored.
  
• Each team will be comprised of ten players including 9 field players and one racket keeper. Standard formations include layer defenders (2), Strong Back (1), Deep Wing (1), Middle Receiver (1) and Strikers (3)
  
• Kicking the ball remains legal.
  
• Offside rule called except during the last minute of each half. Offsides is called if the team on offense has more players in the defensive half of the field than the defensive team, when the offensive team has the ball in their zone. In sudden death periods, the offside rule remains in effect for the entire offsides period.
  
• Games are separated into two 12-minute halves. If teams remain tied after regulation, two 6-minute sudden death overtime period are played. If teams remain tied after overtime, games that require a winner (hence, that cannot end tied) will be decided through a penalty throw shootout.

[Barkeep49]

I've enjoyed seeing you invent this game over the years, but I have a question: Who does this game appeal to? It originally seemed like it would have some appeal for tennis players who wanted a team game. You've moved pretty far from that, now. But what kind of person takes up Toccer over say Soccer or Lacrosse?

[Young Drachma]

I've finally started to revisit this because well..I've wanted to and I just needed people who actually were good at graphics to help me put together some stuff.

First thing was a new field:

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I've enjoyed seeing you invent this game over the years, but I have a question: Who does this game appeal to? It originally seemed like it would have some appeal for tennis players who wanted a team game. You've moved pretty far from that, now. But what kind of person takes up Toccer over say Soccer or Lacrosse?

I'm answering this belatedly..at this point, I'm looking for adoption.

Toccer is great when I'm at camp because I drive it. One of the things that was nice when we really had people playing a lot the last place I was at, was how I was able to essentially sit on the sidelines. After a week or so, I didn't have to ref games, the teams were coached by counselors and everyone felt like they understood it enough to where I didn't even have to be involved other than for scorekeeping for the purposes of our tournament.

It was absolutely surreal to see the sport evolve that way.

In an ideal world, we'd have everyone with a racquet, but right now the rules are interchangable (essentially the same with or without) but the without makes it 1) easier to pick up fast and 2) safer and the latter might lead to faster adoption than when we were trying to convince people to let 20 people on a field swinging racquets around. It's just a liability waiting to happen.

So the changes we made in 2010 were really about pragmatism to play that summer, but I realized that if I wanted the sport to catch on -- say at the club level in college or perhaps crazy enough at the high school level (I was tripped out when I discovered ultimate frisbee was a co-ed HS varsity sport in Colorado...it gave me hope in an odd way.) -- that we'd need to make it accessible enough.

Sort of like how Rugby submitted Rugby Sevens to the IOC to the Olympics, because they knew that was the most accessible form of the game and faster paced and might actually get accepted and it did.

Except on a much, much smaller scale.