Pétanque is played with steel balls, called boules – which is French for balls.

by Roland D. Hallee

On March 28, while attending the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce Business to Business Showcase, held at Colby College, in Waterville, I met a gentlemen named Raymond Fecteau. He began telling me about this game that he has organized locally, and for which he helped secure funding in Augusta, to build courts.

The game is called Pétanque, a sport that falls in the category of boules sports, which include bocce and lawn bowling. A popular sport in Europe, it is not widely played in the United States. According to the Federation of Pétanque USA, approximately 30,000 people play nationwide.

Where bocce and lawn bowling are usually played with wooden balls, pétanque is played with steel balls, called boules – which is French for balls.

The current form of the game originated in 1907 in La Ciotat, France. The French name, pétanque, borrowed into English, comes from petanca in the Provencal dialect of the Occitan language, meaning “feet fixed” or “feet planted.”

The history of pétanque can be traced back to the ancient Greeks who played a game using stones, and was brought to France by the Romans.

Pétanque is a social, low impact game that is all inclusieve and can be played by literally everyone from grandparents to adolescent to the handicapped. If you can hold a ball in your hand and move your arm in a pendulum motion, you can play.

Games can be played head to head or in team competitions. The object of the game is to get as close to the cochonnet (jack) as you can, hitting your opponent’s ball or the jack in the process, if necessary. Every shot is fair play as long as the boule is thrown from the circle.

The games are normally played on hard dirt or gravel.

Before the mid-1800s, European boules games were played with solid wooden balls, usually made from boxwood root, a very hard wood. Following World War I, cannonball manufacturing technology was adapted to allow the manufacture of hollow, all-metal boules. The first all-metal boule, la Boule Intégrale, was introduced in the mid-1920s. Shortly thereafter, a process was developed for manufacturing steel boules by stamping two steel blanks into hemispheres and then welding the two together to create a boule. With this technological advance, hollow, all-metal balls rapidly became the norm.

To begin, a coin is tossed and the winner (Team A) begins play. They select the court, draw the circle and the captain of the team will step into the circle and tosses the jack. The jack must be tossed no less than 20 feet and no more than 32 feet. All subsequent play is done from inside the circle and the player must stay in the circle until their thrown ball touches the ground.

A player from team A then tosses their first boule. Next, a player from team B attempts to place their boule closer to the jack. The boule nearest the jack is said to be holding the point. The team holding the point does not play until their opponents take the point position. Once a team has used up their boules the opposing team then plays their remaining boules.

Points are then counted allowing one point for each boule closer to the jack than the opponent’s closest boule. After the points are counted the “end” is over.

The winning team then begins a new end by drawing a circle around the jack where the last end finished. The game ends when one team has reached 13 points.

The Pétanque courts in Augusta are located at Mill Park, where the city allowed the courts to be built. Fecteau raised $50,000 in order to construct the courts and accompanying structures. It is also set up to play day or night. Playing times are generally on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

For more information about the game, or how you can join the fun, you may contact Fecteau at 622-3389, or ray7275@gmail.com.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Name the only NFL team to have scored three touchdowns in less than a minute.

Answer on page 11.

Rob Gronkowski (left), Russ Francis (center), Mike Ditka (right).

by Roland D. Hallee

An era has ended in New England. Heck, it has ended throughout the United States. Rob Gronkowski, the happy-go-lucky, larger-than-life, bruising tight end for the New England Patriots has announced his retirement following nine seasons in the National Football League. Patriots fans lament his decision, while the rest of the league breathes a collective sigh of relief now that they don’t have to deal with the constant downfield threat.

I met Gronk once, right after his rookie season. A massive human being with a jovial personality, his hand enveloped mine and almost crushed every bone during a vigorous and aggressive handshake. I lost that one. I have met many professional sports athletes, but the encounter with Gronk is one that comes to the forefront of memories.

Chosen in the second round of the 2010 draft, the 42nd player picked overall, Gronk went on to a stellar career. The 6-foot 6-inch, 268-pound tight end amassed 521 career receptions, 7,861 receiving yards and 79 receiving touchdowns as a player. Along with that, he played on three Super Bowl-winning Patriots teams, was chosen to five Pro Bowls, four-time All Pro, and NFL comeback player of the year in 2014. He is a shoe-in for the NFL Hall of Fame.

With the many accomplishments and accolades, Gronkowski is regarded by many sports analysts, writers and peers as not only one of the the finest players in the league, but the greatest tight end to ever play the game.

But, the position of tight end was revolutionized a long time ago by another Patriots player.

Russ Francis, a 6-foot, 6-inch, 242-pound tight end with the Patriots, changed the position’s importance back in the 1970s.

Drafted out of the University of Oregon in 1975, in the first round, the 16th overall pick, he went on to become the premiere tight end of his era. He played seven seasons with the Patriots and six seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, where he was a member of the Super Bowl XIX champions in 1984.

During the 1976 season, in the Patriots 30-27 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the defending Super Bowl champions, Francis caught a 38-yard touchdown pass from Steve Grogan on a fourth and one. In that game, Francis had a career-best 139 receiving yards, prompting sportscaster Howard Cosell to proclaim him as the “All-World Tight End.”

Francis was a Pro Bowl selection for three consecutive seasons from 1977-79.

However, many years prior to Russ Francis coming onto the scene, there was another man who made a mark as a tight end in the NFL.

Mike Ditka arrived in the National Football League in 1961 out of the University of Pittsburgh. The 6-foot, 3-inch, 228-pound Ditka was nicknamed “Iron Mike,” perhaps because he was born and raised in a steel town in Pennsylvania. But Ditka had a nasty side to him that shook the league. He was the fifth pick overall in the 1961 college draft, by the Chicago Bears. He had the distinction of having been picked in the first round of both the NFL, and the American Football League, rival leagues at the time.

In his inaugural season in the NFL, he had 58 receptions, introducing a new dimension to a tight end position which had previously been dedicated to blocking. He was selected rookie of the year. He went on to play for the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988, becoming the first tight end to do so. Ditka totaled 4,503 yards (ranking him first in Bears history), 316 receptions and 34 touchdowns.

When his playing days were over, he became an assistant coach with the Cowboys in 1972, where he was a member of the Super Bowl winning team, in 1977. From there he went on to coach the Chicago Bears, where he won a Super Bowl in 1986, becoming one of only two men to win a Super Bowl as a player, assistant coach and head coach. Mike Flores is the other. Ditka, Flores, Gary Kubiak and Doug Pederson are also the only people in modern NFL history to win a championship as head coach of a team for which he once played.

There are other tight ends around the NFL that are mentioned when discussions arise about the tight end position. But, in my opinion, these are the three that stand out as having the largest impact on the position from how it was once utilized, to the importance it now represents in the modern offensive schemes in the league. Gronk is, without a doubt, a member of an elite trio responsible for that.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Where did Rob Gronkowski play his college football?

Answer can be found here.