Construction begins on Rapid City bocce court

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - If you haven’t played a game of bocce before you will soon have the chance. By this summer Rapid City will have courts available.

Bocce consists of tossing a smaller ball, or jack, onto the court and rolling larger balls as close as possible to it. The team that gets the closest to the jack is the one that scores for that round. Every ball that is closer than the opposing teams counts for one point and games can last anywhere from 7 to 13 points.

The sport has been gaining popularity in the Special Olympics due to being relatively accessible for people with disabilities. The courts will be built on the corner of Omaha and Mount Rushmore Road. Having these courts in town means that athletes will no longer have to set up their own temporary courts and members of the community will be free to use them.

“The community part of this deal is that the Special Olympics will probably use it about 5 percent of the time. The rest of the time the community gets to use it and they can form leagues, it can be seniors, they can be young kids, it can be couples, they can be anybody,” said Jack Lynass about the potential uses for the courts.

Lynass says this construction will be done in two phases. The first phase will be done this summer and will include the courts. Phase two plans to make the area more of an exercise complex by adding things like benches, restrooms, and additional lighting to the area.

“We’re gonna start phase one and have that done this summer and then we need to ya know find the funding source for phase two and we have some good ideas for that. Again the public sector has come in here with over half a million dollars to make this happen… We need to raise another half a million to start phase two,” said Lynass.

Whether you are an athlete looking forward to training on these courts or just someone interested in trying them, the days of using temporary set ups for this sport are nearly over.