USA Boccia Accomplishments

10 Years

Mission: USA Boccia provides athletes with physical disabilities the opportunity to participate and compete in the sport of boccia at the local, regional, national and international level. USA Boccia seeks to promote and grow the sport of boccia in the United States.

Goal: To increase awareness, education, involvement, and competition in the adaptive sport of boccia and bolster existing boccia programs, expand developing programs and develop new programs in cities where we have identified a leader. 

Since its inception in 2015, we have accomplished this by:

• Conducting outreach to introduce athletes to the sport of boccia through over 100 clinics and workshops.  USA Boccia has seen a 46% increase in membership and interest in Boccia with over 500 athletes playing recreationally or competitively.  Coaches and board members have been integral in producing athletes who have represented Team USA at the International level.  
• Increasing services to veterans across the country.  USA Boccia coordinates 6 annual workshops with the Paralyzed Veterans Association and Veteran Administration Clinics throughout the country.  These events introduce veterans to the sport and provide training to coaches, and ongoing support throughout the year.  As a result, Boccia has become one of the largest sports at the VA Golden Age Games and National Veterans Wheelchair Games.
• Supporting, planning and organizing over 36 local tournaments, 10 national championships, 2 International World Boccia Opens, and numerous non-sanctioned tournaments and local games. With the goal of providing first-rate local competitions around the nation, USA Boccia initiated a sanctioned regional tournament program in 2023.  Since then, we have hosted 15 regional tournaments, 6 in the past year. These tournaments have been staged coast to coast, from Los Angeles to Tampa and San Antonio to Cleveland. 
• Building a strong volunteer base within our organization, with over 250 volunteers providing annually over 4,500 hours who support regional and National tournaments.  Volunteers fill the roles of referees, classifiers, coaches, assistant coaches, logistical support, and on court and general support.  
• Providing referee trainings annually (at Nationals and each regional tournament).  Not only does USA Boccia have Internationally ranked athletes, but also 26 national referees and 6 international referees who served on the International Referee Committee and have played an integral role in creating the training materials used on our national referee training courses.
• Providing equipment (over 100 sets of balls and 20 ramps) from a managed loan bank program supporting over 300 new athletes and boccia clubs across the United States.

Who are our Athletes? Boccia is one of the most inclusive adapted sports and has a system for classification and assessment so that competitive boccia matches are contested between athletes with similar levels of physical disability.   Athletes compete in wheelchairs and have a variety of physical disabilities including Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, stroke survivors, as well as other neuromuscular diseases and health issues.  Individuals play in divisions based on their physical functional ability. They can either throw or kick the ball, while some utilize a ramp with an optional head stick depending on their level of involvement.  

Our organization: USA Boccia is a national nonprofit organization, overseen by a dedicated volunteer board of directors.  Board members hail from across the country and have a combined 150 plus years of boccia experience.  Some of these members have competed as athletes nationally and internationally, now helping to shape the future of USA Boccia.   In 2017, the first ever paid staff position was hired to oversee the day-to-day operations of the organization.