Bowling is district’s new varsity school sport here

by Dan McClelland

Bowling is Tupper Lake High’s new varsity sport.

The Tupper Lake Board of Education has approved the introduction of bowling as an official school sport, following a well-reasoned presentation by Athletic Director Dan Brown at the November board meeting.

In the weeks after the meeting Mr. Brown canvassed the student body at the middle/high school and found at least 20 students who want to bowl for the new school teams. So bowling is a go and competition will start in coming days!

The new varsity bowlers held their first practice at Lakeview Lanes Thursday after school.

Mr. Brown told the Free Press that the amazing thing about the new athletic venture is that the majority of the students signed up to participate so far have never played a school sport before.

“I’ve come to talk to you this evening about the potential of a Tupper Lake (High School) bowling team,” he told the board of education last month.

He said in recent years there has been just a single bowling team in Section 10 where the Tupper Lake teams will compete. Then two and three more teams were formed and this year there are four school bowling teams in all.

“Now that more and more teams are coming on board with bowling teams,” Section 10 officials are trying to organize the league and which schools will be taking part. The start of the new bowling season is just week’s away, he noted.

“There may be other schools that come into the mix in coming weeks,” he told the elected school leaders.

“This year we would make it an even six teams”- if we were the field a team.

“Typically we come into a new sports season with anywhere between 140 and 155 student athletes. That’s not where we end the season, but on paper that’s where we generally start.”

He said typically too the winter sports season (with hockey, basketball and track) generates the lowest participant numbers of any sport season.

“In the winter sports season we have a lot of students who are active in the skating club- the figure skating program at the civic center.

“It takes a little away from our girls basketball program, where we’ve seen some decline in recent years.

“But there’s also a very healthy mix of kids in the figure skating program.

“However still having 30 to 50 students not participating in a high school sport is not something we desire.

“We know that athletics increase our civic awareness and athletics increases our positive personality traits. It increases our student health and all round it makes are students better humans and prepares them for lifelong practices of sportsmanship, commitment and engaging with other people.

“Bowling is an athletic opportunity that most people can do. Hockey in the winter, for example, if you don’t know how to skate, you can’t start playing hockey and make your way onto a high school team. And with basketball you only have five kids on the court at any one time, with a goal of having a team of about 12 players for practices and games. Whereas bowling is an opportunity for a student of any athletic ability, as long as they want to participate and build upon a skill they maybe have only done a few times in their life before that.

Organizationally, he said, it’s a ten-match season: five home games and five away. He said sectionals end February 6 and the matches leading up to that end rotate among the bowling alleys in the section.

Following the sectional matches, there’s a state tournament in Syracuse “that would give our team a one in six chance of going to the states.”

“-And what an opportunity for our students that would be,” he said of the two-day tournament that typically draws hundreds and hundreds of young bowlers from across the state who would compete.”

“It’s quite an event that organizers put on for them!”

He said high school bowling teams typically practice three times a week. From a physical standpoint, he noted, it’s not the type of sport you would want to practice five or six times a week.

“It gets repetitive...the ball gets heavy after a time and wears on the body.”

“As a new program, the expectation being the three days a week of practice” would continue through the development of a somewhat seasoned team by year three.

He reasoned that practicing more days each week could become cumbersome for some students to do, and increases the likelihood they may eventually lose interest.

“Practicing five and six days a week is a huge commitment for student athletes,” he added.

“It’s also a great way for our district to work with the community” through Jen Larsen at the local bowling alley.

Ms. Larsen bowled competitively in both high school and in college, which she attended on a bowling scholarship. She was a professional bowler for several years. Jen has been promoting the idea of the district introducing high school bowling for a number of years, according to a recent interview we did of her and her partner Mike in recent weeks.

“Mr. Bartlett and I have been talking with Jen about it over the last couple of years.”

“We were just waiting to see where the other schools in the district were going with it!”

“Right now we’re sort of at an explosion point, as we wait to see which of the new schools to introduce it will be.

He said in the Section 10 discussions on bowling- and even though the start of the season is only a few weeks away- some of the schools are saying to the others, “we’re in, if you’re in, but we all need to get in” if it’s going to work.

“Last week we had a unified bowling event” at Lakeview Lanes “that was well received by Section 10. He said six schools were represented, with over 40 students bowling, including some with special needs.

“That’s also something we’re looking to grow in Section 10.

He said the teams were bussed in. They arrived about 10a.m., bowled, had lunch together...all sorts of students bowling together, and it was a great event to happen here.

Mr. Brown said Section 10 is currently the only section in the state “that does not have a unified, organized” sports league that brings together students of all abilities.

“Bowling could help to build that and for not only bowling for Section 10 but unified sports in Section 10 bringing students with special needs and general education students together to be in a competitive environment.”

The athletic director said that although the sport of bowling wasn’t budgeted this year, his department had planned this year to offer a JV girls basketball team that didn’t materialize.

“So instead of creating a new team” and budgeting for it, “we just replacing a team.”

“Our bowling alley is eager to work with our kids and our school- and this is something Jen is very enthusiastic about and very willing to help!”

He said while they haven’t formally polled students about bowling in recent years, in various informal conversations, he has been told by many students it might be a sport they would be very willing to try.

Mr. Brown said Tupper Lake historically was home to many youth leagues which have disappeared in recent years.

“Jen is very interested in trying to bring some of those leagues back, which would provide something of a feeder program to any new high school varsity program.”

Asked by the board the ages of the team members, Mr. Brown said varsity teams can include students in grades nine to 12. “There are sports, however, that can allow for seventh and eighth grade expansions and bowling would be one of those sports, much like golf.”

The inter-school competition involves a bowling match, which consists of three games, he told the board members, in answer to another question.

Student bowlers can compete individually or as a team, he noted.

He also said that sometimes an individual section will create something of an all-star team to compete at regional or state levels.

Mr. Brown said there is no limit on the number of student bowlers on a school team, given the various available configurations of matches.

The only restriction, he guessed, would be the number of lanes a particular bowling alley offered.

The school here would likely have both boys and girls teams, versus a mixed team.

Superintendent of Schools Russ Bartlett spoke in favor of introducing bowling to the local sports regimen. He said of all the school officials in larger schools and smaller schools around the region that he and Mr. Brown had spoken to over the years and “nobody who implemented a bowling team at their school has found that impacts the numbers in the other school sports. It’s not a sport that typically draws from other athlete pools!”

Mr. Brown predicted that about 15 students this year would join a school bowling team if it was offered. Through his recruitment efforts in recent week, he has surpassed that estimate.

“Chateaugay introduced bowling last year and at some of their practices, there were 30 students!”

By their comments most of the board members liked the idea and several had procedural questions.

Mr. Brown noted that both male and female bowling teams would travel on a single bus and that the district would pay only for the bowling fees and shoe rentals, if necessary, for just the Tupper bowlers.

He said he and Jen Larsen have talked about how her bowling alley could help with ball or shoe rentals to minimize the cost of equipment to the school district.