“I have always enjoyed bowling just for fun and so I thought it would be fun to try competitive bowling,” Senior Mckenzie Dever said.

Often times, bowling is thought of as a recreational sport.  However, for the bowling team it is  about working together as a team and is competitive.

Dever says that she started competitively bowling after a friend’s suggestion. She thinks that bowling is more laid back and social than soccer and volleyball, the other sports she has played. Dever believes that bowling athletes are overall no different than athletes in any other sport at Free State.

    “Bowlers do not require quite the endurance aspect that many other sports require; however, endurance does play big role in ball speed and accuracy,” bowling coach Anita Carlson said.

Carlson went on to talk about how bowling is different from any other sport in one crucial way. With other sports, there comes a time when you have to stop playing because you just physically cannot do it. With bowling, you can continue playing for your whole lifetime.  

Coach Carlson is proof of this as she was a bowler in college at the University of Kansas.

“We do not for run hours on end or lift weights hours on end but we do practice target shooting and releasing the ball the same way with every delivery along with footwork, arm-swings, and balance,” Carlson says.  

“I don’t really  think we actually are different.  We are a lot like everyone else who do other sports at Free State,” Dever said. “Our sport just requires different and more unusual skills than your typical high school sports.”

    Senior Alyson Butler explains that bowling is no different than any other sport or activity because “it  was more competitive than [she] thought it would be.” Butler also thinks too many people do not consider bowling a sport, but  she points out that the bowlers spend at least an hour and a half a day at the bowling alley.
    When most people think of high school sports, they think of football, basketball or baseball. Although bowling is a more uncommon competitive sport, it proves to be just as competitive.