This year, the Bowling players spent countless hours at Chelsea Lanes and faced physical exhaustion while juggling academic stress. But bowlers Linkon Lebrun and Luke Adams here at CHS are seeing that bowling participation has gone down, being lost in the shadow by bigger sports that are more well-known like basketball and hockey.

“[Bowling is] kind of underrepresented. It is a good pastime for fun, but as a sport, it is not pushed out enough,” Lebrun said. “Now I really like it, but I don’t think I would have ever found it out, because it’s not on the website, I have never seen it on any flyer, it is nowhere in this school.”

According to Luke, he mentioned that he spent time “recruiting” people to join bowling. Some students responded that they were unaware that bowling was a sport that CHS offered, showing that this is the one the main challenges the bowling team faces in gaining recognition.

“When I asked people to join the bowling team, or if they were interested in joining the bowling team, a lot of them answered that they didn’t know we had one,” Adams said.

Nearly every sport consists of competition, physical skills, rules and teaches life lessons, the sport of bowling has all of this. Whether it is a tight game or the mental stress after a losing tournament, bowling still has the sport-like feel. 

“[Bowling] is similar to so many other sports because, say in basketball, you’re moving a lot, you’re using your legs a lot, especially to push off, same with football,” sophomore bowler Luke Adams said. 

But what makes bowling a bit different from other sports is that it is very inexpensive. Most bowlers only have to pay for their shoes, and it’s usually one of the only items needed for the sport. According to Sadie McCalla, a local women’s hockey player, stated that all of her “equipment cost $2500 and her ice time for practices was about $5000”. 

“Shoes are around at least $60, even with the specific shoe requirements needed, these shoes are a lot cheaper than other sports. But for practice, you can generally wear anything,” Adams said. “For meets, you have to wear black slacks, and your jersey, if you don’t have one, you can wear a Chelsea shirt. Bowling doesn’t really cost much,” 

Most sports require a high level of physical and mental toughness. Bowling is demanding in both upper, lower and rotation strength to have players perform their best. Even though bowling is similar to other sports, using data from NFHS, only 61,000 high school students participated in bowling in the US, unlike basketball with 356,000 students. 

“Bowling is a sport about, like most sports, about having fun. But bowling, to explain it best is about precision, endurance and speed, like most sports,” Lebrun said. 

Bowling isn’t much different than any other sports at CHS, players are still growing both mentally and physically. With this, current bowling players are still on the look out for interested students to fill the bowling roster. 

“[Bowling is ] fun. It’s entertaining. There’s ups and downs like in any sport, and if you want to try it, you come try it any day after school. You just got to go to the bowling alley at 3:30, I have so much fun everyday,” Lebrun said.