We feel that the sport of Bowling is very fun and everyone deserves to play it. Here at Pasco High School, however, only the girls have the opportunity to right now, this is something we’d like to see changed. We interviewed staff here at the school to determine the reasoning behind this and if and how we can change it. We also interviewed students to see how popular the program would be if it expanded to Boys as well.
The first thing we did was to go around the school and interview guys to see how many actually would want to play if given the option. The first few people we asked all enthusiastically answered: “**** yeah,” “Of course,” “What the **** only girls can play?” or some version of that phrase. The more we asked, the hype died down a little though, a few people said no to PLAYING (this is important), and it wasn’t looking good for us for a second. But then, we came across a few groups who said yes again. In total, 66% of the people we asked said yes to that they would personally play, however, a 100% vouched for that guys should be able to play, which we’d say is a pretty substantial amount, we’re sure you would agree. These numbers are pretty telling in our opinion of how popular the sport is among the students here at the school, and they are a big reason to why the Bowling Program should consider expanding to Boys as well.
After we did that we went and interviewed some of the staff that would know something about Bowling and why it is the way it is. The first person we interviewed was Ms. Chavez, who is, for those who don’t know, the Bowling coach here at the school. She gave us very good answers and a lot of insight into the reasoning behind Bowling only being for girls. The first and most important question we asked was if she knew why, and she said yes. The reason is that when Bowling was established here, it took over for Gymnastics, which was a girls’ sport. And then, because there were already so many sports for guys in the wintertime, they decided to give it to just the girls, to even it out. She also added that she’d love to see guys get to play, “We get a lot of guys coming in every year wondering why they can’t play and I’d love for them to be able to.”
After the interview with Ms. Chavez, we went to our Athletic Director Mr. Tyson Sturza, and asked him roughly the same questions. The first question we asked was, once again, why we don’t have Boys’ Bowling here at PHS. He referred to the Title IX regulations that “require schools to provide equal opportunity based on gender.” This goes back to what Ms. Chavez was telling us about Bowling replacing Gymnastics and therefore becoming a girls’ sport automatically. For us to make Bowling into a boys’ sport as well, we would need to expand the number of sports that we have here at the school and distribute them between the genders accordingly so that we don’t have an uneven number of girls’ and boys’ sports.
Other than this, Mr. Sturza also added that he would love for guys to be able to play, but it’d maybe have to be through a Bowling Club for example. “It would be cool if it was changed, but we can’t offer it because of the balance. A club instead would be easier to accomplish.”
So, to summarize the article and give a clear answer, the majority of the guys here at PHS want to play Bowling, as a matter of fact, everyone we asked wanted that, including the Coach and the Athletic Director. It is currently not anything that’ll be changed anytime soon though (unless we establish some sort of club). This is due to the imbalance of sports between girls and boys that would happen.
But yeah, if anyone wants to, start a club, you have the support of the entire school!
