Sports are a significant part of many students’ lives. They act as a means for entertainment, exercise, and can be the source for many strong bonds between players on those teams. However, as anyone who has played or managed a sport before knows, they are expensive. Between the cost of equipment, the price itself that is required to play many sports, and anything extra a player may want, the price tag tends to climb substantially.
However, tryouts are not usually a part of this cost for DHS sports, although the DHS bowling team’s tryouts that took place in Oct. had a ten dollar price tag for the opportunity to tryout. Why exactly the tryouts have a cost is confusing to some, but the real reasoning behind the fee to tryout is quite rational.
To begin, bowling is a very expensive sport to organize. Between the cost of balls, shoes, transportation, staffing, and general bowling admissions, the cost can rack up to quite the total. According to an article by Timesleader.com, bowling can cost somewhere around $8,000 for a public school to be involved per season.
Now, there is no evidence that this article is similar to the DHS bowling team cost for a season, however it is evident that bowling is one of the more expensive sports to participate in.
Even more expensive is organizing an entire varsity team for bowling. Due to the previous mentioned reasons, the DHS bowling team has felt that having a cost for the tryouts would help with covering some of the expenses for the team.
Another contributor to the financial situation with bowling is the fact that the DHS bowling team is not run through the school as an official sport, but rather through the Northern Lanes bowling alley. This is because DHS does not have a bowling alley of its own. However this also means that DHS is not solely responsible for the funding for bowling.
“We help them out with boosters. And they made a request for equipment last year and we went through the boosters to help them get whatever they wanted or needed.” Athletic Director John Streeter said.
Whether or not the bowling team wants to be admitted as an official DHS team is up for discussion. The transition is a conversation that both athletic directors in Midland have had. The change would certainly adjust the finances of the bowling team.
The bowling team also has help from non DHS staffers. Communications manager Kathy Rassette is one of them. Rassette focuses on getting the team and all available members the information they need. She is the head of outreach for the bowling team, and ensures that everyone understands where and when each of their practices and tournaments are.
“I primarily communicate with the coaches and the parents of the bowlers,” Rassette said in an email interview. “Specifically, I communicate details about the team, what to expect, tournament dates and times, and expectations of the bowlers.”
This job allows for the coaches to focus more on the actual game than having to worry about the logistics of managing a team, because there are so many different facets to organizing one.
“My role is to be the communications liaison between the coaches and the parents,” Rassette said. “This allows the coaches to focus on coaching and not worry about team communications.”
The bowling team is just an example of one team, and there certainly is more that comes into effect when trying to organize one. However, every action, as odd as it may seem at first, has a reason when it comes to team organization. Whether it be choosing to charge for tryouts, or not running solely through the school as a team, looking at the bowling team can help us understand more sports, and how their teams are organized.
