Have you ever wanted to join a bowling team? Well, luckily there is a bowling team at South High School, and the coach of the team is instructional facilitator James Goetz.

Goetz said he wanted to become a coach because he wanted to satisfy his competitive nature. Before becoming a bowling coach for South, Goetz served as a varsity soccer coach for seven years and was also a referee for high school and college players.

Goetz said he will accept anybody for South’s teams if they are willing to learn and try. “I welcome all people with skills and ability,” he said. The next bowling season will begin again in the fall.

Goetz said what he looks for when choosing players is chemistry. “If I can find people that will work together and challenge each other, then that’s how I know I’m making a good team,” he said.

What are the practices like? According to South senior Sam Coronado, the practices are fun, and they learn how to get better at every practice. During practice, the players will normally bowl two games and try to improve their scores and skills.

They also compete against their teammates and try to beat each other’s scores. This, according to Coronado, makes it more fun and makes them better at the sport.

When asked what inspired him to join the bowling team, junior varsity player James Pappas stated that “some of my friends said we should join bowling and try it out.”

How do these players get better at bowling? “I think the way to get better at bowling is just continuously practicing. When you repetitively bowl, you see where you are messing up, and you learn to adjust accordingly so you can knock down as many pins as possible. I know for me; I was not able to bowl very well coming into the bowling season. But as time went on, and we practiced more, I learned how to bowl more properly and in my own type of way,” Coronado said.

How do you know if you have chosen the correct ball weight? Pappas said that “it just matters how much you can lift. Some people would use all different weights, but they would stay in a range of what they found the easiest to throw and keep it going straight into the pins.”

The best part about bowling, according to Coronado, is how competitive bowling can get. He said during the season, there would be a couple of close games and he could feel the tension and excitement as each person went up to bowl. He also stated that he feels there is just a competitive yearning to beat the team or person he is facing.

Pappas said that he just liked being there with his friends. If it was practice or a meeting, it was fun to be bowling with everybody, competing against them, or learning how to get better.