Special Olympics bowling prepped for state

The sound of colliding pins and bowling balls rumbling down the lanes filled the air at Bowl Winkles Two as the Colby-Abbotsford community Special Olympics team held their final practice of the 2022 bowling season last Thursday. In preparation for the 2022 state bowling tournament to be held at Dale’s Weston Lanes in Wausau, the team has been practicing since September, recording scores each week in hopes of qualifying for the final event.

The end goal, the state tournament, is something that both the athletes and their support team look forward to every year. Over 900 athletes from across the state are expected to participate in this year’s final, an event where camaraderie and taking joy both in your own accomplishments as well as others’ is paramount.

“The cool thing when you go to state is that, first, second and third, they’re all congratulating each other,” Julie Johnson, who serves as the team’s sole coach, said. “It doesn’t matter what color medal, gold, silver or bronze they have. They’re all hugging and happy that they got one. It’s a different experience. It’s ‘we’re all happy we are here and we got to have fun.’” “The state games are amazing,” agency manager and volunteer Lisa Brill added. “The athletes are so excited and all the lanes are full with bowlers from around the state. And they’re all telling each other ‘good job, you did your best.’” It’s a good change in atmosphere from the sometimes overly competitive overtones that other organized sports can create. The spirit of sportsmanship and fun is on full display here, the core of athletic competition given precedence over winning.

“It gives them an opportunity that they wouldn’t get otherwise,” Brill added.

With no age restrictions, the Special Olympics provide all athletes, young or old, a chance to compete when they may not have had one. It also serves as a way for the athletes to meet with their peers, providing an avenue for social interactions and relationships.

The state final is the one opportunity that the bowling athletes get to compete with athletes from other teams during the season. This was not always the case, but the process of reaching the final competition changed during the coronavirus pandemic. Now, instead of regional qualifier events, bowlers merely record scores from their practices and submit those for placement into the state tournament. This makes the final event, for better or worse, even more important.

Changes in format aren’t the only lasting effects that the pandemic has left on the team. With events being canceled in their entirety over the last few years, member retention has been difficult. Without these events keeping athletes engaged, many never returned after the sports started back up.

The seven bowlers present at the practice are the core of a team that usually has around ten active participants. The list of potential members that either have participated in the past or that the team knows could participate is over double that number.

As such the team is always looking to add to their numbers, both athletes and volunteers to help coach or coordinate. With their current numbers it may be difficult to get a basketball team together, which the Colby-Abbotsford club usually has during the winter months. Adding to the volunteer staff would also give the team a better athlete to volunteer ratio, allowing them more flexibility and perhaps opening the door for the team to explore other sports as well.

“If we had more coaches, we could do more sports,” Johnson said. “There’s bocce that I’d love to get into. Wausau Metro has a ton of kids in swimming, but I don’t know the first thing about swimming. There’s other sports that we could do.”

While it was once connected to the school, the Colby-Abbotsford Special Olympics team is now community-based, meaning that it is staffed by volunteers and funded by donations. The current volunteer staff only consists of Johnson, who has been a coach for seven years and a volunteer for 15, and Brill. The donations the team receives pays for transportation of their athletes to regional, sectional, and state tournaments and for food expenses.

In order to continue to compete as they have, the team would likely need to see their numbers, both in athletes and volunteers, rise. Part of the problem, as the volunteer staff sees it, is that many don’t even realize that the team still exists.

“I talked to Renae, one of our athletes this year, while on one of the bus trips I was working on,” Johnson said. “We talked about Special Olympics and I said, ‘well Colby has a team’ and she said, ‘oh my mom doesn’t know that.’ Her mom was not aware that Colby still had a program. So it needs to be out there, so that people understand that there is a program. And that’s maybe the biggest problem we’re up against.”

The Colby-Abbotsford team is hopeful that, if they can get the word out, more athletes and volunteers will be able to experience the camaraderie that these competitions can provide. Should anyone be interested in joining as an athlete, coach, or volunteer, they can contact Johnson at her phone, 715-465-0440, or her e-mail, dixiejaj@gmail.com.

For now, though, the focus is on their final bowling outing of the season. Those who qualified will be competing on December 3 in Wausau.