Last year, bowling was announced as a brand new athletic team on campus. The announcement of the bowling team brought excitement to campus and with it, new athletes. Head coach Scott Curtis spent the majority of his time last year recruiting the current roster of first-years, which sits at 24. 

“Having them here is the payoff, and now we are going to get ready to compete,” Curtis said. When asked about coaching, he said, “It’s good to be back in that element because it is what I love, spending more time at the bowling alley working with them.” He also showed excitement “to see how they made that impact with the chair.” 

“The Chair,” the unofficial mascot of the bowling team, got some attention after a TikTok compilation was made. This was not expected or planned by the team, but rather spontaneous. 

“Our buddy bought it from Goodwill for five bucks,” said Michael Ramirez, a first-year business major. “We decided to take it out of our friend’s truck because he left it in there.” 

They sat in the parking lot and Lily Kelley, a first-year elementary education major, started taking pictures. “I have like 200-300 pictures of people sitting on the chair,” she said. “We went through all of Yoder and two floors of Kratz.” 

Though the intentions were just to get new furniture, it became a hit. Now, the chair has unfortunately broken, but the goal is to get it fixed. “We will try to bring it to the next volleyball game,” said Brendan Riley, a freshman environmental science major. 

With the chair, the team has announced themselves to campus as a lighthearted group, but they are still getting to know one another. The team has begun to “mesh like a family,” said Parker Lovejoy, a freshman nursing major. 

The environment is friendly and “everyone likes Scott, he is calm and fun to have around” said Danek Szajner, a first-year secondary education major. 

Bowling looks particularly different now for Blake Fisher, as he moves from bowling individually to a team dynamic. “When you are bowling with others you can gain some of [their] knowledge and integrate it with yours … you gotta enjoy it,” he said. Just like other sports, “it is such a mentally challenging game,” Kelley said. Although it is physically draining, it is much more a mental game, “because it is about keeping … consistency in each shot … There’s always some changing factor like the oil patterns every week.”

Looking ahead to the season, Riley’s goal for the team is to “win at least one tournament…it would be nice to bring back a trophy to the college.” 

The bowling team will begin their season on September 21 in Jackson, Michigan. While most competitions will not be at Goshen’s home alley, mark your calendars for February 1, when the team will compete in Elkhart. Make sure to come out and show your support for the first ever Goshen Bowling team.