Throughout high school, I did the sport of fencing, and I loved it. I traveled the country competing, made incredible relationships with my teammates and coaches and learned valuable life skills like hard work and determination.
But, I fenced at a club outside of my school, meaning that I never did any school sports. I never got that high school team sports experience that I craved — until I joined the bowling team my senior year.
One day, my best friend told me that the bowling team was holding its first practice after school and that we should check it out. At first, I didn’t want to go because I didn’t know anyone on the team, I wasn’t that good at bowling and I thought joining would be weird because bowling isn’t the most popular sport.
We decided to go, along with some other girls from our grade. That ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Our team was composed of kids from all grades, and I wasn’t great friends with a lot of them at the start. But, as the season went on, everyone quickly became really close friends. I made friends with people that I wouldn’t have had the chance to get to know otherwise, all thanks to stepping out of my comfort zone.
After practicing two to three times a week for three hours each, on top of two tournaments each week, we all bonded and made some funny memories together. Plus, I actually got pretty decent at bowling, which I had barely done before.
I’m so thankful for all the new friendships I’ve made through bowling. I’ll always remember our car rides to the lanes singing loudly with the windows down, our funny rituals before a tournament and our team dinners after almost every practice or game. Although we weren’t the most skilled team out there, other coaches would always compliment our enthusiasm and sportsmanship. We tried our hardest and had fun while doing it.
We were definitely the goofiest team in our league. We had old vintage uniforms, unique from all the other teams. We assigned each member a funny bowling nickname and would yell catchphrases before each person bowled.
For example, my friend’s nickname was “The Hurricane,” and we would shout sayings like “A storm’s a-coming!” or “It’s getting windy!” right before she would go. We thought we were hilarious.
Learning from this experience, my advice to anyone out there is to try something new. You never know what good might come out of it. Bowling in high school taught me that giving new things a shot, no matter how unconventional they might seem, can actually turn into a positive experience in your life.
All through bowling, I not only learned to bowl better, but I had a great season of making new memories with new friends that I never would have made without stepping out of my comfort zone.
