Bowling has become one of the fastest growing sports in the NCAA’s vast catalog of sports. With over 28,000 participants throughout the country on the High School level, colleges across the nation are starting to add bowling to their campus’s varsity sports offerings. On the Hilltop, the bowling craze is in full effect.
Since 2021, Saint Anselm College has been assembling a bowling team of it’s own. Led by coach Tim Frye ‘11, the Hawks have built a program that looks to win a true national title. In the NCAA, since bowling has been a sanctioned sport in 2004, the division ranks are rather loose. A division II team may be going to tournaments against division I teams as well as division III teams.
Coach Frye elaborated to say that the Hawks can contend with some of the best in the country. The coach continued “we’re competing against division one, we’re competing against division two, and division three. All of them have talent, all of them have ability, you know, and it’s been able to really maximize what we have to be able to show that we’re right there with all of those other programs.”
After their inaugural season in 2022-23, the Hawks and Coach Frye have been looking to the future to continue to improve. This season, Coach Frye described the Hawks season as “productive” and a good “building block”. Coach Frye continued to say “We’ve overcome some adversity. But we’re still a young program. So we’re still kind of learning how to do a lot of stuff. We’re making progress.”
While the program is still rather young, Coach Frye has been looking into ways to expand the team and roster. In their conference, the Hawks go into their matches with 5 bowlers. However, Coach Frye and Saint Anselm Athletics have been working around the clock to put together a bigger team which can also provide for substitutes and rest for their players. Coach Frye elaborated on this idea, saying “I have had very recently had quite a few prospects reaching out to me directly. So it’s a massive difference when you start having people reach out to you versus having to always go after somebody being more pursued rather than being the one who is pursuing.”
Elaborating on a roster expansion, Coach Frye continued to mention how a bigger roster can help the team in terms of issues like sickness or injury. He went on to say “There’s so many different things that happen. Whether it be you know, sickness, injury, something funky that happens, somebody slips and falls, somebody hurts themselves, you know, anything like that. To be able to have options to know that you can put somebody else in somebody just mentally is struggling, whether that be in a day or you know, kind of just having some troubles… we’re able to integrate parts, you know, in integrating bowlers. So we have a little bit more than just having that bare minimum to be able to squeak by.”
Looking in terms of short term prospects for the team, Coach Frye wants the team to bowl for each other and gain experience. He continued “With bowling being very individualistic, and sometimes, we need to create that team aspect of it takes a little bit of time, takes a little bit of fostering and even some sacrifice on certain ends. So it’s just really learning how to be a cohesive group whereas for softball or football or soccer or things like that. You played more of a team game, and to play something that’s a little more individualistic. But now really making a team focused. You can understand but it’s easier to understand the concept but then to actually practically do it. How does that look? And how do we function right? Kind of no different than when you get out into the professional world where you’re a piece of a puzzle that’s there, and how do you integrate yourself in knowing what your role is?”
Bowling isn’t an easy sport to prep for either. There are several aspects of the sport that go unnoticed. One of which is sizing bowling balls and fitting them for the bowler. Coach Frye had once worked in a bowling pro-shop where he would make these adjustments. For the team, Frye takes time to do these modifications on his own. Luckily, there has been a little chatter about getting some form of pro-shop or equipment for Frye to help his team on campus rather than getting these things done elsewhere.
Coach Frye continued to mention that these potential plans can give the bowling team a home on campus. He added “it’s one of those where I think, having a pro shop on campus, it would give us a place to call home. Because obviously we participate off campus. So in some instances, we’re not as visible as maybe some of the other sports that are on campus that practice on campus. And it would also bring some of the technical side to it, drilling bowling balls, there’s an art and a science to it at the same time. So it would give something to wear. Just make us a little bit more tangible, I think, in certain aspects.”
The Anselmian community is a very tight knit community. It is one of the things that make Saint Anselm such a special place. Coach Frye believes that this team fits this mold perfectly. He said that bowling is a similar community in the sense that everyone has one another’s backs. Whether it be in catastrophe or heartbreak, the community is always there for one another no matter what. This sentiment is something that Coach Frye and his team want to bring to the Hilltop and add to what is already an inseparable community on the Hilltop.
