COLORADO SPRINGS – District 11 area superintendent Scott Mendelsberg looks at the packed lanes at Peak Bowl north of downtown with a massive smile on his face. A former softball coach at Denver East, Mendelsberg understands the value of interscholastic competition for all high school kids.
Elsewhere, district athletic director Chris Noll paces up and down the floor with the nervousness of a coach or player getting ready to compete for a state championship.
No state title will be won at Peak Bowl, but the stakes are arguably higher for the students who have entered the building to compete.
The D11 administrators were on-hand Wednesday for the launch of four unified bowling teams that will compete under the CHSAA banner next season. Unified bowling is in its third year of competition and heading into the fourth, D11 will field four teams.
Coronado, Doherty, Palmer and Mitchell all had enough interest within the walls of the schools that the district greenlit each school for competition rather than starting a district team and then waiting for interest to swell.
There was no need. The interest was high from the very start.
“We have a lot of people in District 11 who are passionate about kids,” Noll said. “It was a no-brainer. Each school said they were going to field a team. It’s really about student interest and having people that are passionate about working with all kids.”
That includes some of the student-athletes themselves. Coronado’s Trey Alford towered over most of the adults in the building but had the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old kid when helping his teammates knock over their pins.
(Dan Mohrmann/ColoradoPrep.com)
Normally hurling 94 mph fastballs toward opposing hitters, Alford has gentle, but encouraging nature about him. The University of Virginia commit is a student leader for the Cougars, he was the ideal candidate as a support athlete for the unified bowling program.
“I got invited into this by (Coronado athletic director Jimmy) Porter,” Alford said. “I haven’t bowled in in a good year, but being able to come out here and help these kids is great. We get to connect with them and get to know them a little bit. We see them around school, but we can’t really connect with them or talk with them. Being here and doing that is a blessing.”
In the most basic of ways, it’s the core of what high school athletics is supposed to be and it allows everyone the chance to compete.
As Noll points out, “(The sport) is all about inclusion and that’s what we’re about at D11.”
For an administrator like Medelsberg, it’s a reminder of why he got into education. His day can often be dominated by meetings with adults and endless chains of emails. But the impact of what he does – and what every administrator who made Tuesday’s D11 unified bowling launch successful does – worth it.
“If we had access to this kind of stuff every day, it would be easier for us to remember that,” he said. “We do get lost in the day-to-day work cycle of what our job is. But this is why we’re here. The joy on these kids’ faces. The biggest thing about this is that these kids will be talking about this for months. There’s nothing better than that.”
Tuesday’s event was a launching pad for the teams to understand the environment of competition and how it will feel next fall.
By that time, the joy that the D11 kids get to experience will be on display on a state-wide level.