A student bowler practicing at Bayside Bowl last month. photo/Tom Major
Bowling for Scholars
Levi Gervais, coach of the Bayside High Rollers high school bowling team, sounded a bit like The Dude from The Big Lebowski when he spoke of the team’s recent recruitment boost. “This place has an interesting way of bringing people together,” he said during an interview last month at Bayside Bowl in Portland. “Somehow the universe worked and we just used it to our advantage.”
Gervais was referring to an infusion of student bowlers from South Portland High School. Dan Entwistel, a teacher in the school’s One Classroom Project, also works as a mechanic at Bayside Bowl. While bowling together earlier this year, Gervais mentioned that participation in Portland’s student team was low, and Entwistel offered to find new bowlers at SPHS.
“I was looking at having maybe four solid players this season,” Gervais told me. Entwistel netted five more good prospects on the first day.
Youth bowling is an endangered sports program in Maine. Only a handful of towns have teams these days — including Portland, Lewiston, Hallowell, Skowhegan and Wilton — and those programs all draw on neighboring communities (and sometimes places much farther away) for their players. The Lewiston team, for example, also has youth from Auburn, Lisbon, Greene and Sabattus. Gervais’ Portland-based team doesn’t currently have any bowlers living in Portland; instead, it includes competitors from Windham, Saco, Bangor, and now South Portland.
Because high school bowling is not sanctioned by the Maine Principals’ Association, programs like the Bayside High Rollers are entirely self-financed. And yet Gervais, who volunteers his coaching time, is emphatic that the team will not charge membership fees.
“We come up with creative ways to make it no-cost to any kid or any parent,” he said. “We work hard to raise funds.”
Gervais’ significant other, Courtney McDonough, doesn’t even bowl, but she serves as the team’s administrator, organizing logistics like lane time, transportation and finances.
“Later in the season, we do fundraising,” she told me at Bayside’s lanes. “We raffle off a bowling ball, because everyone here is a bowler. What would they like more than a new ball? And Levi works in the pro shop, so we can do any ball, any size, free drilling. That usually raises enough to pay for jerseys and practice.”
McDonough and Gervais raised three children, two of whom were competitive bowlers. Their youngest, Brooke, graduated from Edward Little High School last year, but they stayed involved in youth bowling.
“The major reason that I am continuing with it is because I have coached five kids who have gone on to be collegiate bowlers,” Gervais said. “Two seniors graduated last year. [Brooke] is on an NCAA Division III team at Hobart and William Smith College. The other, Anthony Cole, is bowling with the Rochester Institute of Technology bowling club.”
Gervais said his bowlers have “opportunities to be able to be a college athlete, to get some scholarship money thrown their way. One of my players was offered $58,000 a year, between academic and athletic scholarships.”
Of the five new recruits from SoPo, all seemed to be having fun during a practice session last month. Strikes and spares were as common as gutterballs, but even those who professed to have little experience had some great rolls.
A student named Brendan acknowledged his limited skills, but said his great-grandmother had an entire room dedicated to her bowling trophies. “I guess you can say that bowling’s in my blood,” he told me.
Dylan, whose “absolute favorite sport is dodgeball,” had an unusual sidearm bowling style. At first he was a little reluctant to accept suggestions, but eventually he warmed to the idea and rolled a complete string.
“Most of my shots weren’t very good,” he admitted as he was leaving. “It was hard at the beginning, but then it got fun.” Still, Dylan’s not sure he’ll be back for the next practice. “I had a good time, but, I mean, it’s not as much fun as dodgeball.”
Spare some time to tell Tom Major about your sports activities at leagueofbollards@gmail.com.
