Harlem High School's mental toughness drives success in bowling championships
Both the boys' and girls' teams competed in Indiana over the weekend and walked away as National Runner-Ups and National champions, respectively.
The trip to the championship wasn't easy, as Harlem senior Andrew Bell said. Bell described the challenges his team faced throughout the season.
'I had a hard time at state,' Bell said. 'I had so much riding on it. Mentally, I really wanted to perform for my team. I felt like I had to be the rock, but it just drained me, and I completely forgot how to walk and throw the ball.'
Bell said some of his teammates also went through a tough mental battle this season, and it taught him how important the mental part of the game is.
'Mental is probably like 60, 70% of all sports,' Bell said. 'You can be on top physically, but if you can't control the mental, it's not any good.'
On the girls' side, Ashlin Teves is a three-year varsity bowler. She said she sees the program's success as an opportunity to inspire future bowlers.
'It's like a privilege to be able to like, have like a target on my back,' Teves said. 'I don't really see it as pressure. I just see it as people, they look up to us, they want to be like us.'
Jim Heathscott has been the girls' head coach for 25 years. He said he credits the team's success to their focus on the controllables.
'We don't watch them, we can't tackle them, we can't throw marbles on the ground,' Heathscott said. 'It doesn't matter what they're doing. We have to make sure we're taking care of ourselves.'
Bell said he leaves behind the legacy of family, which he said is something he learned from his teammates and coaches.
'They're all family to me because we've just grown up like that and the coaches are really enforcing that,' Bell said. 'They are not really all about the physical thing; with the coaches it's all mental, and that's why I think our team has always been so good.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Shohei Ohtani's two-run home run (34)
Shohei Ohtani hits a two-run home run to left field, his 34th of the season, extending the Dodgers' lead to 3-0 in the 3rd inning
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
JC Tretter resigns from NFL Players Association
First, Lloyd Howell. Now, JC Tretter. In a lengthy interview that was posted earlier this hour, Tretter tells Jonathan Jones of that Tretter is resigning from the NFL Players Association. The former union president had returned last year, as the NFLPA's chief strategy officer. "Over the last couple days, it has gotten very, very hard for my family," Tretter said. "And that's something I can't deal with. So, the short bullet points are: I have no interest in being [executive director]. I have no interest in being considered; I've let the executive committee know that. I'm also going to leave the NFLPA in the coming days because I don't have anything left to give the organization." But Tretter was a candidate to become the interim executive director. And Pablo Torre's reporting pointed to a broader strategy by Tretter to eventually succeed Lloyd Howell as the full-time, non-interim leader of the union. "I want to get my story out there, and I don't want it to look like this was sour grapes or I didn't get the job and I wanted the job," Tretter said. "All I want to do is tell my story and then go be with my family." He did indeed get his story out there. It comes off as a one-way effort from Tretter to provide his version on anything and everything, with little if any pointed questions or followup. "I'm not resigning because what I've been accused of is true," Tretter said. "I'm not resigning in disgrace. I'm resigning because this has gone too far for me and my family, and I've sucked it up for six weeks. And I felt like I've been kind of left in the wind taking shots for the best of the organization. . . . "I got to the point this morning where I woke up and I realized, like, I am going to keep dying on this fucking sword forever of, I'll never, ever be able to do what's best for me. And I will always pick what's best for the organization. And in the end, what's the organization done for me? Like, nothing. "I've been a bullet shield for six weeks for them where everything that's been controversial, it just all dumps down on me, and I've had nothing to fucking do with it. And that's when I was like, I'm done taking bullets for the [organization] on stuff I wasn't a part of and did not do." Or course, he did badmouth Russell Wilson after he failed to get a fully-guaranteed deal. (Tretter says he called Wilson a "fucking loser" in a text message to former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith.) Also, Tretter suggested that disgruntled players should fake injuries, sparking a grievance the NFLPA lost in a slam-dunk ruling. So his hands aren't entirely clean. Even without the application of any elbow grease as to the various positions he took in his comments to CBS. Either way, now ends Tretter's time with the union. Since the NFLPA didn't previously have a chief strategy officer, it may not replace him. For now, the primary challenge becomes hiring an interim executive director.
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Guardians aren't interested in change after President Trump calls for them, Commanders to go back to old offensive nicknames
The Cleveland Guardians sound very good with their decision to rebrand, even after President Donald Trump randomly called for them to revert back to the old 'Indians' nickname on Sunday. Trump made a long post on Truth Social on Sunday calling for both the Guardians and the NFL's Washington Commanders to revert back to their old team names. He even threatened to block the Commanders' impending move back to D.C. and their new stadium if they failed to do so. While not mentioning Trump by name, Guardians president Chris Antonetti made it clear they aren't interested in moving backward on Sunday. 'I understand there are very different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago, but it's a decision we made and we've gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the last four years and we're excited about the future that's in front of us,' he said, via The Athletic. The Commanders have not addressed Trump's post. The Guardians officially changed their team name ahead of the 2022 season, shortly after they stopped using the old 'Chief Wahoo' logo, which many saw as racist and offensive toward Native Americans. The Commanders retired their old 'Redskins' nickname in 2020. They went by the Washington Football Team briefly before landing on the Commanders. Their old nickname, which had been in use since 1933, was widely seen as an offensive slur and drew plenty of criticism in its final years of use. 'For obvious reasons,' Commanders owner Josh Harris said in August, that can't return. 'I think [Commanders] is now embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff,' he said earlier this year, via ESPN. 'So we're going with that.' Though it's unclear if the threat of blocking their stadium deal, real or not, will sway the Commanders, both Harris and Antonetti seem very content with their franchises' new names.
