The Orbis

Issue date: 4/19/07 Section: News/Features

The Vanderbilt Women's Bowling team recently won the NCAA bowling championship.

April 14, 2007, will be a day forever etched in Vanderbilt lore. No longer are we a school with no champions. On that day, Vanderbilt entered the ranks of schools with an NCAA Championship banner to hang in the rafters of their gymnasiums, ours coming after a tense best-of-seven-game Baker-format bowling championship. After jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead over the Lady Hawks of University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, Vanderbilt surrendered the next two racks for a 2-2 tie. Both teams traded racks to move the match into a decisive seventh game. Neither team took control until a gutter ball on a spare attempt by UMES bowler Jessica Worsley gave Vandy the chance they needed to earn a commanding lead. Freshman phenom Josie Earnest, the squad's anchor, sealed the deal with two consecutive strikes, sending the highly visible Vanderbilt crowd into pandemonium.

In just its third year of existence, this team has done what no other team in the more than 100 years of Vanderbilt athletics has done. Proving to be no fluke, the team also beat defending champion Farleigh-Dickinson and perennial powers Nebraska and Holy Cross in their run to glory. Coach John Williamson, a disciple of baseball coach Tim Corbin, deserves credit as well for his ability to use his leadership in a sport in which he lacked experience. Through strong recruiting and fantastic motivation, Williamson has set up the Commodore bowlers as a perennial contender and a team that may soon give us our second national title as well. The team is a serious success. However, not long ago, many considered the team to be no more than an absurd example of the administration's commitment to Title IX compliance.

When the bowling team was incepted more than three years ago, it inspired a good amount of teasing and derision in the Vanderbilt community, namely because it seemed like an example of political correctness getting out of control. Were it not for Title IX considerations, many said, Vanderbilt would never have need for a bowling team. Furthermore, many asked, why bowling? For a school with an agrarian, Southern tradition, bowling does seem like a bit of a stretch in terms of athletics. Many even questioned the athletic demands of the sport, asking why a more mainstream sport such as volleyball or swimming did not, at the time, win out. When the program was officially launched, very few in the community had anything to say about the program that wasn't a snide joke. This, they said, is what political correctness gets us: a bowling team and, the following year, the dissolution of the men's soccer team.

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