Casey Doyle, head coach of Emporia High School bowling team and sophomore marketing major, demonstrates for the student athletes during practice at Flint Hills Lanes. Doyle has a long history of bowling, including 10 years of bowling, bowling camps and assistant coach position for EHS last season.
Although he’s just a sophomore in college, Casey Doyle, marketing major, is the head coach of the Emporia High School bowling team after serving as the team’s assistant coach last season.
Last year, as Doyle was trying to find a bowling league to compete in, he was asked to join a team in the Flint Hills Lanes Monday night league. There, he met the EHS team’s previous head coach Ally Eckert, and she asked if he would be interested in coaching.
“I said ‘yeah, sure,’ so I got the interview a couple weeks later and they (EHS) gave me the job,” Doyle said.
According to Doyle, there hasn’t been much transition between the assistant coach and the head coach job.
“I’m in charge of a few more things now,” Doyle said. “It hasn’t been anything too crazy or overly demanding. It’s kind of just lining up the rosters for away matches, setting up practices, communicating with the school.”
As a head coach, Doyle relies on his past experiences as a bowler. He has bowled for over 10 years, attended bowling camps and uses advice that his own coaches had given him.
“I try and take all that and give as much of that to the kids as I can,” Doyle said .
Doyle’s main focus as a coach is the mental aspect of bowling.
“I’ve always found out that being mentally strong is just as good as knowing how to throw the ball,” Doyle said. “Everyone throws a bad shot once in a while and those people that can put it behind them and say ‘it’s a bad shot, it’s in the past, no biggie,’ … go farther and have more success than those who throw a bad shot and are mad about it for the rest of the tournament.”
When Doyle sees that members of the bowling team are frustrated or upset about a shot, he said he makes sure that they remember it’s in the past and can continue on with their practice or game.
As the assistant coach, Doyle was the team’s motivator, according to Laney Stark, a junior on the girl’s varsity team at EHS.
“He’s still the motivator now,” Stark said. “He’s really helpful when we get frustrated and we don’t know what to do or how to move. He’ll tell us what we’re doing wrong and how we can fix it.”
According to Doyle, there isn’t any issue with his age from members of the team.
“I don’t feel like any pressure to talk to my coach,” said Eddie Sack, a senior varsity bowler for EHS. “He’s seen me enough that he knows what I’m doing wrong most of the time and he can adjust me pretty well.”
Doyle plans to continue coaching throughout the remainder of his time at ESU.