Archive: Sports

Lansing bowlers will complete in the Section IV State Qualifier at Vestal's Midway Lanes this Saturday.  Last week the Lansing girls won second place in the Sectional matches.  They had their skill and commitment to draw from, as well as over 25 years of coaching experience from Head Coach Doug Volbrecht.

Volbrecht has been coaching Lansing High School bowling since before there was a varsity team.  When the Interscholastic Athletic Conference established bowling Volbrecht and Bill LaRock coached a club team that was accepted into the conference.  The second year then Athletic Director called Volbrecht to ask if he would coach again.

"I asked Eddy, 'Are we a varsity team?'" Volbrecht recalls.  "I said 'If we're a varsity team I'll be there to coach.'  He called me a couple of days later and said, 'You're a varsity team.'  We've been a varsity team ever since."

For the first few years the team was boys only, but eventually there was enough interest to build a girls team as well.  The team has 36 kids this year, the largest team Volbrecht has ever coached.  Another first is that more girls are on the team this year than boys.

This year the girls team finished second in the league.  The boys finished fourth.  Volbrecht says that it has been a rebuilding year.  "I knew that from the start and that's the way I approached the season," he says.  "I had three seniors last year and the rest of the boys were kids with very little experience."


Two years ago Lansing was the first Class C school to make it all the way to the state championships.  Last year both the boys and girls teams set a record in our section when they both won the sectionals.  Lansing was the first IAC team to win sectionals.  It was also the first year boys and girls won together.

Volbrecht bowled with his father as a teenager, but his interest in bowling really took off at SUNY Morrisville, where he bowled with friends.  Weekends he, his parents, and Debbie, then his fiance, bowled on the Smith Corona club team in Groton in a mixed league.  He bowled in that league for 25 years.  Soon after he and Debbie had children he started coaching.

The couple ran the junior bowling program at Ides Lanes for some time, and Volbrecht has coached junior bowling, at Ritger Bowling camp, club teams, and varsity bowling.

"I teach my high school kids the philosophy that bowling is a lifetime sport," Volbrecht says.  "When you're 60, 70, 80 years old as my Dad is -- and he still bowls every week in a Monday night league in Groton, and in a senior citizens travel league -- I try to stress that to my kids."

Volbrecht teaches the basic bowling skills, but goes beyond that to teach etiquette and sportsmanship, scoring, and all aspects of the game.  But once they get on the lanes he likes to let them think for themselves.  "I have some very smart kids on my team this year," he says.  "Nick Eisler says, 'I have a geometry question for you.  If I'm standing over here and the projection is too far this way, and the arc is...'  I said, 'Yes, Nick it's geometry, but physics is involved, too.'  I like to bring in school work also."

Today Volbrecht continues to bowl two nights a week.  He participates in national tournaments.  As a varsity coach he credits volunteers for contributing to the team's success.  "I have some wonderful volunteer help," he says.  "Tom Sullivan, whose daughter Christie is on the team, helps with the girls.  Helen Newman Lanes' Bill LaRock and Richard Walding help.   LaRock has volunteered his time and money to fix a lot of bowling balls for the team."

"My favorite part of coaching is seeing the smiles on the kids faces," Volbrecht  says.  "I don't coach to get in kids faces.  I show them what they have to do in practice.  Sometimes you've got to let them falter, and them ask them why did they falter?  I like to get them going in the right direction."

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