Monday, May 12, 2008 4:09 PM CDT
Fast, intense sport of badminton overcoming skeptics, say state qualifiers in IHSA competition
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Oak Lawn Community High School students Amy Adamow, Megan Sullivan and Sarah Grisko dangle their legs over the ledge of the balcony, looking down on Lantz Gymnasium at Eastern Illinois University with an air of carefree contentment.
As the last rounds of the state badminton finals approached, the three friends seem relaxed and giddy in their makeshift seats. However, ask them if badminton is really a sport, and you risk turning this placid trio of teenage girls into a pack of snarling wolverines.
Well, maybe not wolverines. But they get pretty irate, to be sure.
“I hate when people say it’s not a sport,” said Grisko, a senior who has played volleyball and basketball as well.
Badminton “is intense; people underestimate it,” added Sullivan, also a senior and veteran of the same three sports.
They are among the dozens of high school girls who descended on EIU for the IHSA state badminton championship over the weekend. Competitors, including the three friends from Oak Lawn, said they are drawn to the unique, fast-paced sport because of its intensity and strategic demands.
Despite the fact that EIU hosts the state finals, to say nothing of a prestigious summer camp, badminton is largely unheard of at the high school level in East Central Illinois, and most of those who participated in the weekend tourney hailed from suburban Chicago. Yet even some of them have struggled to earn the respect of classmates and other athletic coaches, they said.
At Oak Lawn’s high school, the badminton team challenged a once-skeptical football coach to a match. As he was soundly thumped by each member of the team, his respect for badminton grew, said Sullivan.
“Everyone beat him,” she said. “Now he’s our biggest fan.”
For those of you who don’t remember from P.E. class: Badminton is sort of a cross between volleyball and tennis, minus a ball. Instead, badminton players wield racquets as they try to keep an unwieldy projectile called a “shuttlecock” or “birdie” from touching the ground on their side of a high net.
While this sounds simple, state-caliber players said the game requires an enormous amount of both mental and physical prowess.
“It just involves so much work and time,” said Lindsey Rapinchuk, a senior at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, where badminton “is huge.” Even so, she said most successful high school badminton programs are developed and maintained only if former players return to coach.
Ashley Gorson, member of a doubles team from Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire near Chicago, is a figure skater as well as a badminton player. She said she took up the latter activity for something to do in the off-season.
“I wanted something easy,” she said, followed by a hearty laugh. “It turned out to be harder than figure skating.”
Gorson added that she used to be “one of the outsider people making fun of badminton.”
“Now you’re one of the people getting made fun of,” joked Katie Lange, Gorson’s doubles partner.
Lange defied anyone who questions the athleticism of badminton players to watch a match at state and “see how hard it is, how much energy it takes. People think that it is really easy — it’s what they play in gym and their backyards,” she said.
The successful doubles team of seniors Samantha Wei and Kerry Sullivan, also from Stevenson, said badminton is gaining acceptance at their school following their appearance in the state tournament for two years in a row. “It’s been growing exponentially,” said Sullivan.
A volleyball player, she initially dabbled in badminton to condition her upper body strength. “Then I started focusing on badminton more, and I like badminton more now,” she said.
Unlike a six-member volleyball team, the two-person badminton doubles team “is more in your control,” Sullivan said.
She noted that her volleyball experience has served her well in badminton. Sullivan translated a volleyball spike into a “jump smash” that has helped her dominate badminton opponents, she said.
Hanting Wang and Renee Cheng of Naperville Central High School both started playing badminton in seventh grade. Cheng said badminton is especially loved in some Asian cultures, and both girls said their families are very supportive of their badminton exploits.
At their school, meanwhile, badminton “is getting more popular,” said Wang.
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
CLICK TO ENLARGE
|
