Speaker 0 00:00:00 <silence>
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Hello, welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Salandra of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thanks for listening. Today's guest is Holly Harris. Holly is the Women's bowling coach at Wichita State and Bowling program is now part of the athletic department and will begin NCAA competition in 20 24, 20 25. We are recording this on Wednesday, two days before the official announcement that that program will be under the athletic department umbrella. Holly bowled for the shockers from 2010 to 2014. She earned all American Honors and Academic, all American Honors as a shocker. She started with the bowling program as marketing development and operations coordinator. In 2014, she became the women's head coach In 2019, the Shockers won the intercollegiate Team championships in 2021. They finished second in 2022. Last spring, they advanced to the semi-finals and freshman Paige Wagner won the women's singles title. So Holly, big day, big week, uh, for shocker bowling. Uh, what are the first things that you're gonna tell people when you start talking about this move?
Speaker 2 00:01:22 Just how exciting it is. Um, NCAA bowling is something we've been trying to get into for a while, and it's, it's just a good time and, and it's, it's exciting that we get to match the resources that, that the athletic department can provide with just the caliber of program that we've developed over the years.
Speaker 1 00:01:41 So you've known this move was coming for a while. How have you begun behind the scenes to, to get ready for this? What was kind of the first, first steps of becoming an NCAA program?
Speaker 2 00:01:52 Yeah. Um, there were some conversations over the last few years and those really ramped up over the summer. Um, it's been explored a few times, but was really explored, um, over the summer. So there's not really a whole lot of preparation that we've done. Um, there's been a lot of meetings and a lot of, Hey, how do we do this? Hey, how do we do this? Um, and kind of just information gathering so that when over this, these next nine months, we can create a smooth transition and make sure that all the questions are asked and answered. And everything's done before July one, when it's official, um, that we're in the athletic department.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 So Wichita State Bowling, uh, probably the nation's best bowling program, 12 national titles for the men, 10 for the women. And when you talk to shocker bowling coaches over the years, they always loved to emphasize that they wanted to do things the way other great programs did, regardless of sport, whether, you know, comparing them to a football program or a volleyball program. You know, they wanted to do things, physical conditioning, nutrition, teamwork, mental coaching, all those kind of things. So does that background of, of working in that way over the program's history, does that give you confidence about this transition? Does that help?
Speaker 2 00:03:04 Yeah, for sure. I think it'll, um, be less surprising to the athletes. So it's not like we're doing a whole lot of new things. There's certainly gonna be some new things that they get to be a part of being in the athletic department. Um, but they're familiar with a lot of what they do because we've studied it for the last 10, 15 years that, um, women's bullying made this move in, in 2004. Um, and so we've been following, trying to keep up with what they're doing so we're not following behind by any means.
Speaker 1 00:03:35 So as you mentioned, this is something that's been discussed over the years. NCAA took on women's bowling in 2004. Uh, why now? Why is this the right time for the athletic department to, to add women's bowling?
Speaker 2 00:03:47 Yeah, it just matches, it matches what the, uh, the values of the athletic department are. Um, it's a great time to just elevate women's sports in general. Um, and so it just, it just worked this time around.
Speaker 1 00:04:01 Was there a light bulb moment for you where you walked out of a meeting or put down the phone and said, oh boy, this is, this is a real thing. This is, this is going to happen.
Speaker 2 00:04:09 Yeah. Um, I got involved in like late June, um, and it was just a phone call that, Hey, we're gonna do this and we'd like to explore the idea of you being the head women's coach. Um, and it was a pretty, pretty emotional day. Um, because we have, we have worked at this for so long, um, and for it to all kind of come to fruition and, and to be relatively quickly, I mean, it was the, again, the middle of June when I, um, kind of got brought into the conversations. So, um, it was a really cool phone call that just kind of transpired and then some meetings and here we are. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 How hard has it been keeping this, uh, secret under wraps to a certain degree? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:48 Really hard, really hard <laugh>. Um, uh, I'm, I'm, it's hard because it's exciting. Um, I wanna tell the girls, I wanna tell my teammates that I bowled with. I wanna tell the people that have been so supportive of the program, um, because it's been a question for a long time. When's this gonna happen? Why is, why not? Why haven't we been there yet? Um, so to know that it's happening and then to still continue to get the questions of when are we gonna go to the NCAA has, is there more conversations? Um, and trying to dodge those without lying. Um, 'cause I think that being honest is important. Sure. Um, so trying to, in a roundabout way be like, well, it's just being explored and we're looking at it.
Speaker 1 00:05:29 Um, my understanding is great bowlers in NCAA bowling, great bowlers in the I T C, formerly the U S B C, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Wichita State has competed in. Is the power of the NCAA brand, is that a part of, of the attractiveness of, of making this move?
Speaker 2 00:05:45 Yeah, for sure. Uh, I mean, recruiting's just gotten harder over the years, and that's probably the, the most exciting part of this move is that recruiting, I don't wanna say is gonna get easier, but it should be a little easier where we're not fighting with things that we don't have. Um, a lot, a lot of girls are looking for the N C A A experience and whatever that looks like. Um, and we've never been able to provide that. So knowing that we can now, um, is, is exciting.
Speaker 1 00:06:12 So as a Friday when people are listening to this, it will be official, uh, people will know. What do you do to begin preparing for the transition? Are you, uh, putting up NCAA things in the, in the, in the bowling, the bowling lanes, in the ratting and student center? Are you reading through the NCAA manual? What, what mm-hmm. <affirmative> what are kind of the first, first days, first weeks of this transition look like for you?
Speaker 2 00:06:35 Yeah, the first weeks are, are learning all the recruiting rules so that we don't break them <laugh>. Right. And that we can follow those to a tee. So I've been, um, working with the compliance office to get all of bowling sports specific rules under wraps. Um, and then it's just gonna be a lot of meetings, I think, with learning how things are done in the athletic department. Um, we've done some of those things, but just kind of however we wanted to do them. It's like, oh, we wanna have physical conditioning. This is how we're gonna do it. Um, now there's different people that are gonna run that for us, and what does that look like? Um, so it's gonna be a lot of questions and answers. Um, and just digging through things as we make the transition all while still <laugh> competing at a really high level, um, in the, the space that we're in right now. So it's gonna be really busy. Um, hopefully the fun kind of busy, um, and a little bit of like anxiousness excitedness for what's coming, um, but still staying grounded and present in what we're trying to do this year.
Speaker 1 00:07:39 That was gonna be my next question. So, right, you're doing all this NCAA transition as you're still preparing for the season. Tell us a little bit about how the season, for people who aren't familiar, how does the bowling season unfold for you? What do you have going on over the next boy, I guess, what, seven or eight months? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:07:54 So we'll start competing, we'll pick teams and things along those lines, uh, around the 1st of October. And then we'll start competing the third week and in October. And we'll go until the middle-ish of April is when our national tournament is. Um, we've got a few breaks in there, which will be nice, um, to be able to spend some time kind of over here in the NCAA realm, learning what next year's gonna look like. Um, but yeah, we're, we're foot on the gas trying to win another national championship here in April.
Speaker 1 00:08:21 So the tryout portion of shocker bowling that you mentioned, I, I think has been really, really well known for its importance, its intensity, all those kind of things. Does that change as an NCAA program?
Speaker 2 00:08:34 Yeah. Uh, we, we likely won't have a tryout anymore. Um, it'll just be the players that we select and then maybe a few walk-ons similar to any other sport that's over here right now. Um, you have your scholarship players, you've got some walk-on players that come on too. Um, so that'll change as, as there won't be tryouts, but that's not meaning that we're not gonna do those things that we had done at the beginning of the year because they are so important. And they do help players learn about their game and where their struggles are and what they're good at, and kind of give us a pretty good guideline of what the first few weeks or months of practice and individual lessons look like. Um, so we'll still do the same process. It just won't be a tryout. It'll be more of like an evaluation beginning of the year type situation.
Speaker 1 00:09:23 What the, we're recording this on Wednesday. You're listening to this on Friday. The news is out. Uh, I'll ask you to, I guess, predict a little bit what will be the reaction of former shockers? Uh, do you expect your phone just to go crazy? What's that part of this going to be like, you know, communicating it to the alums and, and their, I'm assuming enthusiasm and excitement. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:44 I think it's gonna be a whole lot of smiles, a lot of really good conversations, um, and a lot of excitement and, and almost some relief in some ways that like, ugh, we we're here, we've done it, we got the job done. Um, now it's time to go compete in that area. But yeah, I expect my phone to be pretty <laugh>, pretty busy. Um, we were talking yesterday in the office of what that looks like. Um, we don't really get great service down in the basement <laugh>, so we might have to spend some time, um, upstairs just talking to people because it will be exciting. The alums are gonna be thrilled. Um, we've talked for a long time, kind of every time that we win or every time something good happens that this isn't just what this team did. And it's not just this year's group that did that. Um, it's the whole program. It's the many years of alums and support that they've given us. And so this moves much of the same. It's, it's the support of the alums that's allowed us to get here. The support of the Radigan Student Center that's allowed us to get here. It's not just five of us that sat in a meeting room and we're like, Hey, let's do this. Um, it's those five and the 50 plus years of shockers that have helped get us here.
Speaker 1 00:10:47 So it sounds like over the past, what is it, 19 years that NCAA has had bowling, at some point it became prominent enough where Wichita State Women's Bowler says, Hey, this is where we, we need to be working toward this. So this has been something that, you know, over those last 15 years or whatever that's been in the back of people's minds that we need to get the program to this point. Am I understanding that Absolutely. That scene correctly?
Speaker 2 00:11:12 Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, um, right away when it switched over, there wasn't a whole lot of like, oh my gosh, we need to do this right now. Um, 'cause we just didn't know. It was pretty unknown of what that looked like, but over the past 10 years, um, it's just grown where, where that's, that's where the, the good players are going. That's where the good players wanna be. Um, that is kind of the, the pinnacle of college bullying.
Speaker 1 00:11:37 Yeah. Compare the two organizations, are there important differences in championship structure, how they run tournaments, level of competition? How would you compare the two?
Speaker 2 00:11:48 Yeah. Um, ITCs is intercollegiate team Championships. That's our national tournament. Um, in the space that we bowl in right now, they top 16 go, it's a double elimination bracket. Um, in the NCAA world, it's more similar to other sports where there's some regions and you make it outta your regional finals to the final four and, and things like that. Um, competition level has, it's been higher on the NCAA side over the past few years. Um, that's just where more of the, the higher caliber players are going. We still get some really good high caliber players on the I T C side as well, but the majority are going to the NCAA side. And that's where you're seeing their teams are just a little bit more competitive. Um, they're bowling and match play a lot. All of their regular season tournaments are head-to-head matches. Um, where on the U S B C side, we're bowling in tournaments, a lot of like total pins or qualifying to get to an 18 bracket.
Speaker 2 00:12:48 So they're not seeing that match play stuff as often. Um, and so that definitely gives an advantage to the NCAA teams when we do get into postseason. Um, because I T C is the umbrella over all of the different acronyms, bowling is, um, part of the N A I A now as well N J C A, um, U S B C and ncaa. So, um, U S B C is kind of the umbrella over all of them. Uh, so some NCAA schools will compete in the I T C uh, realm and in their, they've gotten an advantage 'cause they just bowl more matches than we do.
Speaker 1 00:13:21 Yeah. How do you go about setting up a schedule for, I guess, which we'll start in the fall of 24 mm-hmm. <affirmative>, how, yeah. How does that process work for you?
Speaker 2 00:13:29 Uh, that's a great question. <laugh>. Alright. Um, I, I think, I mean we've, we've obviously like researched what are, what are the good tournaments to go to? Where are, it's still a tournament structure, um, where you're going to a place with 10, 12, 15 teams. Um, but at each team that you're bowling against, it's a head-to-head match. Um, so you'll be one and oh against so and so, and then you'll bowl another game against Nebraska and then you'll bowl another game against Vanderbilt and another game against Sam Houston or whoever it is. Um, and you're win-loss record, I think is how they determine their, like, who wins the tournament. I'm not entirely sure on that. It might be total pin still, but I know there's a win-loss record component to it. Um, so we've been looking at where are the, where are the higher ranking teams going?
Speaker 2 00:14:15 Are there tournaments where there's a lot of them? And we've, we've researched what that looks like. Um, and now it'll be questions of how do we get into that? Um, I know on my side right now, I just fill out an entry form and I'm in the tournament, um, on their side. I don't know if it's asking for permission, if it is just an entry form, is it just acknowledging, hey, I'd like to go. Um, so that'll definitely be one of the things that we try and nail down right away here, probably hopefully in the next month or two.
Speaker 1 00:14:43 And then there are automatic bids to the national tournament. There are at large bids to the national tournament. So it follows the, the typical NCAA structure that we would be familiar with from basketball, softball, all those kind of
Speaker 2 00:14:54 Things. For sure, for sure. Um, and we're not sure what our, what if our conference affiliation will look like, um, to get that automatic bid. So we might just be in a situation where we're independent and be in an at large situation. Um, we might try and, and get into a conference. Uh, this, like I said, middle of June is kind of when we decided that this was gonna happen in 24, 25. So we're still exploring what that idea looks like.
Speaker 1 00:15:18 So it sounds like it has some similarities then with golf or maybe tennis where you're not necessarily playing, you know, you're not playing home and away bowling matches, you're, it is more a, we go to a tournament for a few days a weekend, and then at the end of the season there's power rankings, I guess, and win losses and things like that. Yep,
Speaker 2 00:15:37 Yep.
Speaker 1 00:15:37 Okay. Okay. So NCAA bowling, you have five scholarships, you can divide those up among people on the team. How does recruiting then change for you with that scholarship structure?
Speaker 2 00:15:48 It's awesome. <laugh>. Um, it allows us to give, to give players more, um, than what we've been able to do. We've been really lucky over the past 20 years that we've been able to fundraise a lot of our scholarships. Um, so we're still able to give healthy amounts to young ladies, but this is just gonna match what the other schools are allowed to do. Um, and so we're not fighting it. It just feels like we're not gonna fight an uphill battle all the time. Um, we've got a really great program and we've got really great coaches and a really great structure, and we know that. Um, and now we just get to match that with the resources that are in other NCAA schools too. So recruiting should get, um, better.
Speaker 1 00:16:26 So NCAA bowling started 2004. There are approximately a hundred teams, uh, across all divisions. You will face NCAA Division three, NCAA division two schools. As you go along through a, through a schedule. Uh, update us on the powers. Who should Wichita State Bowling fans kind of be aware of?
Speaker 2 00:16:45 Yeah, I mean there's, there's the typical people that have been in the NCAA tournament kind of every year that it's been in existence. Um, Nebraska's always up there. Vanderbilt's always up there. Um, Jacksonville State will likely be up there. Sam Houston, Steven F. Austin, um, are kind of the ones that have typically been in there most years. Um, I'm probably forgetting a few too. Um, but those are kind of the, the big 5, 6 7 that'll be up there.
Speaker 1 00:17:13 Okay. And I think if you look at them and you look at the national champions, you see some of the schools that Wichita State maybe would've competed against, you know, in the, in the eighties or nineties. And some of them have migrated to, to NCAA bowling.
Speaker 2 00:17:26 Yeah. Nebraska's probably the big one that we used to bowl against a lot, um, because in the eighties and nineties there was a, a conference and you bowled against teams in your conference, and Nebraska was part of our conference, so we bowled against them quite often. Um, and then they, they were, they made the move in 2004. They won in oh 4 0 5 and have won a few times since then also. Um, so it'll be fun to compete against them again. I'm sure.
Speaker 1 00:17:50 So the men's bowling program at Wichita State, uh, and the Women's Bowling Program, you've always been very much joined from my impression, going to the same tournaments, traveling together, all those kind of things. How does the women going ncaa, how will the that change the relationship between the two programs?
Speaker 2 00:18:05 Yeah, we certainly won't travel together anymore. Um, but we're still gonna be in the same space. Um, we're, we're, we're sharing the same lanes. We'll be near each other often. So the, the friendships and the comradery that has grown between the two programs, I don't think will change a whole lot. Um, we're really fortunate that the men are still gonna be supported. Um, the RC is, has stepped up writing Student Center, has stepped up and said, we're gonna continue to support the men's program. Um, so they're not going anywhere, which is awesome. Um, because that would be a travesty if that, if that happened. But they're not going anywhere. So I don't see it changing a whole lot. Um, we'll still occupy the same space. Um, we're looking at what practice times look like. Can we practice at the same time? Can we still compete against each other during team practice? We don't, we don't know, obviously, we'll look into what that, what the rules are with compliance and all that stuff beforehand. But, um, I, I think we'll still be around each other quite a bit.
Speaker 3 00:19:13 Hi, this is Rick Miama, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Chakra Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1 00:19:45 I probably should have asked this at the start, but describe the bowling programs up to this point. They operate out of the Raton Student Center. What is their status? How do you describe that to, to someone, how they operate? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:19:56 So we're an independent varsity sport at Wichita State. We're not a club. Um, we've got full-time paid coaches. We're supported through the RADIGAN Student Center and through the university. Um, but we weren't part of the athletic department, so we were right in the middle. It's us and rowing are kind of in the same spot. Um, the radigan Student Center is our home. Uh, they help with, with some funding. We do some fundraising also. Um, and we've really been the shocker bowling program. There really hasn't been a men and women where they're, where they're doing things separate. We train at the same time, we travel to the same tournaments. Um, our competitions are the same places, same days, things along those lines. So we're really like one unit, um, for the past, I don't 50 ish years. Um, and now we'll see ourselves split up a little bit more.
Speaker 1 00:20:43 Uh, Mark Lewis will be your assistant coach. Tell us how his duties will, uh, shift, I guess, during this transition.
Speaker 2 00:20:51 Yeah, so he's gonna be split. He's gonna stay with the men a little bit and help them through the transition, and then also assist with the women. So he'll travel with us to some competitions. He'll work with the women, um, in the player development space, um, and do some of our physical training, uh, assist with team practices, things like that. Um, we're still not totally sure what it all looks like, um, depending on when we're gonna have team practice and where his time goes, things like that. Um, but he'll be with both programs throughout the next few years.
Speaker 1 00:21:23 And Rick Steel Smith continues as the, as the head coach of the men's bowling, correct?
Speaker 2 00:21:27 Correct.
Speaker 1 00:21:27 Right. Okay. Holly Harris, thank you very much for your time. Big day for, uh, the athletic department. Big day for bowling at Wichita State. Uh, we appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank
Speaker 2 00:21:37 You.
Speaker 4 00:21:53 Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast. Courtesy of Wichita State University's strategic communications, we encourage you to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
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Speaker 5 00:22:08 It's over. It's over. Ladies and gentlemen. Say it slowly and savor it. Wichita State is going to the Final four for the first time in 48 years.
Speaker 6 00:22:23 Unbelievable. What a scene, folks. The shocker fans are just going crazy in the stands.
Speaker 5 00:22:29 Just may the greatest win in the history of Wichita State Basketball.
