By Gail Wood
With a golf club in their hands, they aren’t actually state championship caliber, acing hole after hole. But put Montesano High School’s girls golf team in a classroom, give them a math or English test, and they’re state champions.
With four students – Macey Wecker, Morgan Malizia, Lauren Denholm and Joa Yun – carrying a perfect 4.0 grade point average, the Bulldogs are the WIAA’s academic state 1A champions. The team’s combined GPA is 3.828.
“We have a really academically strong group of kids this year,” said Lloyd Aldrich, the Bulldogs girls golf coach for 12 years. “The girls on the team are mostly friends and I’m sure they feed off each other in the classroom. They’re good kids and they work hard.”
Sometimes, as an athlete strives to improve in their sport, the classroom gets left behind. But at Montesano the objective is always to put the emphasis on academics, never putting athletics above grades.
“In all sports at Montesano, all the coaches here are making sure their kids are up on their school work,” Aldrich said. “A lot of the coaches have study tables for kids. I don’t think it’s unique about our program.”
Good student often equals good golfer.
“I feel as much as golf is a physical sport, it’s really mental,” Yun said. “It also helps me with patience.”
Getting mad over a botched chip shot or a blown tee shot that hooks off the course doesn’t help.
“You’ve got to keep it under the lid and try your best in everything,” Yun said.
And not blowup when things go wrong. Frustration on the golf course or in the classroom often leads to quitting. So, Yun said, patience is a virtue in golf and in the classroom.
Wecker, who also plays volleyball and used to play fastpitch, has discovered that sports teaches you something about self-discipline and about setting priorities. It helps her to learn to stay focused.
“Sports help you to not get upset at little mistakes,” said Wecker, who is a freshman.
Over the years, Aldrich has learned that the kids who work hard in the classroom often work hard in sports. They have that roll-up-the-sleeves work ethic.
“I’ve noticed not only as a golf coach but also in the past when I’ve coached basketball, I think the kids who are working hard in the classroom understand what it takes to be successful as a student and as an athlete,” Aldrich said. “So, it definitely transfers.”
Montesano’s girls golf team stays busy. Besides working on their chipping and their grades, they’re also involved in clubs. Yun is on the math team, knowledge bowl team, honor society and is involved in an astronomy club. With a teacher and classmates, Yun watches the consolations through a telescope once a month.
Wecker is in FBLA, pep club and math club. But while she’s busy, she still leaves a “little time” for TV. Her favorite TV show is “Friends.”
Brooke Whitsell, a junior on the golf team, said she’s learned that sometimes all the hard work on hitting a driver down the fairway or a putter on the green doesn’t result in instant success. Sometimes hard work doesn’t have an immediate payoff.
“You just have to be persistent,” Whitsell said. “Because it didn’t happen the first time it doesn’t mean it won’t happen the second time. Keep working hard.”
And don’t quit.
“You learn to keep smiling and hope for the best,” Whitsell said.
This week the Bulldogs golf team missed two days of school to compete in the district meet at Riverside Golf Course in Chehalis. Sami StOnge knows that it’s easy to procrastinate and say she’ll get to her homework tomorrow. But sports have taught her to stay on top of things.
“It pushes me not to be a procrastinator,” StOnge said.
To be eligible to participate in sports, student-athletes have to maintain a certain grade point average. Aldrich has seen the positive impact of sports on students.
“I’ve had a number of students I’ve coached and those kids are more motivated during the season because they want to avoid getting up early to go to study table,” Aldrich said. “And if a kid is failing a class they’re not able to participate in sports. Rules are in place so kids don’t lose track of what’s important.”
It’s to make sure their focus is academics first.
