Gathered in the middle of Geneva’s contest gym earlier this week, Allyson Karas and Bri Phillips shared banter, laughs and senior night snacks.
Had you turned the wall clock back a few hours and ditched the spread, this might have been two pals relishing the badminton unit of PE.
A similar experience spurred Karas and Phillips to join the school’s badminton team in their final high school spring. With the season already winding down, they’ve certainly discovered this is no barbecue, much like the rest of an Upstate Eight Conference River Division over which Geneva has reigned since 2010.
“It’s harder than gym,” Phillips said, “because people take it more seriously, obviously.”
“And people are better,” Karas said.
“Yeah” Phillips agreed, “and the rackets are a lot different. The gym rackets … they’re heavier. You wouldn’t think that they would be, but our rackets are definitely a lot lighter.”
Whichever way you swing it, Geneva won each of its five UEC River matches this season. Batavia does not field a team.
In polling several Vikings, it sounds as if other schools who leave nets, rackets and shuttlecocks in an athletic closet after classes might at least gauge student interest.
“My dad wanted me to run track freshman year, and he said I needed to try out for a spring sport. So I decided I was going to try out for the badminton team, and I couldn’t have made a better decision,” senior Emma Peters said.
“People were asking, ‘How’s high school going? What are you involved in?’ And people knew I played basketball, and then I started to mention I played badminton, and they were like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ The respect is gaining a lot at our school.”
Doug Ross, Geneva’s longtime coach for all seasons, resuscitated badminton in 2009 after declining interest and enrollment prompted the sport’s dissolution in the 1980s.
This spring marked the first time since that reincarnation that coaches’ stipends were paid by the athletic department instead of via student fees, said first-year varsity coach Mike Glabinski, who had guided lower-level teams in previous seasons.
“We’ve always been treated well and known we’re a sport,” said Glabinski, an adaptive PE teacher, “but it’s a lot. You can just feel the difference being part of the athletic department.”
Peters and sophomore Elizabeth Blaszynski are the program’s varsity veterans, but several other seniors also are longtime pieces of the program.
Hannah Vallero, who plays tennis during the fall, recalls her own “this isn’t recreational” revelation a few springs ago.
“It’s actually a lot more different than I expected,” Vallero said. “Definitely … with the racket, the hand-eye coordination helps. … This is a lot more fast-paced; it’s a lot more reaction time. Tennis is a lot more running around, I’d say.”
For the seniors preparing for their final UEC and sectional meets – as well as hopeful berths in the May 15 and 16 state meet in Charleston – interesting crossroads loom.
Soon, backyard badminton will double as the garden variety for athletes who have learned to embrace the sport’s great indoors.
By no means are they alone.
“More people are talking about how they want to try out, and everybody knows about it now,” Vallero said.
They’ll soon know something else: It’s harder than gym.
• Kevin Druley is sports editor of the Kane County Chronicle. He can be reached at 630-845-5347 or kdruley@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @KevinDruley.