BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — In a mostly empty Lucky Strike bowling alley, Donald Sanders sat at an end table with a clipboard in hand.
Scribbled onto printed spreadsheets were scores from previous tryouts held early last week, and he waited for the first remaining bowlers to arrive.
While Opelika High School’s head bowling coach was optimistic about the final day, he wasn’t exactly sure who was coming since many of those interested in joining the team required their parents to drive them to Auburn.
Since Sanders founded Opelika’s bowling team in 2023, it’s been to regionals, earned a bowler a college scholarship and won a county rivalry trophy.
What it doesn’t have, however, is a place of its own to practice.
Every workout and match happens at the Lucky Strike on Opelika Road because there are no on-campus lanes. Sanders said that gap is the biggest thing standing between his program and consistent success.
Closing it is his focus.
“My biggest deficit is that my ‘playing field’ is here and not at the high school,” Sanders said. “If I can get a bowling alley at the high school, I can practice more.”
Renting lanes isn’t cheap. It costs the program $110 per bowler to practice and play over the course of the season. With roughly 20 bowlers across the girls and boys varsity rosters, that’s $2,200 a year. None of that money goes back into the program.
Equipment adds another layer. Unlike football or basketball, where gear can be shared and reused, bowling is more personal. Each athlete buys his or her own ball and shoes, and while it’s usually a one-time expense, it can be a cost that keeps some kids from trying the sport.
Sanders has put numbers to the idea. Early schematics for six basic lanes came in around $250,000, but he said he’s thinking bigger: eight lanes, and a fund large enough to keep them running long after installation is complete.
His target is between $500,000 and $1 million in outside funding, and the initial construction is only part of his plan. A working alley also needs a lane-oiling machine, oil, maintenance and a mechanic to keep the pinsetters running.
Sanders said he wants enough up front to cover those costs going forward.
“That way it continues without costing [the school] any money,” Sanders explained. “That’s my thought pattern. I want to do a letter-writing campaign, but I need to talk to the school board to see if that’s feasible or not.”
That conversation may determine how far the program can go more than any match result ever could.
While the total estimated cost may carry an eyewateringly high price tag to some, Sanders has a case to make.
The program started almost by accident roughly just over three years ago when he asked the district why Opelika had no bowling team. Jamie Williams, the athletic director at the time, was weighing a few new sports and chose bowling almost simply because Sanders mentioned it.
It has quickly grown since. The girls team reached regionals in year two, and won the “Battle of Lee County,” an annual bragging-rights matchup with area rivals Auburn High School, Glenwood School and Beauregard High School, last season.
It’s been a winding road for Sanders to get to this point. As a young boy, he went to the local bowling alley with his older brother and later on the weekends with his friends.
After participating in both military and civilian bowling leagues while he was in the Army in North Carolina, Sanders began volunteer coaching at a nearby youth bowling league association on Saturdays and eventually earned his bronze level bowling coach certification.
Since beginning Opelika’s program in 2023, Sanders has built it from the middle school up, with about 10 bowlers at each level and more years to develop them before high school.
For the athletes, the payoff is bigger than scores. Parker Thompson, one of the program’s more experienced bowlers, says the team has reshaped his life beyond the lanes.
“For me, it’s been very influential,” Thompson said.
He’s attended bowling camps, connected with the community and mentored younger bowlers and credited Sanders as a driving force. Thompson said the experience has given him “a really big outer look on life, not just on bowling as a sport.”
Sanders and Thompson make the same argument: bowling opens a door the marquee sports keep shut for most kids.
Former Opelika student and Lady Bulldog bowler Nina Mendoza also earned a scholarship to bowl for the University of Mobile, which helped cover almost the entire cost of her college education along with an ROTC scholarship.
“You don’t have to be 6-foot-6, run a [40-yard dash] in 4.4 seconds or dunk a basketball,” Sanders said. “But if you put the same type of dedication into bowling they put into football, baseball and basketball, I can get you a scholarship.”
Thompson turned that perspective into an appeal to the community: bowling may be the most inviting sport Opelika offers because it doesn’t screen anyone out based on physical characteristics.
“You don’t have to be tall, you don’t have to be short, you don’t have to be a certain weight and you don’t have to be a certain strength. It’s literally for anybody,” Thompson said.
