Seattle Gaels Bring Gaelic Sport to Seattle Area Teens
By TERRY LYNCH
SEATTLE – Gaelic Sports are fun, and the Seattle Gaels Youth Program’s focus this year has been to partner with area high schools to let the kids there have fun with our sports. We have enjoyed remarkable success. By our estimate 2,500 teenagers have swung a hurley or kicked a Gaelic football, or both, this season, and every one of them had a good time doing it.
Our partner high schools were Kennedy High School in Burien, Skyline High School in Sammamish, O’Dea High School in Seattle and Holy Names Academy in Seattle.
Skyline High School has been a big success. We were asked to teach two solid weeks of Gaelic football and hurling to a group of upperclass PE students.
The buzz among the students was so positive that the school principal attended a class and based on what she saw she approved the purchase of $2,400 worth of Gaelic equipment from Irish manufacturer for Skyline’s PE program.
This equipment was delivered in September and we returned shortly afterward for another two week instructional set. Skyline’s motivated students have gone on to form a Gaelic sports club and hope to play matches against O’Dea High School’s Celtic Heritage Club early in the new year.
O’Dea High School was also a big success, where we were helped by a lot of inside connections. This athletic powerhouse has a strong Irish school culture and has been exceptionally receptive to our sports.
O’Dea is now requiring their freshman and sophomore students to take instruction in both hurling and Gaelic football as part of their PE curriculum.
O’Dea’s Celtic Heritage Club, which has long ties to the Seattle Irish community, was repurposed this year to act as a Gaelic sports club, and this change has seen club membership more than double with boys eager to play. O’Dea intends to field a team to challenge Skyline.
Kennedy High School invited us to demonstrate our sports to the entire student body on St. Patrick’s Day and later in the year brought the Seattle Gaels in to demonstrate Gaelic football and hurling in the school’s PE classes. (We also taught hurling to Kennedy’s creative writing classes, who used it as a basis for writing assignments!)
Holy Names Academy was our team’s all girls counterpoint to our involvement with the all-boys O’Dea. Our ladies football and camogie squads were granted access to HNA’s PE program in the springtime and spent a whole day familiarizing the girls with the sports.
The Youth Program wasn’t just a huge success for the youth we served. It was also a source of considerable fulfilment and pleasure for the large number of Gaels who participated in the program. Ask anyone who instructed at a school event and they will tell you how remarkably fun it is to coach teenagers. And they’ll tell you that these kids GET our sports, and love to play them.
Looking into next season, we hope to broaden inter-school play and expand on our partnerships with high schools. We welcome support from the IHC as we expand Irish sport in Seattle. Talk to your children’s high school PE instructors about the Seattle Gaels bringing Irish sport to your teens’ schools. More info at www.seattlegaels.com and youth@seattlegaels.com. |
