Honesdale High girl's golf team proposed

Honesdale High School is proposing to form a girls golf team in time for this coming fall's season.

The Wayne Highlands School Board passed a motion June 20 supporting the concept, pending confirmation there are enough girls interested in signing up.

"I think it's great ... I believe in equal opportunity," said Heather Stephens, of HHS Friends of Golf and a mother of one of the boys on the team. Stephens is also on the school board. "My concern is that it will be sustainable."

High school administrators met with the golf team coaches in mid-June week to discuss how they will proceed, Assistant Superintendent Timothy Morgan said. "If throughout the months of June and July there seems to be a sustained interest of four to five girls, it will be the recommendation of the administration at that point to recommend the separate entity of a girls' team," he said.

The decision doesn't have to be made until the end of July. "If there happened to be several more girls than that there would have to be consideration of logistics and how that would all play out, but they are all bridges that can be crossed," Morgan said.

School board member Lothar Holbert immediately made a motion to form a girls golf team if enough girls sign up by the end of July.

Morgan said Holbert had the right to make that motion, but it was not the administration's recommendation at this time. Board Vice President George Korb said the motion could be premature as there are other factors beside the level of interest to be sure they are ready to start a new team. Korb said they might have to revisit the decision this summer if anything unknown occurs.

High school Principal Peter Jordan said Athletic Director Diane Scarfalotto is preparing the infrastructure so that it will be in place in the event there is enough interest, and by the time of the July board session. He said Superintendent Gregory Frigoletto has consulted with Honesdale Golf Club, which seems to indicate they can accommodate a girls team to a certain degree.

"I don't think it's a bad thing for the board to show support," member Thomas Fasshauer said, seconding Holbert's motion. "I think the girls deserve. I think you got to get things in line from their standpoint. I think the girls have been dangling long enough. ... Yes, if an asteroid hits, we probably won't have one, but as the administration said, if the numbers are there, they are going to approve it."

The motion for the show of support passed. Voting yes were Matthew Corso, Fasshauer, Holbert and David Stanton. Voting no were Korb and Stephens.

While supporting the idea, Stephens said she thought the motion was "putting the cart before the horse."

In an interview, Stephens said it has only been in recent years that more girls are showing interest; a few years ago, there were "one or two" playing on the co-ed team. More recently, she said four or five girls have been participating.

They want to make sure the team will last if they form one, she explained. At the end of the school year there were about 15 girls who attended a meeting about the golf team, but that narrowed down to four or five.

There were an estimated 16-18 students on the team last year, four or five being girls, he said. HHS competed in 25 games, 18 of them away matches.

The school district supplies coaching, unforms, equipment bags and transportation, but the students supply their own clubs, Stephens said. Team members can just play the game, and if they want to and are picked, they can go on to compete against other school teams, she said.

Morgan stated that in many cases scholastic golf teams in Northeastern Pennsylvania are co-ed, competing together for district or state titles. The difference if they adopt a girls' team, he said, is then the all-girls team would compete only against other school girls’ teams. HHS would no longer have a co-ed team but separate teams for boys and girls.

"We're quite optimistic and excited about it. We contemplated it since last summer," Morgan said. "We're optimistic of beginning a new successful tradition at Wayne Highlands."

He said assembling a team depending on student interest is not unique to golf but is true of all their fall scholastic sports.

A coach for the proposed girls' golf team has not been identified, Morgan said.

This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: Honesdale High School girl's golf team proposed; weighing interest