Friday's Internet Edition, July 04, 2008.
from Cove participating
in Olympics
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News editor - For 22 years, Texas firefighters have been gathering to compete in various activities as part of their own Olympics.
For 15 of those years, Copperas Cove Fire Chief Dennis Haas has participated in the events and building new friendships while at the competitions.
“Over the years, I have been involved with the Olympic games for about 15 years,” Haas said. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been back, because the rules are that you have to be with a paid fire department.”
In his first year with Copperas Cove, Haas has recruited three other fire department personnel to join him in competing next week in San Antonio.
The firefighter Olympics has activities ranging from darts, volleyball, disc golf, archery, golf, basketball, billiards, softball, soccer, bowling, powerlifting, and track.
The team of four from Copperas Cove will travel to San Antonio to participate in the bowling competition.
“When I first got here, I asked if anyone participated in the Firefighters Olympics,” Haas said. “Nobody had even heard of it.”
Haas said that afterwards he started recruiting people to join up with him to participate for this year.
Representing Cove Fire Department will be Haas, Training Officer Gary Young, Shift Lieutenant Steven Spink, and Paramedic/Firefighter J.J. Miller.
“It’s going to be a great time of friendly competition,” Young said. “It will also be a great time for us to network with other firefighters and make some friends.”
Young said that by building a new network of firefighters that they get to know on a first name basis, they are able to call upon those friends when they need advice or want to know how their department handled a situation. This would allow them to get an outsider perspective.
“By networking, when we have challenges, we can call upon those contacts and see if they have dealt with a similar situation,” Young said. “It doesn’t mean that we will follow that, but it can provide us with different options or a different way to look at things.”
The bowlers will participate in two competitions. They will participate in the singles competition and the doubles competition.
“Monday will be dedicated to the singles competition, then we will go to the doubles on Tuesday,” Haas said. “As required by the Olympic committee, you have to bowl at least 9 games to establish an average so that each bowler can be put into a division.”
Haas said that the firefighters from Cove will be placed in three different divisions.
Since Haas and Spink are seasoned bowlers who are with a bowling league, their averages were already established.
Young and Miller had to bowl their nine games in order to get placed in a division.
“We are probably going to go bowl before we head out to San Antonio for some extra practice,” Miller said.
The Bowling Olympics will have three winners. There will be a gold medal, silver and bronze medal awarded to the top three bowlers.
“The way it works in the finals is that the top four teams will have a roll off,” Haas said. “The fourth place team will play the third place team for the chance to win the spot. After that, the third will play the second for the spot and the second for the first.”
Haas said that it is always possible for a team entering the roll off at fourth place to end up grabbing the number one spot by continuing to beat the other teams.
“While I enjoy bowling, I’m also looking forward to the interaction and social part of competing,” Haas said. “It is overall an enjoyable experience.”
Spink said that he had always been interested in attending the Olympics and that while there he hopes to also check out the other competitions.
“It’s going to be great to be surrounded by other firefighters,” Miller said. “I’m not a regular bowler, but it should be fun.”
Young said that going to the event will be good for Copperas Cove, because all areas of the department will be represented.
“We have every level represented for the Olympics,” Young said. “We have the chief, we have training, we have a lieutenant and even a firefighter attending.”