IHSAA offers Olympic sports

It happens every four years.
For a couple of weeks in August, we become fans of swimming, gymnastics and track and field. They’re sports we rarely pay attention to otherwise, but during the Olympics it’s different.
There’s good reason.
We support U.S. athletes. We take pride in their success.
And we celebrate greatness, even if it doesn’t come from a competitor draped in red, white and blue stars and stripes.
Still, it’s too bad that, for most, fandom of such sports is confined to a little more than a few fortnights a decade.
Swimming, gymnastics, track and field and so many other Olympic sports only get significant national attention during the Games. But if you found yourself enjoying watching Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps, Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, Usain Bolt and Ashton Eaton, there’s no reason to wait until Tokyo 2020 to see their sports again.
The IHSAA offers swimming, gymnastics and track and field, not to mention seven other sports that aren’t basketball, football or baseball.
Of the sports that pick up a little bit of extra spotlight during the Olympics, volleyball probably tops the fall list. (Soccer gets some attention too, but let’s face it, that sport’s biggest competition is clearly the World Cup.)
East Central Indiana is a hotbed for volleyball. The list of schools that have won state championships in the last decade includes Burris (four times), Wapahani (three times), Wes-Del (twice), Bellmont (twice), New Castle, Delta, Muncie Central, Yorktown and Cowan. Four of those are on Jay County’s regular-season schedule.
Speaking of the Patriots, they are coming off of back-to-back 20-win seasons. And though they lost some key cogs to that success to graduation, they still have Abby Barcus, a two-time All-American who will play in college at Wright State University, leading a team that hopes to extend the streak.
Perhaps the two most popular Summer Olympic sports — swimming and gymnastics — occur during the winter on the IHSAA schedule.
Jay County has the benefit of hosting both the boys and girls swimming sectional meets. It happens that the girls meet coincides with the wrestling regional, which is also at JCHS, giving fans a two-for-one opportunity.
And anyone who hasn’t been to a meet at the Indiana University Natatorium in Indianapolis is missing out. It’s a venue that has hosted Olympic trials in the past and has just undergone a renovation. The IHSAA Girls Swimming State Finals in February included Lilly King, now an Olympic gold medalist, winning the title in the 100-yard breaststroke in which the Patriots’ Alex Bader finished 21st.
On the gymnastics front, Jay County has produced three state medalists in the last decade in Hannah Williams, Nadlie Runyon and Lizzy Schoenlein. The Patriots’ 2014 team advanced to the state finals, becoming only the second in school history to do.
In addition to the JCHS home meets, we’ve been lucky enough to have the state finals nearby at Ball State University’s Worthen Arena for the last several years. Biles and Raisman won’t be competing there, but there will be plenty of young athletes doing acrobatic things you and I couldn’t even imagine attempting.
The spring brings track and field, which includes the sprints Bolt has owned for the last decade. But it’s so much more than that.
My favorite way to take in a track meet is to avoid the stands altogether. Instead, watch a race from the starting blocks. Watch another from the finish line. See some shot put, some discus, some high jump, some long jump. There’s plenty to keep you busy.
Jay County has had some elite athletes in some of those events. State medalists Amanda Johnson, Brandon Reynard and Maria Murphy come to mind.
So while the Olympics are over, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the sports that have come to fascinate us again during the Games this year. Get to the volleyball court, the pool, the gym or the track and take in a sport you’ve watched on TV but have never seen in person.
There’s no need to wait four more years to be a fan.