By: Elma Oijens Sjoelin, sports writer
Photos collected from 2023-24 Women’s Bowling Roster (https://mckbearcats.com/sports/womens-bowling/roster)
As the fall semester has kicked off, several athletic programs at McKendree are mobilizing toward successful pre- and regular seasons. A new school year also presents new beginnings, opportunities, and changes. For one program, such changes include a new coaching staff.
Last year, the women’s bowling program placed 4th in the NCAA Championships and earned the ITC Championship Title concluding the 2022-23 season earlier this year. The program has a history of winning, and the players are known to excel inside the classroom and on the lanes, earning both athletic and academic titles and awards. They now face new challenges and opportunities as they welcome new coaching staff to the program.
Returning to his roots, Shawn Bibee takes over as the new head coach for the women’s bowling team. Coach Bibee is a McKendree alum and received his bachelor’s degree in sports management at the university. During his time as a student, he was also an athlete and part of McKendree’s bowling program. Bibee and his teammates won the first championship in program history back in 2016, as they earned the Intercollegiate Team Championship Title. After graduating, Bibee served as a graduate assistant at McKendree from July 2019 to April 2020. Coach Bibee has experience in coaching at both high school and collegiate levels1.
Now, Bibee is excited to be back on Bearcat grounds, and he is “proud to be back home and helping move [McKendree] forward.”
He said, “To say I’m excited to be back at McKendree is an understatement. As an alumnus of the University, I am excited to be back and involved with the community and to provide higher education opportunities to student-athletes for years to come.”
McKendree women’s bowling program has a winning history and has seen much success in past years. When asked about his thoughts on this and what it will be like taking over as a new head coach for the program, Bibee responded:
“There are certainly some nerves with continuing the success of our program which has been so dominant over the last decade. However, our support staff of coaches (Dennis Knepper, Breanna Clemmer, Brandi Kordelewski) and our athletic department are making everything much easier. We have a talented group of girls with us here at McKendree that will continue to lead our program forward over the coming years, and when the team is determined to put the effort in, it makes everything easier on my end.”
The opportunities for the program as they enter the 2023-24 season are endless, but will there be challenges? To this question, Bibee expressed:
“When you have a program that has achieved so much over the last decade, it can be easy for people to focus on circumstances like coaching changes and make their own conclusions from that. What people outside the University fail to see is the determination that each girl in our program has to succeed. The circumstances are vastly different than years past, but our program is confident with who we are and the direction that we are moving in. Over the first weeks of school, our girls have rallied around common goals and taken it upon themselves to turn their focus forward.”
I was interested in what goals Coach Bibee has set for the program this upcoming season, and his response was:
“We have set goals for our program this year which all lead up to our post-season goals. Each day is an opportunity to be better individually in the classroom and on the lanes, but also an opportunity to grow as a team. If at the end of the day, we can look in the mirror and say, “Yes, we did improve today,” we are hitting our goals. On a tangible level, our focus is building our team through the season that will position us where we can potentially win the GLVC and qualify for both national championship post-seasons that we have.”
Other than a great mentality, what will Bibee and the rest of the coaching staff push for and bring to the program? Bibee said:
“As a coach staffing, we have spoken to our girls about the value of the team rather than ourselves. When you accept a Head Coaching position, you assimilate all aspects of the University to your life. For myself, I couldn’t be prouder to be back at McKendree as I studied here as an undergraduate and post-graduate student. The four years I spent as a student-athlete were instrumental in building the professional connections, personal friendships, and love of bowling that I have.”
Bibee, Assistant Coach Breanna Clemmer, and the rest of the McKendree bowling staff are excited to be on Bearcat grounds and to make their marks with the program in the 2023-24 season.
Although Bibee takes on the role of head coach at McKendree for the first time, the players on the team are already familiar with him and Coach Clemmer. I had the chance to interview Kira Johnson and Lexus Petrich, both juniors on the women’s bowling team, and I asked them to share their thoughts on working with a new coaching staff this season.
As Coach Bibee and Coach Clemmer are McKendree alumni, Johnson and Petrich already knew about them before this fall and are excited to work with them on the lanes. Johnson commented, “To see how they’re going to take what they know from the program already and change it and tweak it, we’re really excited about that.”
Petrich added some thoughts about how the new coaching staff will be a perfect match for the program: “Since they’re younger, and they bowled here and went through the program, it’s easier to connect with them.”
The fact that Coach Bibee and Coach Clemmer are returning to McKendree and have chosen to continue to coach here is something that Johnson is optimistic about. “It shows how much the McKendree community is important to them.”
Changes to a coaching staff, or in this case receiving a completely new one, can be stressful for any student-athlete, but Johnson and Petrich are not worried. Petrich shares the team’s excitement: “I’m really excited since it’s basically a new program, we have endless opportunities to take our goals and set them and get better.”
It is with experience, Bearcat pride, and excitement that Bibee returns to McKendree University and takes on the role of head coach for the women’s bowling team. The new coaching staff is welcomed by the players as well, and they are optimistic and excited about working with new coaches and opportunities. It will be interesting to follow the development of the bowling program over the 2023-24 season. The team has its first tournament coming up in the last week of October as they travel to Dyer, Indiana for the Ebonite Valpo Classic. For anyone who is just too excited and cannot wait to watch some quality bowling and support our fellow Bearcats, the bowling team will have their score evaluations on October 1st and 8th. It will consist of eight games each day, and everyone is welcome to watch the games at St Clair Bowl, which is about an eighteen-minute drive from campus.
On behalf of the McKendree community, we wish the women’s bowling program and its new coaching staff the best of luck in the upcoming season. Let’s go Bearcats!
1 Bennett, M. (2023a, July 10). Returning to his roots: Shawn Bibee was named Bearcat Women’s Bowling coach. McKendree University Athletics. https://mckbearcats.com/news/2023/7/10/returning-to-his-roots-shawn-bibee-named-bearcat-womens-bowling-coach.asp
