Drill and Pom: Are They Sports?

The hardest-working athletes at don’t even play a sport.

Football, soccer, baseball, tennis and all the traditional sports have their seasons, but the girls on the drill and pom team perform almost year-round. This has occurred as the E-W team, like others nationwide, has transitioned from primarily a support activity – for varsity games and school assemblies, for example – to the world of intense competition.

But at E-W, as in many schools in the Edmonds School District, drill is considered an activity instead of a sport. This even though the team practices at least 10 hours a week and competes against other schools, including today during district finals at Kamiak High School in Mukilteo.

But before you feel too sorry for the E-W drill team, you should know its classification as an activity is just fine with Coach Deb Johnson. Sure, she thinks drill is just as competitive as any other sport. But here’s the rub: Being labeled an activity is what allows Johnson and her girls to practice and compete so deep into the school year. If it were labeled a sport, said Johnson, the team would be forced to compress its season into a shorter time frame, making it tougher for girls to learn and perfect new routines.

“If we were classified as a single-season sport, we’d perform in the winter in late December, January and February,” Johnson said. “I’m not sure how schools (with drill teams) that are sports make it work.”

The decision to make drill a sport or activity falls on the school district, with guidelines coming from the Renton-based Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. The Edmonds School District has declared it an activity for its five high schools: Edmonds-Woodway, Meadowdale, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace and Scriber Lake. According to Johnson, most of the schools classifying drill as a sport are located in Eastern Washington.

“As far as the Edmonds School District is concerned, we are treated like a sport in almost every sense of the term,” said Johnson. “We follow all of the sports guidelines, with the same credentials and clock hours.” Johnson is paid the same salary as other coaches.

Members of Johnson’s drill and pom team, which includes a dance component, spend a lot of time together. Tryouts take place in April and May for the next school year, and members practice all spring and summer, except for August. Freshman tryouts take place in the week before the first day of school. The team then competes through March, culminating in the statewide championship in Yakima. This year’s 4A championship is March 26 at Yakima Valley SunDome.

Today, E-W will be defending the drill and pom district titles it won last year at Kamiak. The dance team will also perform. “The girls have been doing really well all year,” said Johnson, “and I expect that to continue. I think they want it. They’ve been working super-hard this week in preparation and we’re going in to this knowing we’re going to qualify for state, no question.”

Johnson’s team, in fact, has earned several first-place finishes already this season. E-W hopes to do better at state this year, where it did not place among the top finishers in 2010.

“If we come home with placing at Kamiak, that’s great,” Johnson said. “But the bigger prize is at state.”