Texas High casting net for new bass fishing team

TEXARKANA, Texas -- Texas High School is in the process of developing a Texas Tiger Tournament Bass Fishing team.

The school held an interest meeting on Thursday, and TISD Athletic Director Gerry Stanford said the room was full of interested students and parents.

"It was awesome," Stanford said. "I think this is a very diverse group of students that want to be involved. And that's what we're looking for is to give every kid, regardless of their background, something to be involved in.

"We're making a large push as a district, from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade, of just ways that we can have more kids included in activities -- whether that be computer engineering and technical trade, fishing and hunting, swimming -- whatever it might be."

THS will compete through the Texas High School Bass Association. Stanford did not have an exact number on how many students he expects to be involved, but he did say they have more students than boats available at the moment.

This effort to bring this program to fruition is a part of an overarching effort in the region, as Bass Fishing becomes more and more popular in school systems.

"To me and the statistics that I've seen, it's the No. 1 growing sport in the nation," said Mike Dillinger, a board of directors member at Ultimate High School Fishing, in a recent Gazette interview. "There's kids from almost every state. And in Texas alone, there's probably 15 or 20 thousand student anglers. And just think, seven years ago, the sport was just getting started."

He said a plethora of schools in the region have students who participate in tournaments, including Queen City, Atlanta, Hooks, Maud, New Boston, Genoa, Liberty-Eylau and many more.

"We will fish in our first tournament in a couple of weeks and continue to grow the program to just get as many kids as possible that want to be involved in it," Stanford said.

THSBA has done a really good job of growing this throughout the state," he added. "They have it broken up by region, so we will fish for the most part in either the north region or the East Texas region."

David Wommack, a teacher at THS, will be school sponsor and fishing guide. Stanford will administer the program.

(For more information, contact Wommack 903-794-3891 ext. 2214 or [email protected] or Stanford 903-793-7731 ext 57001 or [email protected].)

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