GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 23 – April 10, 2015 | Page 9

World has previously reported last October, that efforts
to gain adoption of GAA games in Seattle area school
PE programs has enjoyed great recent success.
NACB coach Lynch doubles as the Youth officer for the
Seattle Gaels and his program of partnering with PE
teachers, giving them the same training and resources
available to GAA coaches, has not only been innovative
but has also been a winning formula. Success is highlighted where two Seattle school districts have approved
Gaelic sports for use in their High School PE programs.
This in turn has translated into five Seattle high schools
with full PE based Gaelic sports programs and a total of
25 PE teachers who now independently teach GAA in
their classes with their own GAA equipment.

in teaching our staff and students the sports. They agreed.
After seeing the ease of implementing these skills, the enthusiasm the students had about the sports and playing
them there was no question it belonged in our program.”
Tracy and her department integrated Gaelic sports into
two separate curriculums – Team Sports and Spartan
PE. Team Sports is an elective class for older students.
Gaelic football and hurling are used here as a way to integrate skills from other team sports into a unique field
game which improves overall concepts of game strategy.
Spartan PE is a required class for younger students, and
Gaelic football and hurling are used in that curriculum
to develop fundamental movement skills and aerobic
fitness in sport play that is fun for the students. Between
the two classes every student who has graduated from

HOOKED

One of these Seattle schools is Skyline High
School where Tracy Schellberg made the initial decision to explore Gaelic sports for its PE
program. A friend of Tracy’s had come back
from a summer visit to Ireland and