The winter season is gradually coming to a close, along with all of the winter sports. Never fear, Badminton is here, and ready to smash the spring season.
Badminton isn’t as well known as sports like football and soccer, though other high schools in LBUSD and the Moore League have badminton teams and even schools outside of the Long Beach area. Nonetheless, people who are not directly involved may not be familiar with the sport.
Our Millikan Badminton coach, Jacob Lovato, brother of our wrestling coach Blake Lovato, answered a few of our questions.
“[In the U.S.] you’ll have a lot of students or even adults that say oh, what’s badminton?” Lovato says. “It’s not a big sport in the United States, it’s a sport that’s more often played overseas.”
Badminton is often compared to tennis, because of the sports’ use of rackets, but they are definitely not the same. Before I jump into information about the upcoming season, let’s quickly review how the game is played due to its lack of popularity.
In order to score points, players must get the birdie, or the shuttlecock, over the raised net and onto their opponent’s half of the court. Players can either play in singles or doubles and can only hit the birdie once before it passes over the net. Because the birdie is easily affected by wind, competitive badminton is only played indoors.
“The season is about eight weeks,” says Lovato. “Sometimes there is an opportunity to do preseason games, but they would have to be outside of the school. For our particular badminton program, we don’t participate in preseason [games].”
Even though there may not be a preseason, the team is carefully put together over the course of the year.
“For tryouts, usually how we run them is we do them throughout the first semester [of the class]. We select certain students to compete for the spots, so the first semester, rolling into the second semester, the team is set,” says Lovato.
The class is very accepting of anyone who wants to play the sport, even those who have very little previous experience playing.
“There are opportunities to play on the team, and opportunities to participate in the class. There’s no prerequisite to say you have to be at a certain level to play for the team,” says Lovato. “We work with beginners and intermediates, we don’t really have kids that have been playing for very long.”
According to Lovato, there are 18 spots on the varsity team and 24 on junior varsity.
“I feel really excited and nervous about [the season],” says Haley Gastelum, a QUEST freshman enrolled in the badminton class.
The class is available via the P.E. section of the course selection Google form for your grade.
Feel free to contact Kacey Mendoza, the Badminton teacher of record for the year and the boys’ athletic director if you have questions about the program or the class. 
Chloe Stevens • Mar 20, 2024 at 9:32 am
On February 26, 2024, Audrey Lozano wrote an article titled “Never Fear, Badminton is Here!” I really enjoyed this article and liked how the author wrote about badminton, acknowledging a lesser-known sport. I particularly liked the section where the author interviewed the badminton coach, Jacob Lovato. I thought these quotes really helped add to the article, and I believe that if a similar piece were to be written, more quotes like this would be really nice. I also think that the author did a great job introducing the sport and how it’s played, as well as later transitioning to explaining how the class is run along with explaining how they put together the team. In addition, I thought it was a nice touch how the author mentioned how the class is available and how to contact Mrs. Mendoza if someone were to want to join the class. Having that at the end is good in case anyone reads the article and gets inspired to join the sport. Overall, I really enjoyed this article and appreciate the author for writing something like this.
Santino Garetto • Mar 19, 2024 at 11:31 am
On February 26, 2024, Audrey Lozano wrote an article titled “Never Fear, Badminton is Here!”. As someone who is part of Millikan’s badminton team, I was excited to see the team being represented in an article. Throughout the first half of the season, I was happy to see our team has noticeably improved since the past year. Additionally, we welcomed a large group of freshmen which will hopefully be among the main part of the team in the upcoming years. I could not agree more with the statement, “The class is very accepting of anyone who wants to play the sport, even those who have very little previous experience playing.” Including myself, many of the players in the team began with little to no past knowledge of the sport. Nevertheless, players from all skill levels are showing up to practices with a determination to learn and succeed in their games. I am looking forward to a successful end to our season as every team member is persistently trying their very best to improve.
JP Mialovski • Mar 19, 2024 at 9:35 am
On February 26, 2024, Audrey Lozano wrote an article titled “Never Fear, Badminton is Here!” It is really awesome to see yet another successful spring sport on the come up! Personally, I love the sport of badminton and I remember all the way back when I was in elementary school and played badminton with my friends in PE class. I play football and basketball. Even though badminton isn’t as well known as football and basketball, it is still a very widespread sport that is played and enjoyed all over the world. The sport is so unique in the way that the birdie flies when it is hit. It is so satisfying to hit the birdie with the racket and watch it fly over the net to the opponent. I always loved playing in elementary and middle school and I definitely would have pursued it if I didn’t play football and basketball. I am very happy and excited to see how well the Millikan badminton team does this year and I am rooting for them all the way to the CIF and state championships!