It is believed the first collegiate bowling competition was held at Yale University on April 8, 1916, several months before the Women's International Bowling Congress was formed. After the competition, leaders of the six Eastern schools entered formed the Intercollegiate Bowling Association.
Little is written about college bowling between then and the 1940s when many events were held in the East and Midwest. This led to the development of the American Bowling Congress and WIBC having their own college programs during the 1966-67 season. As the program grew, ABC and WIBC decided to combine their programs and efforts to become the ABC and WIBC Collegiate Division during the 1977-78 season.
In 1982, the Young American Bowling Alliance was formed and the industry decided collegiate bowling belonged to the youth division. Thus, during the 1982-83 season the program became the YABA Collegiate Division.
For various reasons, over the next several years college bowling began to deteriorate. To revitalize it, YABA implemented the Campus Program. This focused on the recreational verses the intercollegiate side of bowling to help create a greater awareness of bowling on college campuses from which more intercollegiate programs would result.
This theory proved true as intercollegiate membership peaked during the 1990-91 season with 209 colleges featuring more than 3,000 individuals. During the 1991-92 season campus programs peeked on their own with 71 colleges having programs and more than 26,000 individual members.
Due to lack of resources, however, the campus program was phased out during the 1994-95 season and the overall management of the college bowling was put under general YABA tournament and events. YABA then started looking at where college bowling really belonged since most members were ABC and WIBC not YABA.
In 1994 a major boost occurred for college bowling when the National Collegiate Athletic Association recognized women's bowling as an emerging sport to help settle federal gender equity issues in college sports. With this development the bowling industry did not want college bowling to end so it formed an industry joint oversight committee that operated college bowling using joint funding from ABC, WIBC and YABA. Thus, during the 1995-96 season the Intercollegiate Bowling Program was formed, later expanding to include representatives from organizations like the National Junior College Athletic Association and Association of College Unions International to help align bowling with other college sports and NCAA regulations.
During the 1997-98 season, the bowling industry came to realize that college bowling is a major link in the progression of people who bowl and that youth and college demographics are the largest growing and influential group in the current and future entertainment business. Thus, the Intercollegiate Bowing Program came out with a new look and name, College Bowling USA.
ABC and the WIBC adopted legislation to administer College Bowling USA and its championship tournaments, effective the 1998-99 season. The name changed to USBC Collegiate in 2005 with the formation of the United States Bowling Congress.
The USBC Collegiate program maintains the eligibility and integrity of intercollegiate bowling while providing certification and regulation of varsity bowling at the collegiate level. USBC Collegiate also provides assistance and leadership in implementing bowling programs, securing the opportunity for student-athletes to compete in the sport and achieve athletic and academic excellence.
