While it is difficult to determine the exact date of the first collegiate bowling competition, we have reason to believe that its roots can be traced back to the early 1900s. It is believed that the first collegiate bowling competition was held April 8, 1916, almost eight months before the Women’s International Bowling Congress was formed. Paul Gould reported this in an article of the May 1947 issue of BOWLING. He generated the article from a letter he received from Cornell University’s Victor Klee, whose team participated in the event.

Klee’s letter stated that bowling was recognized as an intercollegiate sport at Yale as far back as 1916. Bill Wyer of Yale organized the first collegiate bowling tournament held at New Haven, Conn., on April 8, 1916. Varsity teams represented were from Yale and Lehigh. Other team entrants were the Cornell University Interfraternity league, Syracuse University, Stevens Institute Bowling Associations and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After the competition the leaders of these bowling teams formed the Intercollegiate Bowling Association with these colleges being the first charter members. They immediately began planning the second event for 1917 and competition would expand by at minimum 11 more teams.

Apparently World War I was the demise of this first attempt at organized collegiate bowling, as no mention of collegiate bowling appears in any national bowling publications until the early 1940s. Klee stated that had it not been for WWI undoubtedly college bowling would have been established on an enduring basis among the leading colleges of the East and Midwest. And Wyer would have gone done as the grandpappy of intercollegiate bowling.

During the 1940s, many collegiate conference and tournaments were being held in the East and Midwest. This activity lead to the development of the American Bowling Congress and WIBC having their own college bowling 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 and develop a Collegiate Division Manager to oversee its operations. Membership peeked during the 1980-81 season with 153 colleges having intercollegiate programs and over 19,000 individual members.

In 1982, the Young American Bowling Alliance was formed and the industry decided that collegiate bowling belonged to the youth division – becoming the YABA Collegiate Division. For various reasons, over the next several years, college bowling began to deteriorate. To revitalize college bowling, YABA implemented the Campus Program. This program focused on the recreational side of bowling verses the intercollegiate. This was done for two reasons. First, YABA felt it needed to create a greater awareness of bowling on college campuses. From more awareness and recreational programs, more intercollegiate programs resulted in the future – membership peeked again during the 1990-91 season with 209 colleges having programs and over 3,000 individual members. During the 1991-92 season, campus programs peeked on their own with 71 colleges having programs and over 26,000 individual members. In 1993, it was decided that for colleges to have an intercollegiate program they were required to have a campus program as well. This caused the campus program to more than double its programs; however, overall individual membership began to fall.

At this time overall membership in the bowling industry was declining. Program funds were tightening up and the YABA Collegiate Division felt the effects. Due to lack of resources 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. Then YABA started looking at where college bowling really belonged since most of its members were affiliated with ABC and WIBC, not YABA. Also, the bowling industry began restructuring and consolidating resources in an attempt to revitalize bowling.

A major boost for college bowling occurred in 1994 when 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 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. The committee operated on limited funds and began realizing that college bowling needed to make changes that positioned bowling with colleges as other sports do. The committee expanded itself to include representative 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 realized 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. In turn 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. This action provided an “official” home for college bowling and true industry commitment with a new position of Director of Collegiate Bowling developed and an ABC/WIBC-appointed Collegiate Committee to assist in program development.

The NCAA announced the approval of women’s bowling as an NCAA championship sport beginning with the 2003-04 school year, as the number of women’s collegiate programs exceeded the required 40 for championship sport status. The first NCAA Women’s Bowling National Collegiate Championship was held April 8-10, 2004 at Emerald Bowl in Houston, Texas, with the University of Nebraska taking home the inaugural title.

With the formation of the United States Bowling Congress on Jan. 1, 2005, College Bowling USA became the USBC Collegiate program.

USBC Collegiate 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.

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