High School Bowling has been an operating entity for a very long time. Chicago’s Milt Raymer, an American Bowling Congress Hall of Famer, initiated one of the nation’s first high school bowling programs more than 60 years ago.

The first officially recorded competition was in 1937 when Raymer organized a four-team boys league at Tilden Technical High School in Chicago. The word of Raymer’s program quickly spread to other schools and soon the Chicago High School Bowling Club was developed to govern high school bowling activities.

Other areas of the country became interested and Raymer began operating the American High School Bowling Congress from the basement of his home in 1941. The program was temporarily discontinued when Raymer entered the military service in 1942, but it was reinstated upon his discharge in 1946.

The National Bowling Council, which was organized in 1946, took over sponsorship of Raymer’s group later that year and renamed it the “American Junior Bowling Congress” in 1947, with the focus changing to include youth of all ages, rather than focusing just on high school students.

In 1964, the Bowling Proprietors Association of America and AJBC began running separate youth programs due to philosophical differences. BPAA created its own Youth Bowling Association and began working with the National Federation of State High School Associations with aims set at bringing bowl to schools in the form of intramural programs and physical education classes. The AJBC continued under the auspices of the ABC and the Women’s International Bowling Congress, and moved its office to Milwaukee. After years of discussions between the groups, the Young American Bowling Alliance was created in 1982, combining AJBC and YBA.

Throughout out this time, high school varsity bowling began to grow in different parts of the country, with varsity bowling being recognized throughout New York and New Jersey for quite some time, with New Jersey’s statewide varsity bowling status dating back to the 1960s.

Miami’s Dade County first recognized high school bowling as a varsity sport in 1963, when eight area schools fielded teams, though it would be until 2003 before bowling was recognized statewide in Florida.

Illinois’ began recognizing girls varsity bowling in 1973, with the schools participating mostly concentrated in the suburbs of Chicago.

Until recently only a handful of other states have offered bowling at varsity status over the years, yet high school club bowling has become wildly accepted in many states.

More recently the Northern Illinois Bowling Proprietors Association and the Bowling Centers Association of Michigan, put the importance of high school bowling back into the spotlight, with their strong high school bowling efforts in the Rockford, Ill., area and statewide in Michigan.

The model was followed in southern Illinois which initiated the first Illinois High School Boys Club Championship Tournament in 1998.

Many other states utilized the framework of Illinois’ program to implement high school bowling programs in other states and areas, while also making high school bowling an area aimed at growth throughout the bowling industry.

In 1998, the Billiard Bowling Institute of America (BBIA) partnered with the BPAA and the YABA to produce two videos, one for Proprietors and one for Athletic Directors, to be used for marketing purposes that were an integral part of the newly created “Give Me a B for Varsity Bowling” program.

In January 2001, BPAA appointed a task force to organize the effort to promote high school bowling throughout the United States. The group began rewriting the “Give Me a B” Varsity Bowling Manual and writing the recommendations for the duties of the National Director of High School Bowling, a position that was created to oversee this program. A few months later, a proposal was presented to the executive directors of ABC, WIBC and YABA by the BPAA to create a national program. It was approved and funding from all the groups now supports this industry-wide initiative.

In addition to the statewide varsity bowling programs being run in Illinois, Florida, New Jersey, New York, the states of Arkansas (2004), Alaska (2001), Hawaii (1974), Kansas (2004), Michigan (2003), Mississippi (2004), Nevada (2000), Pennsylvania and Tennessee (2001) currently run varsity high school bowling through their state athletic associations for both boys and girls, while Washington (2001) recognizes girls varsity bowling. In addition, over 20 other states run boys and girls programs at the club level.