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Organizers look to compete in tournaments with clubs and teams from the Southwest and elsewhere in the country.

By University Communications
August 8, 2008

After a long hiatus, The University of Arizona is once again fielding a bowling club. The club will begin a collegiate competition schedule in late September.

The club has a twofold mission, said Doug Reed, director of the Racetrack Industry Program in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the faculty adviser for the club.

One is fielding a competitive team that will travel around the U.S. to bowl against other collegiate teams. The other is just to have a good time.

Club members will meet each week to bowl, socialize and jockey for a chance to compete in tournaments against other schools. The team will practice and host matches at the Golden Pin Lanes in Tucson. Golden Pin co-owner and Hall of Fame bowler Pete Tountas agreed to provide the facilities for the club.

Reed said competitive teams consist of five to six bowlers that will be drawn from club members. Cory Knop, an engineer at the UA Steward Observatory, will coach the team. Knop is certified as a coach by the U.S. Bowling Congress, which also is the sanctioning body for collegiate bowling.

The UA team only has club status at this point. Other schools, such as the University of Nebraska, have NCAA-sanctioned programs.

“We’re at the stage where we’re learning to walk before we run,” Reed said. “We already have a few students, but right now we want to get the word out that the club is starting up and get students interested.”

Reed says he got involved because his son and daughter bowled on their high school teams in Tucson, and he wanted to support their extracurricular opportunities. His son was a team captain in high school and his daughter bowled for Arizona State University.

Reed describes his own bowling skills as “terrible.”

“I know there are some great high school bowling programs right here in Tucson, so I was not worried about being able to have enough quality bowlers to start a team,” he said.

The infrastructure for collegiate bowling at the UA still exists. Reed’s wife, Tresa, works with Barbara Kearney organizing junior league bowling in Tucson. Kearney helped run UA bowling in previous years. Former UA bowler Scott Washburn, a UA graduate and president of the UA bowling club from 1977 to 1979, said it’s exciting to see the renewed interest in the sport at the UA.

Knop also said it’s exciting to see intercollegiate bowling return to the UA. “I think there are a lot of high-quality bowlers in the Southwest that may have been overlooked and I want to give them the opportunity to bowl at the collegiate level.”

Knop coached high school bowling for three years before taking a USBC Silver Level certification course that puts him among the top bowling coaches in the country.

Reed said several UA students who bowled in Tucson-area high schools have already expressed an interest in joining the club. Students interested in joining can either contact him or Knop.