United States Bowling Congress

The United States Bowling Congress is a sports membership organization dedicated to Ten-pin bowling in the United States of America. It was formed by a merger of the American Bowling Congress, Women's International Bowling Congress, Young American Bowling Alliance, and USA Bowling in 2005. The USBC's headquarters are in the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale, Wisconsin.

Purpose

The USBC is the primary governing and sanctioning body for ten-pin bowling in the United States. Among its duties and resposibilities to over 2.6 million members^[1] are:

• Maintain specifications, conduct research testing for, and certify: bowling lanes, lane dressings, pinsetting and ball return equipment, bowling pins, bowling balls and other bowling-related products.
• Establish and publish playing rules.
• Sanction bowling leagues for men, women, mixed and youth categories. Also serves as a sanctioning body for High School and Collegiate bowling in the USA, as well as Team USA.
• Sanction numerous local, regional and national bowling tournaments.
• Provide recognition and award merchandise for sanctioned "honor scores" (299 and 300 games, 800 series, 100 pins over average game, 150 pins over average series, etc.).
• Maintain historical bowler average records for use in USBC sanctioned leagues and tournaments.
• Certify bowling coaches for both youth and adult bowlers.

History

The first official governing body of bowling was the American Bowling Congress (ABC), founded in 1895 in New York City. The membership through the time of the merger in 2005 was primarily male, although women were permitted to join. In 1916, the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) was formed by a group of 40 women, and served as a partner oganization with the ABC through 2004. The Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA) was established in 1982, specifically to serve youth bowlers from pre-school through collegiate level. These three organizations, in addition to High School Bowling USA and College Bowling USA, became one under the USBC umbrella on January 1, 2005.

USBC Hall of Fame

The USBC Hall of Fame was formed in 2005 by the merger of the ABC Hall of Fame (established 1941) and WIBC Hall of Fame (established 1953). Through 2007, there are 371 Hall of Fame members in three categories:

• Superior Performance (243)
• Meritorious Service (109)
• Pioneer (19)

External links

• United States Bowling Congress

References

1. ^ "About USBC" at www.bowl.com, official website of the United States Bowling Congress