A Match Made for Champions - Intercollegiate Bowling Championships

Bowling Digest, August, 2001 by Larry Paladino

For anchor Derek Sapp, a junior, the championship ring was his first, and he wouldn't have gotten it had he not struck out in the final frame of the seven-game series against St. John's in the semifinals. "Those were probably the three hardest shots I've ever had to make," he says of the turkey, which gave the Leathermecks a 246-232 win in the game and a 4-3 match triumph, thrusting them into the championship against Florida State. "I want to be as good as I can be. I feel I'm on top of the mountain now, and I hope I don't come down for a while."

Widger says players go to Western Illinois because of the bowling reputation the program has built up there under his regime in the last three years and for about a dozen years prior, when Jeff Stockton was the coach. Nebraska draws players with its winning reputation, too, including bowlers from Australia, Colombia, and Korea. Hyman tried once last summer to talk Pluhowsky--who was bowling well in junior leagues in her hometown of Phoenix--into going to Nebraska, and Straub had an eye on her ever since he saw Pluhowsky bowl in Orlando in 1999. when she won Junior Olympic gold and qualified for the Junior Olympic Team USA.

Straub and assistant coach Paul Kiempa, an ex-Cornhuskers bowler, teach both the men's and women's teams at the university's six-lane center in the Student Union building. Widger runs his program out of University Lanes, a 16-lane center at Western Illinois.

While bowling is still considered an "emerging sport" by the NCAA, it can become an official NCAA sport and have an NCAA-sponsored national championship if at least 40 schools give bowling varsity status. Currently, there are 27 schools with NCAA-approved status and 154 schools with club or varsity programs, with 2,210 participants (1,419 men and 791 women). Those figures are up 8.6% since the formation of College Bowling USA for the 1998-99 season. "That's the first steady increase in college bowling in years," says Diane Olson, director of collegiate bowling for CBUSA. "There is definitely a growth in interest across the country, particularly on the varsity level."

Crystal Bailey, captain of the North Carolina A&T team that was one of just three schools (Nebraska and Sacred Heart of Connecticut were the others) with NCAA-approved status at the nationals, says she has been "tremendously impressed by College Bowling USA's efforts. They're making great strides in getting bowling more recognition on the college level, which I think will translate into more recognition on the higher levels as more college bowlers move on to play professionally."

One of Western Illinois' most recent success stories was Jeremy Sonnenfeld, the star senior on its 1998-99 title team. Sonnenfeld, who plans to join the pro tour (as does Sapp eventually), was the first bowler ever to roll a sanctioned 900 series. He threw the three perfect games on February 2, 1997, in a bowling fund-raising tournament. (Imagine how stunned anyone who made donation pledges for every strike achieved were after that performance.)