Some colleges and universities in Minnesota have bowling as a sport, but it’s a recreational sport. As someone who has been bowling for ten years in a league and bowled for five years in high school, I don’t want my bowling career to end once I graduate. Some colleges have teams that aren’t recreational, and they bowl the baker format, which I am used to and want to continue. The only issue is that I am a homebody and want to stay close to home. The closest college to my house with a bowling team is Viterbo University, 3 hours and 4 minutes away.
What it’s like to bowl in college. I spoke with Trista Rauma, and she has bowled for both the NCAA and NAIA. Trista says, “It really depends on the school you go to. There are some schools where the expectations will be the same as high school bowling, or there are some schools like mine where we strive for greatness and to win. We practice four days a week, plus an extra hour on our own time. And we work out four times a week with an actual strength and conditioning staff. College bowling is a lot of things. Fun, happy, exciting, but there are also nerves, anxiety, and crying. But that’s what makes us love the sport. And why we love being together as a team. Because not everyone is always perfect, we can all step in when it is our turn to take the lead.”
I spoke with a few Minnesota colleges to see why they don’t have teams for bowling. Holly Schreiner from St. Cloud State University states, “To my knowledge, SCSU has never sponsored bowling as a league or a club. The first step is to start a club at the University level. But I am not sure if it had been a club in the past and they could not keep up the numbers or if there had never been a club.” Dr. Matt Hill from the University of Northwestern St. Paul says, “We do not have the sport for a few reasons. Our athletic conference does not sponsor bowling, and there are no other NCAA varsity division 3 teams in the state of Minnesota. So it would be tough to field a team with no other teams around us to compete against.” I also spoke with Matt Braaten, the CIHS athletic director, about why the school doesn’t sponsor the high school bowling team. He says “The reason why we don’t sponsor the High School bowling is because they don’t go through the MSHSL (Minnesota State High School League). We can allow them to use the Cambridge-Isanti name, but since they go through a different thing than the school, we can’t sponsor them.¨
The big question people might have is, “Why is Minnesota the state we are pushing to have more colleges with bowling teams”? To answer that, there are a little over 100 towns in Minnesota that are a part of the MHSB (Minnesota High School Bowling), and most of those towns have a JV and Varsity team. Each team consists of at least five bowlers; some teams will have more. That being said, there are a minimum of 1,000 kids bowling in the state of Minnesota alone. To say the least, there isn’t a lack of interest in students wanting to bowl. Most students who bowl will also get scholarships throughout tournaments. Trista Rauma, a CIHS graduate of 2021 earned $12,500 plus, and she got $23,000 from the college she is at. There are many benefits for college just because of your interest in bowling and doing good at the sport. So, while many students may not think bowling is a beneficial sport, if you dig deep and get to know people who are in the sport and love the sport, you will find more than meets the eye.
