At 4 p.m. at Fox Bowl in Wheaton, the school kids begin to trickle in. There’s Shannon, a 9-year-old with neon stars on her bowling shoes; Quinton, who scarfs down a hot dog in between frames; and Justin, who, at 12, is determined to beat his personal best score of 241 for a game.
A few years ago, the bowling center, like many across the state and U.S., struggled as adult league membership dwindled to all-time lows while children chose soccer, video games and other modern pastimes over old-school bowling lanes.
But strategic marketing by the bowling industry, welcomed by teachers and parents in the tough economy, has led to an explosion in youth bowling in recent years in Illinois. By offering free bowling balls with youth lessons, bowling equipment for gym classes and college bowling scholarships awarded to children as early as elementary school, bowling officials said youth participation in the sport is higher than ever.
Today nearly 50 percent of Illinois elementary and middle school students are learning how to bowl through a special curriculum designed for gym class, including at 40 of Chicago’s public schools. At Illinois high schools, there are 221 varsity girls teams, compared with 83 in 1989, when bowling became a varsity sport recognized by the Illinois State High School Association. There were 184 boys teams last year, compared with 111 in 2003, its first varsity year, according to the Illinois State Bowling Proprietors Association.
“I love this,” said Kim Sims, co-owner of Fox Bowl who, along with her husband, has offered numerous incentives to inspire young bowlers to fill their center Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday afternoons. “It’s not just an investment in my future; it’s an investment in theirs.”
Once a standing commitment on people’s social calendars across the Chicago area, league bowling peaked in the 1980s when adults didn’t hesitate to sign up for teams that met weekly for 32 weeks. But as new forms of entertainment became available and people became busier, the bowling night tradition faded, said Bill Duff, executive director of the local Bowling Proprietors Association affiliate.
“There were so many more alternatives for people. You had the advent of computers and the Internet and, at the time, VHS tapes. That gave consumers a lot more options,” Duff said.
While the owners of some long-standing bowling alleys saw the shift as reason to close up shop and sell their properties for lucrative real estate values available at the time, others embraced new technology.
For the next two decades, features such as automatic scoring, gutter bumpers and black lighting helped bowling center owners make up revenue lost after the demise of league bowling. But the new attractions attracted occasional, not lifelong, bowlers.
And that, bowling industry leaders feared, would become a problem eventually.
“Centers were more successful in making revenue, but they had a declining league base, and sooner or later, that catches up to you,” Duff said.
Chuck Danbrauskas, general manager of Tivoli Bowl in Downers Grove, wasn’t sure how to tackle the decline four years ago, when an official from the Bowling Proprietors Association approached him with an idea.
Officials encouraged Danbrauskas and other bowling center operators to invest in In-School Bowling kits developed by the national office. The kits, which contained a ball, pins, carpeted lane and carefully written curriculum for teaching bowling to students from kindergarten to middle school, were designed to equip physical education teachers with all they needed to teach bowling in a regular gymnasium.
Danbrauskas bought 12 kits and began lending them to local teachers for free. He threw in certificates for free bowling, discounted birthday parties for all students and saw the return on his investment almost immediately, he said.
“It gets us into the doors of places that nobody wanted us in before,” said Danbrauskas, who estimates that the number of kids’ birthday parties booked at Tivoli has grown 25 percent since five years ago.
“That’s the future. Little kids learn to bowl, enjoy it and come back,” he said.
Elaine Karamatskos, a physical education instructor at Falconer Elementary School on Chicago’s Northwest Side, couldn’t believe when a specialist hired by the Illinois bowling association offered to not just lend her the bowling kits, but also drop them off at the school and pick them up when she was done.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that works for me,'” said Karamatskos, who noted that field trips for her students had been trimmed from the budget for years.
Karamatskos uses a combination of the bowling kits lent to her and those she won through a grant to teach a two-week bowling unit to 1,500 kindergarten through 6th-grade students at her school. She also uses them for after-school programs, she said.
“I just think it’s an opportunity for (students) to stay off the streets — to get involved in leagues and things like that instead of hanging out on the street corners,” Karamatskos said.
Similarly, Barb Williams, a physical education teacher at Longfellow Elementary School in Wheaton, said she was delighted when Sims from Fox Bowl offered to lend her several kits each year. The bowling unit, for which she allows students to color paper pins and decorate the gym, has grown into a cherished tradition that has prompted grandparents to drive in from out of state to see.
And last year, thanks to a nomination from Sims, Williams was named Bowling Educator of the Year, an award that afforded the longtime teacher an all-expense-paid trip to Reno, Nev., for the United States Bowling Congress Open Championships.
“They paid for my flight, three days, and this really nice trophy in front of 500 people,” Williams said. “As a teacher, you just don’t get that.”
Today state bowling officials credit the In-School Bowling program with building up the youth bowling base to match the growth of high school and collegiate bowling. Bowling participation at the high school and collegiate levels spiked after 1972 in response to Title IX, federal legislation that is credited with opening the world of competitive sports to millions of American girls.
After that growth, the IHSA helped bowling grow further at the high school level by recognizing it as a varsity sport for girls in 1989 and boys in 2003. Many high schools across the state offer students bowling lessons as part of gym class.
Parents and teachers may also be motivated by the hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money available to Illinois students, bowling officials said.
The marketing outreach continues: This year the state bowling association informed teachers about the In-School Bowling curriculum at more than 50 workshops across the state. Specialists also visit college classes to speak with future physical education teachers about bowling, said Bob Daman, in-school specialist.
And bowling center operators continue to reap the benefits. Sims said youth bowling brought in $40,000 to her business last year, and youth league participation has more than doubled in the last decade.
“For so long, bowling was a family thing, but then when people started cutting back, there was almost like a whole generation of bowling missing,” she said. “This is like the resurgence.”
After pulling a 9-pound pink and black bowling ball out of her very own bowling bag, 9-year-old Shannon Kosirog was too busy knocking down seven pins to hear her mom explain that she signed up her daughter for lessons after seeing a flier at school offering lessons for $50 — and a free bowling ball.
“I didn’t know how they were going to make any money, but she’s been here years now,” said Victoria Kosirog, her mother. “They’ve got a bowler for life.”
