Stereotypes about bowling leagues linger, conjuring clichéd images of hardcore bowlers like the characters from The Big Lebowski, hanging out in dingy bowling alleys, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer.
It’s long past time to put those outdated stereotypes to rest. Bowling is a family-friendly sport, and local leagues reflect that.
League bowlers at Bellefonte Lanes range in age from three to over ninety, according to owner Dennis Jaworski.
At Northland Bowl, “We have a league for everybody, no doubt about that,” says Manager Kimberly Magda.
Northland Bowl currently hosts eight leagues and Bellefonte Lanes has thirteen, with both locations including men’s leagues, women’s leagues, senior leagues, mixed leagues, and a youth league. It is not uncommon for bowlers to belong to leagues at both bowling alleys at the same time.
Northland Bowl also has a youth-adult league, a Special Olympics league, and an intramural bowling program for State College Area School District elementary and middle schools.
League Basics
Most leagues are sanctioned by the United States Bowling Congress. This means they follow a standardized set of rules, and league bowlers can qualify to participate in state and national tournaments. Sanctioned league bowlers can earn prize money for tournament wins as well as for achievements like throwing a 300 game (a perfect score) or an 800 series (scoring a total of at least 800 over three consecutive games). The USBC season generally begins in early September and runs for twenty-eight to thirty-two weeks.
In addition to being part of the USBC, Northland Bowl and Bellefonte Lanes are part of the Seven Mountains Bowling Association, which also includes bowling centers in Huntingdon and Lewistown.
Adult leagues are generally made up of three-, four-, or five-person teams, many of which are sponsored by local businesses. During their weekly league events, teams bowl three games, often wearing matching shirts of some kind.
Almost all leagues are handicap leagues, meaning scores are adjusted based on a bowler’s average in order to even the playing field. For the most serious bowlers, there is only one “scratch” league (which means no scores are adjusted) in the Seven Mountains Bowling Association—the Wednesday night Art DeFluri League at Bellefonte Lanes.
“We have bowlers here that average anywhere from seventy-five to 240, so there’s a big mix,” Jaworski says. “In the handicap leagues, it all evens out. It’s more about camaraderie than anything else.”
Like a Family
Leonard Verbeck agrees with Jaworski’s assessment. Verbeck works and bowls at Bellefonte Lanes. He has been bowling since he was sixteen. Now sixty-four, he serves as president of the Seven Mountains Bowling Association and as secretary for the three leagues in which he bowls at Bellefonte Lanes.
“Each league is like a bowling family. That’s what happens when you bowl with the same people year after year after year,” he says. “We enjoy good friendship and fellowship with each other.”
John Behe of Julian comes to Bellefonte Lanes to bowl in four different leagues each week, some of which he has been a part of since 1990.
“It keeps me out of trouble,” he says.
One of those leagues is the Monday night “Friendship League,” where Behe’s team, East Coast Health and Fitness, found themselves atop the standings in November.
Behe and his teammates show up to the lanes with a deck of cards and with containers filled with coins, adding another element of competition to the bowling matches. For fifty cents per person, they create their own poker hands by picking a card every time they bowl a strike or a spare. They also pay each other nickels or dimes for things like picking up splits or throwing strikes.
Behe says the best thing about league bowling is, “You’re bowling with friends. This league is the ‘Friendship League,’ so for the most part everybody gets along with everybody here. … It’s a friendly league.”
That’s not to say he’s not competitive. Behe says he has bowled seven perfect 300 games in his life, including one during a tournament in Williamsport.
Tournaments are a great way for league bowlers to feed their competitive spirit.
Wanda Tice of Zion has bowled in many state and national tournaments and was recently inducted into the Seven Mountains Bowling Association Hall of Fame. She bowls in leagues at both Bellefonte Lanes and Northland Bowl, as well as in Clinton County.
Her best score was a 289, she says, and her average is currently 160 to 165.
“That’s pretty good for a sixty-nine-year-old,” says Tice, who has been bowling since she was seventeen.
Twenty-five-year-old Zach Robertson of Warriors Mark has achieved remarkable lifetime totals of 113 perfect 300 games and eighty-three 800 series so far.
Robertson bowled professionally for a couple of years. These days, he bowls in the Wednesday night scratch league at Bellefonte Lanes. He also belongs to leagues in Bedford and Altoona.
“I’m usually one of the youngest guys in the league,” he says. “For the most part, it’s [ages] thirty to eighty—mostly fifty- to seventy-year-olds.”
Despite any age differences, Robertson says, “It’s like a family. The reason I still bowl so much is, they’re just my friends. I don’t want to leave my friends.”
Starting Young
While Robertson didn’t start bowling until the age of twelve, the local youth leagues have included kids from as young as three to the maximum age of eighteen.
This year’s Northland Bowl youth league includes twenty-eight kids who participate in two-person teams every Saturday morning.
“It’s a wonderful program. To get up on a Saturday morning in State College with football games going on and come on in here at nine a.m. to bowl—that’s a commitment,” says Steven Bailey, president of the league and parent of two youth bowlers.
During league play and afterward, Bailey helps coach the kids, going from lane to lane to observe and offer advice. The youth are encouraged to try to qualify to compete in tournaments; Northland Bowl and the league help pay their way.
Traveling to tournaments can be worth it, because the USBC offers scholarship money toward college or other post-secondary education, giving out a total of $7 million last year.
Jaworski says, “Bowling has more scholarship money available yearly than any of the other sports. It’s not publicized enough.”
In addition to its sanctioned youth league, Northland Bowl offers a shorter-season youth-adult league, which includes two-person teams made up of an adult and a child.
Their intramural bowling program is also very popular; that’s how James Lukehart discovered bowling at the age of ten. Now he’s a high school junior, and bowling has become his passion; he says you can find him at the bowling alley at least three times a week for two or three hours at a time. In addition to the Northland Bowl youth league, he bowls in a league in Altoona and competes in tournaments across the state just about every Sunday, according to his mom, Julie.
Lukehart’s dedication is paying off. He has won over $6,000 in scholarship money at tournaments. His highest score is a 280, and he has also had an 801 three-game series.
“I enjoy the sport, especially the competitive side of it,” Lukehart says.
Avery Milanese also enjoys the competitive side of bowling. She is the granddaughter of Dennis Jaworski, and her mother, Alissa Jaworski, is poised to take over Bellefonte Lanes when Dennis retires, so bowling is truly in Milanese’s blood.
Milanese started out in the bumper division of the Bellefonte Lanes youth league at age three. Now fifteen, she continued to participate in that league until this season, when most of the other members of her age bracket graduated. Now she bowls in Altoona and Lock Haven.
Milanese, whose best score so far is a 292, has bowled at the USBC national tournament twice and hopes to go again this July, when it will be held in Wisconsin. She’ll first have to qualify and raise enough money to attend the nine-day event.
She says the two national tournaments she has participated in were a lot of fun, but “it’s very stressful, because you’re going against a lot of people and you’re going into these huge bowling alleys; some of the bowling alleys have 100 lanes. … A lot of the other bowlers are really good. The girl that got first place last year in my division is on Team USA.”
Not all of the youth bowlers are focused on competition, however, and Bailey says that’s okay.
“Youth league brings the kids in to learn the game, but really we find that the community isn’t just about bowling. It’s about meeting people; it’s about learning social skills,” he says.
For ten-year-old Declan Holmes of Tyrone, who bowls with his fourteen-year-old brother, Riley, on team Holmes Style, bowling is mostly about being active.
Their mother, Kim Holmes, says, “This is nice for Declan because we found out when he was younger that he has epilepsy, so he wasn’t allowed to play sports like football or baseball. This gets him out and active, and it’s something that he’s grown to love.”
Before teammates Karis Faiella, thirteen, and Margee Hagerup, fourteen, of State College decided to give league bowling a try this year for the first time, they both typically bowled once a year.
“That once a year just got me really interested, and I asked my mom, ‘Hey, is there a bowling league?” Hagerup says. “I have five older brothers and we’re very competitive. …This is just another way for me to practice my competitiveness. It’s also really relaxing.”
Faiella says, “It’s just so fun. I look forward to it every week. It’s kind of competitive, but you also can talk to other people while you’re doing it.”
Magda, who has worked at Northland Bowl for over thirty years, says she’s seen bowling go through ups and downs in popularity, but she feels it is a good sign for the sport that so many youth are enjoying the league options at the center. She encourages people of all ages to give league bowling a try.
“What a nice way to get out and make new friends,” she says. “You meet a wide variety of people in the leagues, and it’s a great family activity. Just a good night out for family or friends.” T&G
Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.
