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Abbreviation | WIBC |
---|---|
Merged into | United States Bowling Congress |
Formation | Late November 1916 |
Founded at | St. Louis, Missouri, USA |
Dissolved | 2005 |
Formerly called | Woman's National Bowling Association (WNBA) |
The Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) was an organization for women bowlers who played ten-pin bowling and was formed in 1916 as a counterpart to the American Bowling Congress (ABC). The WIBC was initially called the "Woman's National Bowling Association" (WNBA), before the Women's International Bowling Congress was formed.
In 2005, the WIBC merged with three other bowling organizations to form the United States Bowling Congress (USBC): the American Bowling Congress, the Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA), and USA Bowling.
Originally called the Woman's National Bowling Association (WNBA), the Women's International Bowling Congress was formed in St. Louis, Missouri, in late November 1916. It was the first widely recognized women's association for the sport of ten-pin bowling. The founding women were aided by male bowling alley proprietor (Washington Bowling Alleys in St. Louis) Dennis J. Sweeney, [1] who obtained permission from the American Bowling Congress (ABC) in 1907 to hold a national women's tournament on their lanes, and held one in 1916, providing the inspiration.
The founding members of the WIBC were:
The first official meeting of the WNBA was held on October 26, 1917, in St. Louis. Forty women from 11 cities attended the meeting and voted on the organization's constitution, bylaws, and first 16-member executive committee. The purpose of the organization was agreed to be:
To provide, adopt and enforce uniform rules and regulations governing the play of American tenpins; to provide and enforce uniform qualifications for tournaments and their participants; to hold a national tournament, and to encourage good feeling and create interest in the bowling game.
The WNBA held its first national tournament—today's USBC Queens event—in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 11 – 12, 1918.
1916 - Catherine Menne was a bowling pioneer. She was among the founders and served as the first president of the Women's National Bowling Association (later renamed the Women's International Bowling Congress or WIBC) in 1916. [2]
1974 - Georgia Veatch served for more than 25 years on the Women's International Bowling Congress's board of directors. She also served as president of the Windy City Women's Bowling Association and president and secretary of the Chicago Bowling Council. Veatch was inducted into the Women's International Bowling Congress's Hall of Fame in 1974 for "meritorious service to bowling". [3]
When it became a part of USBC in 2005, there were over 1.2 million WIBC members playing in 67,000 sanctioned leagues in over 2,700 local associations. Local associations exist in every state as well some foreign countries. The national tournament held by the WIBC, now called the USBC Women's Championships, is the largest women's sporting event in the world. The 1997 tournament in Reno, Nevada, attracted 14,872 five-woman teams (for a total of 88,279 participants), the largest entry for any team tournament in history and a women's world record.
Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first roll of the ball, or failing that, on the second roll.
Duckpin bowling is a variation of the sport of bowling.
A perfect game is the highest score possible in a game of bowling, achieved by scoring a strike in every frame. In bowling games that use 10 pins, such as ten-pin bowling, candlepin bowling, and duckpin bowling, the highest possible score is 300, achieved by bowling 12 strikes in a row in a traditional single game: one strike in each of the first nine frames, and three more in the tenth frame.
The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) is a sports membership organization dedicated to ten-pin bowling in the United States. It was formed in 2005 by a merger of the American Bowling Congress—the original codifier of all tenpin bowling standards, rules and regulations from 1895 onwards; the Women's International Bowling Congress—founded in 1916, as the female bowlers' counterpart to the then all-male ABC; the Young American Bowling Alliance, and USA Bowling. The USBC's headquarters are located in Arlington, Texas, after having moved from the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale, Wisconsin, in November 2008. The move enabled the USBC to combine its operations with the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America (BPAA).
The USBC Masters is a championship ten-pin bowling event conducted by the United States Bowling Congress. The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) began recognizing it as a title event in 1998, and it was designated one of the four majors in 2000. A PBA rule change in 2008 retroactively awarded a PBA title to any Masters winners prior to 1998 who were PBA members at the time of the victory.
Lynda Barnes is one of the world's leading female tenpin bowlers. She is a former member of the PWBA. Bowling as an amateur, Lynda won the 1998 USBC Queens championship, then known as the WIBC Queens. In 1999, Lynda married Chris Barnes, a leading bowler on the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) tour. The couple's twin sons, Troy and Ryan, were born in May 2002. Ryan currently bowls for his father's alma mater, Wichita State University. Lynda is a former member of Team USA.
The Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) organizes and oversees a series of annual tournaments for the top competitive women ten-pin bowlers. The series is often referred to as the "women's tour" of bowling.
Carolyn Dorin-Ballard is one of the top female ten-pin bowlers in the world. She is a member of the Professional Women's Bowling Association and has bowled in PBA Tournaments as well. She was an exempt competitor in the 2008–09 and 2009-10 PBA Women's Series seasons, which were sponsored by the United States Bowling Congress (USBC). Between the PWBA and the PBA Women's Series, she has won 22 professional titles. Carolyn was a 2007 inductee into the USBC Hall of Fame.
The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) is the major sanctioning body for the sport of professional ten-pin bowling in the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the PBA membership consists of over 3,000 members worldwide. Members include "pro shop" owners and workers, teaching professionals and bowlers who compete in the various events put on by the Association.
Marion Ladewig was an American ten-pin bowler. She was named Female Bowler of the Year by the Bowling Writers Association of America a record nine times between 1950 and 1963. A Grand Rapids, MI native, Ladewig is the only woman to win WIBC City, State, and National All-Events titles in the same year (1951).
Donald James Carter was a right-handed American professional bowler. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he learned the game while working a childhood job as a pinsetter, and went on to become one of the legends of ten-pin bowling and a founding member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) in 1958.
Elizabeth Ann Johnson is an American professional bowler. She first became known as an 11-time winner on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour, which included the first of her six U.S. Women's Open titles in 1996, before that organization suspended operations in 2003.
Leanne Barrette-Hulsenberg, from Roseville, California and currently of North Ogden, Utah, was one of the top female professional bowlers on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour. In a career that spanned 17 years, she won 26 PWBA titles and was a three-time PWBA Player of the Year. In 2007, she was elected to the USBC Hall of Fame for Superior Performance, and was inducted with the 2008 class. She was inducted into the PWBA Hall of Fame in 2019, as a member of the first Hall of Fame class since that organization suspended operations in 2003.
Wendy Macpherson is an American ten-pin bowler. She was born on January 28, 1968, in Walnut Creek, California, and currently lives in Henderson, Nevada.
Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins or another target. The term bowling usually refers to pin bowling, though in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, bowling could also refer to target bowling, such as lawn bowls.
The USBC Queens is an annual ten-pin bowling event for amateur and professional female bowlers, sanctioned by the United States Bowling Congress. The event is one of four women's professional majors since the PWBA tour returned in 2015 and the female equivalent of the USBC Masters, now one of the four majors on the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Tour.
Anita Cantaline is a former American professional bowler from Detroit and later Warren, Michigan. A graduate of Cass Tech High School, she won her first women's championship in 1948. In December 1955, she won the U.S. Women's Open. She was inducted into the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) Hall of Fame in 1979. She also won the Bowling Proprietors Association of America (BPAA) All-Star tournament in 1956, the WIBC all-events title in 1957, and WIBC team championships in 1957 and 1959. She was also named the BPAA National Individual Match Game champion in 1956. She was the first woman to win both the singles and doubles championships in the same year and was named 1956 Bowling Writers Association of America Bowler of the Year. As of 2008, she had made 62 tournament appearances.
Dorothy Ann Fothergill is an American former left-handed ten-pin bowler who competed in the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA). In a brief career that was cut short by injury, she won 12 titles on the PWBA Tour, including six major championships. She was named the Woman Bowler of the Year in 1968 and 1969, and defeated many top men's competitors in exhibition play. She sued the Professional Bowlers Association in 1970 when her application to compete in men's tournaments was rejected. She was inducted into the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) Hall of Fame in 1980. She was also one of the charter inductees into the PWBA Hall of Fame in 1995.
Lisa Wagner is a retired professional ten-pin bowler who competed on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour from 1980 through 2001. She is the all-time leader in officially recognized PWBA titles with 32. Among these titles are major championships at the 1988 U.S. Women's Open and 1996 WIBC Queens. Wagner is a member of the PWBA Hall of Fame.
Aleta Sill is a retired American professional ten-pin bowler and current bowling coach from Dearborn Heights, Michigan. She competed nationally on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour from 1980 through 2001. In her career, the left-handed Sill won 31 titles, including six major championships. She was the first female bowler to eclipse $1 million in career earnings. Aleta is a 1996 inductee into both the PWBA Hall of Fame and the USBC Hall of Fame.