October 6, 2006

By: Mark Martin

METRO DETROIT USBC LEADS THE WAY AGAIN

The United States Bowling Congress recently released the numbers from the 2005-06 season and once again the Metro Detroit area through the Metro Detroit USBC Association led the way.

The USBC had an overall membership of 2,728.590 in the 2005-06 season. This made the USBC the third largest in membership of the 45 National Governing Bodies recognized by the United States Olympic Committee. The only larger ones are softball and soccer with more than four million members each.

The USBC number included 2,407,819 adult and 320,771 youth members bowling on 998,510 teams in 90,857 leagues. There are 5,647 centers with 116,062 lane beds in the USBC. The average bowling center has 20.55 lanes in the United States .

Michigan leads states in membership with 245,210 members (222,895 adult, 22,315 youth). Ohio is second with 191,137, New York third with 181,756, California fourth with 160,616 and Illinois fifth with 157,635.

Metro Detroit USBC had 90,784 members (82,883 adult, 7,901 youth), 91 bowling centers and 2,784 lane beds.

The MDUSBC has more members than 40 states, more bowling centers than 32 states and more lane beds than 37 states.

Other interesting statistics from the MDUSBC are 2,230 - 300 games, 903 – 299 games, 340 – 298 games and 629 – 800 series recorded in the 2005-06 season.

The Chicagoland USBC is a distant second in membership among locals with 38,599 (37,202 adult, 1,397 youth). Nation’s Capital Area (D.C.) USBC 30,338 (27,587 adult, 2,751 youth) is third, Greater Denver fourth with 24,876 (23,263 adult, 1,613 youth) and Long Island (N.Y.) USBC was fifth with 24,722 (21,005 adult, 3,717 youth).

For as long as anyone can remember Detroit leads the nation in bowlers and bowling centers further supporting Detroit as the Bowling Capital of the World.

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HONOR SCORES

300 Games

Date, Name, Hometown, Center, League

Sept. 14, Charles Robison, Waterford Twp., 300 Bowl, Elks 810 Thursday Night Men

Sept. 25, Fred Burrell, Southfield , Cloverlanes, TCAC

Sept. 28, Gregory Brown, Southfield , Hazel Park Bowl, HSC Invitational

Sept. 28, Jeremy Thomas, Detroit , Hazel Park Bowl, HSC Invitational

Sept. 29, David Ewald, Macomb , Hazel Park Bowl, Friday HPC Pepsi Classic

Oct. 3, Jerry Anderson, Clarkston, Cherry Hill Lanes North, Waterford Merchants

Oct. 3, Michael Lawrence, Ortonville, 300 Bowl, 300 Tuesday House

 

800 Series

Date, Name (Score), Hometown, Center, League

Sept. 29, Christopher Ooghe (820), Harrison Twp., Hazel Park Bowl, Friday HPC Pepsi Classic

 

Mark Martin writes a weekly bowling column on Fridays for The Daily Oakland Press and is the association manager of the Metro Detroit USBC Association. He can be reached at (248) 443-2695, faxed at (248) 443-2690 or e-mailed at mark.martin@mdusbc.com.