Thousands of students participate in Ohio's fastest growing sport

By Michael Cooper

February 10th, 2008

Springfield News-Sun

SPRINGFIELD — Northridge Lanes General Manager Chuck Kearney already missed the boat on high school bowling once.

As the manager at Spring Bowl in St. Bernard 40 years ago, Kearney had bus loads of high school students from all over Cincinnati bowling after school. 

But when expenses became too high — particularly with transportation — the schools stopped bringing the kids.

"We were never really smart enough to develop leagues," Kearney said. "We should've. We had a lot of kids in there. We should've tried to develop some competition between them.

"It was right there, and we let it slip right by us."

If they had, bowling may not have taken so long to become Ohio's fastest growing high school sport.

In 2006, high school bowling officially became an Ohio High School Athletic Association-sanctioned varsity sport.

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