Growth of unified bowling in Colorado has highlighted sport’s second season with CHSAA sanctioning

With Colorado’s second unified bowling state championships set to take place on Friday, it is impressive to look back on how quickly the sport has grown at the high school level in just two seasons as a CHSAA-sanctioned sport.

Since the sport completed its first official season this past spring, the number of teams statewide has increased from 15 to 27 and those teams now span a much larger area of Colorado. Following a successful inaugural season, a dozen teams will compete for the state’s second state title at AMF Belleview Lanes on Friday.

As participation in unified bowling continues to grow, the sport shines as an example of schools stepping up to provide opportunities for their students.

“As we head into our culminating event this Friday with the unified championship, we are celebrating a great season,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Jennifer Roberts-Uhlig, who oversees unified bowling. “It has been exciting, seeing our bowling athletes excel in our second official CHSAA-sanctioned season. Not only did we double in teams, but our member schools continue to provide opportunities at the local level to highlight our awesome athletes. Thank you to Special Olympics and Arc for their dedication and support throughout this season.”

With the second state championships comes the first opportunity for a unified bowling team to defend a title. That team, Pueblo East, claimed the sport’s first-ever team title during a global pandemic and head coach Chuck Blagg said the follow-up season has been a special campaign for the Eagles.

New elements like an increased number of teams, a larger community to be a part of, rivalry competitions that featured several different schools’ cheerleaders and all kinds of new experiences have been highlights for the Eagles and other teams across Colorado. And while the competition is always friendly in unified bowling, Blagg said his squad, led by top bowler Kyle Meyer, is ready to give its all and compete for a trophy on Friday.

“In the second year, it’s great that we get to defend,” Blagg said. “Talking with our bowlers, they’re really excited to defend. Our regional was bigger than it was last year, so that was really cool to see. Having all the new teams, it’s made it a lot more fun for us and for the students, who get to meet a lot of new people. The teams all cheer for everyone so half the time, you can’t even tell who won the event until it’s over.

“This has been a great season and we’re looking forward to state.”

The program at Pueblo East isn’t the only one that has increased its numbers and the sport has exploded in all areas of Colorado. At Sterling, the team had 11 kids out of unified bowling this fall, which was enough to field two teams – one scoring team, one non-scoring team – at most competitions.

Strasburg even live-streamed all but one of its unified bowling competitions this season.

“The sport is exploding,” Strasburg athletic director Michelle Woodard said. “Our school is pretty small, but our numbers are really good compared to some other schools, so we’re really excited about that. I wanted to add more unified sports for a long time and as soon as we could add unified bowling, we did it instantly. And we did it during the COVID time, and that was interesting because we had football players and softball players on it. We’ve found a lot of students who are really interested in it and it’s been a great experience to watch them grow the sport at our school.”

Friday’s unified bowling state championships will begin at 12:15 p.m. The teams that qualified out of regionals this season and will compete at state are Brighton, Eaglecrest, Frederick, Legend, Northridge, Pueblo Central, Pueblo East, Pueblo South, Rangeview, Silver Creek, Skyline and Windsor.