IL STATE SCHOLARSHIP TOUR

The IL State Scholarship Tour will be starting it's 6th season in just over two weeks! This year's tour is BIGGER and BETTER than EVER! Over the last 5 seasons, the IL State Youth Leaders have given away $74,121.87 during 32 tournament stops! That's just over $2,300 given out at each tournament!

NEW in 2010-2011, the IL State Scholarship Tour will hold TWO monthly tournaments. The 1st Sunday of each month, the tournament will be held south of Interstate 80, while the 3rd Sunday's tournament will be held north of Interstate 80. This gives bowlers the opportunity to earn scholarship money TWICE a month! Below you will find a listing of the tournament stops for the 2010-2011 season.

As stated above, the IL State Scholarship Tour has been around for 5 seasons. We offer three different divisions; Handicap, Scratch Boys, and Scratch Girls. In order to bowl handicap, you must supply a league average sheet and average a 179 or under. If you bowled with us during the 2009-2010 season, you have a tournament average that we will carry over into the 2010-2011 season, unless your league average is 10 pins higher or lower than your tournaments average. ANY bowler is able to bowl in the scratch division, but keep in mind that doing so places in the scratch division for the ENTIRE 2010-2011 season.

The format for the IL State Scholarship Tour is 6 games of qualifying, followed by the top 6 in each division bowling 6 more games of matchplay, with the last game being a position round. All bowling will be conducts on a SPORT condition. The winner will be determined by the bowler with the HIGHEST total pin fall PLUS handicap, where applicable. Each tournament fees are $45; $24 scholarship, $16 lineage, $3 year-end, and $2 expenses. There is also a $5 membership fee that each bowler MUST pay when bowling their first event of the 2010-2011 season. Each tournament will also be a Junior Gold qualifier for the 2011 Junior Gold Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. This will be an additional $40 and the advancers will be determined AFTER the 6 qualifying games. Bowlers will advance on a 1:5 ratio, or major fraction there of. Brackets will also be available during each tournament. They at $5 per bracket and divisions are split Handicap and Scratch. Pay outs for brackets are $25 for 1st and $15 for 2nd.

With the expansion of the tour, we are also in need of expansion of our funding. The IL State Youth Leaders donated $5,700 towards the tournaments. In order to maintain, or even increase, scholarship payouts, we need YOUR help! We are searching for donations of all sorts. Each tour stop we give away a total of $255 in high games (high game per game during qualifying and high game per day, all per division). Simply receiving donations in this amount per tournament would help us GREATLY. Some ideas for you to help us raise this money is bowling ball/bag raffles, 50/50 raffles at your home center(s), garage/yard sales, 9-pin no tap tournaments, etc.. If you are interested in donating to the IL State Scholarship Tour, please contact Patti Mauerman at (309) 369-3862 or eeyore1@dishmail.net.

Also NEW for 2010-2011, if a bowler attends all 14 tournament stops, as well as the year-end, they will receive an extra $25 in scholarship at the end of the season. We hope this encourages those that have been us, and new bowlers, to make the trip to bowl the north and south/central tournaments.

When bowling the IL State Scholarship Tour, we expect each bowler to dress in a proper manner. Dress slacks and collared or mock-collared polos are expected. USBC Youth jerseys will also be acceptable attire. Non-acceptable attire includes shorts, skirts, capris, skorts, jeans, t-shirts, or hats.

Since the IL State Scholarship Tour has expanded for the 2010-2011 season, the requirement for the year-end has been increased. A bowler must participate in 5 tournaments from August-February in order to qualify for the year-end in March at Town & Country Bowl in Joliet, IL. The year-end gives away MORE scholarship money than the regular tour tournaments, which is why there is a requirement to enter it. When a bowler qualifies, they will receive an entry personally into the year-end tournament.

Another new rule that will be in effect for the 2010-2011 season concerns reservations. Phone/Email reservations will be taken for each tournament. Should the bowler with the reservation not provide information prior to the tournament about not showing up, that bowler will no longer be allowed to make a reservation via phone or email for the remainder of the season. Much preparation goes into each tournament and it is much easier to do most of the work PRIOR to the tournament day.

We hope to see many new bowlers this season due to the recent expansion, as well as the many faces we have encountered throughout the previous 5 seasons. If you're interested in making a reservation for any tournament, please contact either Patti Mauerman, eeyore1@dishmail.net or Jennifer Levon, brnswckbabe277@yahoo.com.