The Junior Bowlers Tour

This is the website for the SW-NW version of JBT, and the Las Vegas Main Event. For the east coast JBT, visit www.jbtbowling.com.

BOWLING JBT EVENTS DOES NOT IN ANY WAY AFFECT YOUR ELIGIBILITY TO BOWL OTHER USBC EVENTS. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU ANY DIFFERENTLY.

This is a strange time in the world of bowling. The Junior Bowlers Tour, and many other tournament groups, leagues, and scholarship associations have chosen to not certify with USBC for the second consecutive season, as a result of rule changes implemented over the summer of 2006.

The biggest misconception we have come across this season has been the concern that if you bowl an uncertified event, such as ours, you automatically become ineligible to bowl in USBC certified events (city, state, Gold, etc.). THIS IS NOT TRUE. Anyone who tells you so is either misinformed, misinterpreted the rule, or has other motives, which I certainly hope is not the case.

The following is straight from Roger Dalkin, (now former) CEO of USBC: Bowling a non-USBC event does not affect your eligibility to bowl USBC events, provided that event does not break any USBC Youth eligibility rules as outlined under USBC rule 400. We invite anyone that is skeptical of this to contact USBC. JBT events do not violate rule 400- I cannot speak for other non-USBC Certified groups.

The thing that could make you ineligible for USBC Youth events is accepting what USBC refers to as "non-symbolic" awards. Our plaques also fall under the definition of "symbolic". To protect your eligibilty, we will have to charge your parents for honor score rings, which are now considered "non-symbolic". If you have any questions how that fits with what I've previously said, contact me any time. Most importantly, the earning of scholarships from uncertified events does not make you ineligible to bowl certified events. There are, for a very select few (females in NCAA bowling programs almost exclusively), issues regarding scholarships and NCAA bowling that you should already be aware of, and we have discussed elsewhere at great length- again, feel free to contact me anytime regarding this.

To review, the central reason we chose not to certify, which has also been discussed ad nauseum, boils down to this: JBT currently manages about $700,000 in scholarships, and returns 4-9% annually in interest earned to our prize funds (to pay guarantees, and to bulk up prize funds of our Invitationals, TPC, Main Event, etc.). SMART currently holds approximately $21,000,000 in scholarships, and to our knowledge has annually returned approximately 2% to its depositors, and many years returned zero. This difference in interest, compounded annually, with the added confusion that smart-as-middleman causes, makes it a no-brainer for us to not use SMART. Since you must use SMART to certify this season, we're not certified. Other very reputable groups have chosen to use SMART and thus stay certified. For some, SMART may be the right choice. For us it is not, and we hope you'll agree.

This is the teeny, tiny, teensy-weensy tip of a very complex iceberg. It's also a situation that changes literally daily, and affects every individual differently. USBC has asked us to encourage you to contact them, or NCAA, for more information, and while we don't suggest not to, we caution you that just because you've called USBC or NCAA, that doesn't mean you'll get a full or correct answer to your question. You probably will, in fact-- but as in any large company, you may get a different answer from different people, etc. I suggest you contact both them AND us, and hopefully our answers will correspond.

As stated in our much longer conversations about this issue, this is not something we take lightly. If you, the bowlers, don't bowl our tournaments, we don't have a Tour. I have not worked for 12 years developing the Tour into what it is to mess it up now. The governing body of our sport has forced us into this very difficult decision, and we've made it because we feel it is by far in your best interest, pun intended. We hope you'll agree, and strongly feel that time will bear this out to be true. It is our hope that JBT, USBC, NCAA, and everyone else can continue to work to find a solution that works to the best interests of our junior bowlers and our great sport's better health.

-Jeff Hemer, executive director, JBT (SW)

For more info, feel free to write us at jbtsouthwest@aol.com.