ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) – Just like college basketball has “March Madness,” collegiate bowling teams also have a national tournament to determine a national championship. This year, both the men’s and women’s teams at Missouri Baptist University qualified to compete in the tournament, but both were declared ineligible and won’t be participating this year.
Donald Griffin is the school’s bowling coach.
“This stinks, it’s not right, it’s not right,” he said.
Schools in the tournament are required to submit paperwork showing that students on the bowling teams have the minimum grade point average and meet the other eligibility requirements. Those forms are mailed to the sports governing body, the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) and have to be postmarked by February 1st.
Two weeks after the deadline, USBC notified the university that its forms never arrived and because it missed the deadline the school’s teams would be ineligible to compete. After some research, Griffin said the school discovered its paperwork never arrived because of what happened to the postal drop box they used in Creve Coeur.
“Our mail into the box at about 5pm and then sometime later that evening, after the post office closed, that specific Dropbox that we put everything into was vandalized, and mail went missing and destroyed,” he said.
The university took the new information to the USBC and appealed the ruling but were denied. The women’s team had made the tournament for the first time since 2009. Meagan Odum is the team captain and a senior.
“And I’ve been working like these past four years to get this team here and get us to this point and we were so excited to make it and then they kind of just ripped it off from under our feet,” she said.
Michael A. Spridco, the senior director for rules and compliance with the USBC, released a statement that said in part,
“The school was deemed ineligible for postseason play based on a rule requiring eligibility forms be postmarked by February 1. This decision is based on the application of the rule and does not allow for personal opinion, outside influences, or special circumstances. In a couple of the documents provided to all schools, USBC Collegiate recommends the school send the document certified to prove the mailing date as well as to confirm it is received. The historical decision in a case where no forms have been received is there is no verifiable proof the forms were mailed and the appeal is denied.”
Dakoda Phelps, captain of the men’s team, said he was disappointed.
“To have all the hard work put in to get to where we were and just to have all that taken away,” he said.
Students are still able to compete on an individual basis and are in Chicago to do that.
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