A New Beginning
In the Fall of 1963, the new Earl Sams Center is finally completed. Trinity University’s new gymnasium offers various recreational options to its students including access to an eight lane bowling alley. After the Physical Education department moved to the center in time for the 1964 spring semester, one of its goals was to provide recreational yet competitive opportunities to its students in the form of intramural sports including bowling.
After establishing the league, the school placed more attention on its intercollegiate team and so Richard "Dick" Yerly enters the scene. Over Dick Yerly’s time as coach, Trinity University’s intercollegiate bowling team held a competitive record in the Texas Intercollegiate Bowling Conference as they regularly faced larger schools such as the University of Houston and Texas A&M. In this group of schools, Trinity was almost always the smallest competitor in terms of school size but that did not mean that its bowling team would be the one with the smallest amount of resources. There were only eight schools actively participating in the Texas conference yet only three of these schools had their own bowling lanes: Trinity University was one of them. Other schools had to practice on public lanes which meant that these schools could never host a tournament. This would give the Trinity bowling team a huge advantage everytime they hosted a tournament as they became very familiar with the bowling lanes. This competitive era of the bowling team seems even more impressive considering how in the team’s early years many of the team members began playing in the intramural league. Of course, Trinity University’s performance in these meets and tournaments were partly due to some talented players it has had.