Mount Mercy bowling coach wants to pile up strikes for herself this week in Waterloo

Last week, Cleveland. This week, Waterloo.

Does that sound like the glamorous life to you? Probably not. But it’s what Mount Mercy University bowling assistant coach Cassidy Courey is living and enjoying as a professional bowler.

This weekend, Courey has been competing at the Professional Women’s Bowling Association’s tour stop in suburban Cleveland. Later this week, she gets a sort of “home-lanes” advantage when she commutes from her Cedar Rapids home to the PWBA’s 3-day Bowlers Journal Waterloo Open at Cadillac Xtreme Bowling Center starting Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed,” Courey said from Ohio last week.

In Waterloo, Courey will compete against bowlers from around the nation and the world. The last time the PWBA was in Waterloo, in 2023, the champion was Maria Jose Rodriguez of Colombia. The reigning PWBA Player of the Year is Sin Li Jane of Malaysia.

For the last two years, Courey has coached at Mount Mercy. A Minnesota native, she came to the school as a student and bowler, graduating in 2021. She used her COVID-19 fifth-year waiver to get her master's degree at McKendree University in Illinois, and bowled on its 2022 NCAA Division II national-championship team.

Courey returned to Mount Mercy to coach in Andy Diercks’ program, working primarily with the men’s team. Bowling, she said, “arguably is the most successful sport on campus.”

In April, the National Collegiate Bowling Coaches Association named Courey the national men’s Coach of the Year.

Mount Mercy freshman Blake Walsh of Australia won the Mustangs’ first individual national title at the United States Bowling Congress’ Intercollegiate Team Championships finals, and the Mount Mercy men’s team finished in the ITC semifinals.

The Mustangs have a coach who still hungers to compete herself. Courey, 26, embarked on a journey as a pro bowler last year, entering nine PWBA events and cashing in five to earn a total of $10.360. A first-prize check typically is $20,000.

“Not many are able to make a living doing it,” Courey said. “A lot of us work other jobs. We do this because we want to.

“I’m a year-round employee at Mount Mercy, but I can do this as long as I’m getting my job done over the summer. I also find doing this can help me stay sharp for the college season.”

Staying sharp during her summer bowling season, though, isn’t easy. She flew to a tourney in Las Vegas recently, but almost everywhere else Courey goes to compete is a car trip, sometimes up to 10 hours one way.

“It can be grueling having to be gone all the time, and it takes money,” she said.

The 2025 PWBA season has 12 events across the country. Sin Li Jane of Malaysia is the reigning PWBA Player of the Year, and Crystal Elliott of Palm Bay, Florida, was the 2024 PWBA Rookie of the Year.

“The fun part is you get to compete,” Courey said. “It’s like a puzzle, figuring out what works best in the moment.”

The Cleveland event lasted several days, but Waterloo’s tourney and most others are three days. Thursday is for practice. There are six games of qualifying on Friday morning, a 2-hour break, and six more games of qualifying Friday night. The top one-third of the field advances.

Those who made the cut return Saturday morning for another six games of qualifying. The field then is cut to the top 12 players. After six more qualifying games, the top five players advance to a stepladder, single-elimination tourney that evening.

Next week, Courey and her fellow competitors will move on to a tourney in Lincoln, Neb. The week after, it’s on to Green Bay, Wis. And so forth.

It’s tough. But as someone who coached a women’s baseball team in a movie famously said, “it’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

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