Note: This story is posted free for all to read so the Madison Area USBC can share it for its announcement.

“Young leadership” is something of an oxymoron in USBC bowling associations.

For a variety of reasons, association leaders typically skew older, a situation concerning enough that USBC has created things like its Young Delegates Grant Program that provides aid to help people under 45 be delegates to its annual convention with the aim of growing future leaders.

With the start of the 2026-27 season on Saturday — bowling seasons officially run Aug. 1-July 31 — the Madison Area USBC will be defying the stereotype when 33-year-old Lindsey DesRochers becomes the association’s manager.

DesRochers has been on the Madison Area USBC Board of Directors and been one of the operators of the Madison Area Scratch Tour for the past five years, and will continue in both roles, though there will be some things she won’t be able to vote on for the Madison Area USBC Board due to being the association manager.

With that experience in bowling administration, and the capable assistance of retiring Madison Area USBC manager Bill Dennis, who will stay on as a consultant for the 2026-27 season, DesRochers’ biggest challenge appears to be juggling her new part-time manager role with her full-time job and being a mother of an 11-month-old daughter.

The key to that is the support of her husband Kyle DesRochers, who also is a bowler.

“He really is a saint, and he loves to support my love for bowling,” Lindsey says of Kyle. “He understands that this is a passion of mine, and it has been since I was 12. I wouldn't be able to do this without his love and support.”

DesRochers’ full-time job is meeting manager for the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

Accommodating that means working for the Madison Area USBC at times that are “not maybe the usual times, like at night. Also, I will probably not be doing as much at the actual association tournaments and using that time to work kind of behind the scenes instead.”

This actually is Dennis’ second retirement as Madison Area USBC manager.

Dennis was the long-time Madison Bowling Association manager and then Madison Area USBC manager after the 2017 merger of the local men’s, women’s, and youth associations.

Dennis first retired in 2022 after serving 15 seasons in the position and as just the fourth MA-USBC/MBA manager going back more than 50 years to Jim Grady. Jim Thompson followed Grady and then Mike Reed followed Thompson and preceded Dennis.

With Dennis’ full-time job consuming more of his time and the COVID-19 pandemic hitting Madison Area USBC membership and finances, it accelerated Dennis’ plans to step back as the manager position transitioned from full- to part-time with the board taking on more responsibility.

Dennis was succeeeded by Janice Ryan, then returned in 2025 when Ryan resigned due to health reasons. 

Where 2019-20 MA-USBC membership had been around 6,300, that figure plunged to 3,396 in 2020-21, before rebounding to 4,642 in 2021-22, 5,061 in 2022-23, 5,136 in 2023-24, 5,175 in 2024-25, and 5,007 in 2025-26. I was unable to find exact figures, but I’ve seen figures of around 20,000 total members at the peak around 1980, when men, women and youth were in separate associations.

Conklin said USBC requires associations to have a manager, so there was going to be one even as the Madison Area USBC moved more to a Board committee-run association.

“And I think it's good to have that association manager who keeps the oversight of all of our committees and things like that,” Conklin said.

One issue that had to be addressed with DesRochers as a candidate was having a mother and daughter being the two people responsible for the finances as the president and manager are the positions that have that responsibility.

To avoid the obvious conflict of interest, Conklin agreed to remove herself from the finances if DesRochers was hired as manager. Dennis will have that co-responsibility in 2026-27, which makes sense with Dennis staying on as a consultant and training the new manager, Conklin said.

“The Board voted (DesRochers) in unanimously, with the caveat that it's not both of us on the banking,” said Conklin, who abstained from the manager vote. “I'm very excited because I think it's great for us to have a young association manager. She stepped up. There was no pressuring her into doing it. She knew we were looking. She felt like she's in the right place now because the baby's going to be a year old and life has settled down.”

DesRochers, who said she has career highs of a 704 series and 289 game, still bowls two leagues a week.

DesRochers had multiple reasons for wanting to be manager.

“One, I'm really interested in learning how our association operates,” she said. “We're one of the largest associations, and the fact that we run so smoothly is a testament to past association managers, and I want to learn more about that. And I am in a spot where I feel like I can do that.

“And the other reason is bowling has given me almost everything in my life. I met my husband through bowling, my best friend through bowling, it made my mom and I closer, and I really want a chance to give back to a community that has given me so much.”

The manager’s duties include being an advocate for the association, handling correspondence with USBC, perfect game and 800 series award forms, the annual yearbook, supporting the Board and committees, handling things volunteers can’t handle, and paying bills and handling other financial matters.

“I think it's going to be a lot of learning the first year, as well as finding things that we could maybe improve,” DesRochers said. “But I don't want to change anything until I fully understand the process. And like in my full-time job, it takes you a full year to really understand my job, and I kind of see an association manager the same way, where it's going to take me a whole season to really understand what I'm doing. But luckily, I have the support of the Board, and of Bill, so I think no one will really notice that I'm learning what I'm doing.”

While she will be learning, DesRochers’ goals include “helping the communications committee figure out how we can get the word out there better about our tournaments and highlighting different people in our community when they exceed at different tournaments. And then once I learn more, maybe I'll have other goals.”

The Board relationships she has developed should help her, DesRochers said.

And she said she gained valuable experience running MAST tournaments that also “helped me gain relationships with different bowlers, which I think is important.”

DesRochers acknowledged that some people may feel she is too young for the job, but said that “Honestly, I would hope that my work in the association would show that I do care a lot about it, and I do know what I'm doing. Maybe not this exact job, but I have the passion for it. And it's also time to get the next generation more involved, so that our association can stay prosperous.”