Chelsea Gilliam Chosen as Youngstown State’s First Women’s Bowling Coach

by YSU

Wednesday, Sep 2, 2015 2:19 pm

Youngstown State Executive Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Ron Strollo is pleased to announce that Chelsea Gilliam has been selected to lead and develop the YSU women's bowling program as its first head coach.

Gilliam comes to Youngstown after serving as the head coach of the men's and women's bowling programs at Union College in Kentucky for the past three years. Today (Sept. 1) is Gilliam's first official day as a Penguin, and she will spend the 2015-16 academic year recruiting student-athletes, securing a home facility and preparing a schedule for Youngstown State to begin competition as a Division I independent program in 2016-17.

In 2015, Gilliam led the Bulldogs' men's team to their second straight runner-up finish at the Mid-South Conference Tournament. Raymond Repaci, a freshman on the squad, was the conference's individual champion. The highlight of Gilliam's tenure as the head coach of the women's program was when she was selected the MSC's Women's Co-Head Coach of the Year in 2014.

Gilliam was hired as an assistant coach at Union in the summer of 2012, and she became the interim head coach of the NAIA program just a few months later in September. She was elevated to the full-time position the following May.

Gilliam was a four-year member of the University of Pikeville (Ky.) bowling team, and she was a senior on the 2012 NAIA national championship team. She twice participated in the United States Bowling Congress National Tournament while she was a student-athlete. She graduated from Pikeville in 2012 with bachelor's degrees in mathematics and psychology.

Gilliam is a breast cancer survivor, and she was chosen as a "Fabulous Four" essay contest winner by the USBC in 2015 for sharing her story. The Fabulous Four is part of the USBC's "Bowl for the Cure" program, which is a fundraising and breast cancer awareness initiative associated with Susan G. Komen.

Gilliam is a native of Pecatonica, Ill., and she was the Illinois state champion as a junior. She bowled three 300 games while in high school.

Women's bowling is the 19th Division I sport and the 11th women's sport offered at YSU. For more information on the YSU women's bowling program, read "YSU to Add Women's Bowling Program This Fall".

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