Arkansas State University

Justin Kostick enters his 17th season as head coach of the Arkansas State women’s bowling program in 2025-26. Since taking over prior to the 2009-10 season, he has led the Red Wolves to 15 consecutive NCAA Championship appearances (with no postseason held in 2020 due to COVID), highlighted by three national runner-up finishes (2021, 2023, 2024) in the last five years and two NCAA semifinal appearances (2010, 2013).

Under his direction, Arkansas State has captured 27 regular-season tournament titles, highlighted by Southland Bowling League championships in 2016, 2018, and 2023. He has coached 44 NTCA All-Americans, with multiple selections each of the last 15 years, in addition to numerous NTCA All-Region picks and more than 130 all-tournament honorees. Individually, Kostick is a three-time NTCA National Coach of the Year (2012, 2014, 2016) and a two-time Southland Bowling League Coach of the Year.

Arkansas State’s rise to national prominence under Kostick began with several milestone seasons. In 2013-14, the Red Wolves set a program record with 98 victories and produced their first NTCA Division I Player of the Year in Sarah Lokker, while also spending multiple weeks ranked No. 1 nationally in both the NTCA Coaches and Media Polls. The program’s first Southland Bowling League title followed in 2016, along with a then-record four NTCA All-Americans in a single season. A-State added another league crown in 2018 and maintained its place among the nation’s top programs.

The Red Wolves continued to thrive in the 2020s. A-State finished as the NCAA runner-up in 2021, 2022, and 2024, giving the program three championship-match appearances in a four-year span, and also claimed another Southland Bowling League title in 2023. Throughout this period, Kostick’s teams continued to develop elite players and extend the program’s streak of NCAA postseason berths.

Kostick has coached numerous athletes who advanced to the professional level, including Jordan Snodgrass (formerly Richard), a two-time NTCA Player of the Year at Arkansas State, later named PWBA Rookie of the Year and PWBA Player of the Year in 2023. Her sister, Haley Richard, was also a multi-time All-American, and together the pair helped lead the Red Wolves to back-to-back 85-plus win seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Before arriving at Arkansas State, Kostick spent two seasons as head coach of the Nebraska men’s bowling team (2004–06), guiding the Huskers to a top-five finish at the 2004 USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships along with three tournament titles and six runner-up finishes.

As a competitor, Kostick has rolled five career perfect games, including two back-to-back, and owns a career-high 825 series. He is a two-time Washington State Champion at the Pepsi Youth Championships and placed eighth at the 1997 National Pepsi Youth Championships. In 1998, he won the Junior Olympic Gold Qualifier before finishing 45th at the Junior Olympic Gold Tournament. From 1999–2004, he bowled collegiately for the University of Nebraska under head coach and two-time PBA Champion Bill Straub.

Kostick and his wife, Christina, were married in 2009 and have two sons, Michael and Christopher.