Brian's Bowling Biography

I started bowling when I was about two years old, if what I was doing then was bowling. Not much of this I actually remember, I'm just going on stories from my grandmother. She's the one that taught me how to bowl, without her you wouldn't be reading this page right now. She said I would to go to the lob line, ten feet closer to the pins, so the ball would make it and have enough power left to actually knock some pins down. Anyways, I continued on like this, eventually moving back to the foul line like everyone else, bowling with my grandmother once or twice a week. The following is a recap of 15 years of my bowling adventures.

When I was seven, I joined a junior league saturday mornings at French King Entertainment Center, my second home. My first year, I had a 68 average, about the going average for most kids bowling. At that time, there were about 60 kids bowling in the junior league, and I soon met Ryan ("Rhyno") and Art ("Arch"). The next year, my average went up to 86, almost at the top of the league, behind Art And Ryan and a couple other kids on their team. I would always be running over to see how they bowled and they knew it. They were all 14, 15 or 16 years old, and I was 8. The next year the coolest thing happened, they had a spot open on their team, and I got to bowl with them. We went to a couple tournaments, and at one of them, I was up, but I was hooked on this car chase video game, APB, and they had to just about drag me away to bowl. From then on, they have called me APB and it's even my name on the scoreboard on our Thursday night team.

One of the more difficult leaves, the spread eagle, this one courtesy of Ryan.

So, I'm bowling with older kids, we won the league that year with all of our 80+ averages, and I started bowling in tournaments that year too. I bowled in one at a Holyoke alley when I was 7, and came in next-to-last with 301 for 5 games. The next year, I can't remember the score, but I know I was third. Then I went to one at Canal Lanes in Agawam and, with 440-something, I won it. I remember going to Ponderosa afterwards to celebrate my victory. Next was the big state tournament in Abington. A 2-hour drive for an 8 year old is long, but I guess it didn't matter. I had a 513 series with a 129 for a high game and came out way ahead of everyone else.

That day was best day in my bowling 'career', and since then its all been downhill, as far as tournaments go. I continued to bowl in the Holyoke, Canal, and State tournaments, but it was 7 years before I bowled better than 513 in any of them. I won the Holyoke one that same year as the other two victories, got a 2nd in Canal the next year, and a 3rd in the state tourney after that, but it took until the 1998 State tournament for me to really bowl again. I came out and bowled average (which was 117 at the time) with a 594 and squeaked out a victory against a 584 as he barely hit the end of a downed pin to miss a spare for the win. In 1999, my not-so-impressive 571 took first.

My trophy collection...didn't think you could get that many for candlepin bowling, didya?

But the real fun in bowling is leagues, a lot less pressure but the rewards are just as great. In the past 3 seasons, I've had 6 400 series, my high game is 174, and I got my average up from 113 to 117 by changing from the four- to three-step approach thanks to Tim and Ryan, which I would recommend for any serious bowler who uses four steps now. I'm definately not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, and this might be my last year bowling before I go off to college, but even if I can't bowl in a league next year, I'll be sure to find a bowling alley somewhere near campus to keep in the game.