I have been bowling since I was a little kid, even though it was only recreationally. When I got into high school, that bowling for fun changed as I joined the bowling team my sophomore year and got swept up in the world that is competitive bowling. It seemed all fun and games at first until I realized, it was so much more than that. When most people think of bowling they think of beer and laughing with their friends. Yet, when I think of bowling I think of daily practices and how to better myself as an athlete. Most people don’t realize that bowling is actually a sport and as I enter my sophomore year as a collegiate bowler, I want to put that myth to rest.
Bowling takes a lot of athleticism, despite what people think. Mostly in college, you need to be at the top of your game all the time. In my tournaments with Spalding, my coach has us stand the whole day which can be eight hour days with little breaks in between to rest. Plus, these tournaments usually start very early in the morning which requires us to be up at about 4 a.m. in the morning and we have to stay awake for the next 12 hours or so before we repeat it all again the next day. There is also the fact that when you bowl, we are told to stay down as low as possible for the best possible results which gives us some strong legs. Don’t even get me started on the fact that we throw 14-16 pound bowling balls down a lane at about 16 miles per hour. It’s a lot and it’s exhausting, I know after a long tournament I just want to sleep and not move. We also have to analyze every single shot of ours because if we move just a little bit too much to the left, that can make the entire difference between a strike and a gutter ball. We have to read our lanes and figure out our oil patterns in order to have the best possible game. So now, not only is it a physical game, it’s a mental one as well and when you’re having a bad mental game, we all know your physical game is going to drop just as quickly.
Practices are just as much, mostly in college and with my coach, she always makes sure we are on top of our games. My team practices from 9 p.m. - 11 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday and these practices are not fun. On Mondays, we do spare drills for two hours straight without stopping. Recently, my coach has started to incorporate something called low-ball and if you didn’t stay below the low score she set for you, the whole team had to do wall sits for about 10-20 minutes depending on what she was feeling. There have been days where I have come out of practice and my legs would hurt so much, that it would hurt to walk the next day. My coach is a disciplinarian, first and foremost. We are not allowed to say the words ‘sorry’ or ‘can’t’ or we go to the wall. If we aren’t doing well enough in practice or if we had a bad tournament the weekend before, we go to the wall. Just like any other coach, she is there to make us the best athletes we can be and she does not accept anything less than the best.
As a bowler, I have encountered so many injuries from minor injuries to major ones. When I bowl, I have to wear a wrist brace due to screwing up my wrist at the beginning of my bowling career my sophomore year in high school. I constantly have blisters on my fingers, my fingers swell when I don’t bowl enough and if you’re not careful enough with your release, your shoulder can be pretty much done for. Not only that, but a lot of bowlers have bad knees which not only affects your game but your life as well.
One of the downsides of being a bowler though, is the equipment we must buy for our sport. Yes, it is a lot of fun to go and buy new bowling balls or get a new pair of shoes but the prices add up. For example, this past March I purchased two new bowling balls and luckily, I got a college discount on them but I still paid $210 for them together. Without this discount, it would have been double the price. My bowling bag itself was about 135 dollars and then you add on the balls, the shoes, the braces and everything else, your bag could be holding about $700 to $800 worth of equipment. It gets better, most of the time we have to buy all of this ourselves so it is definitely not a cheap sport and if you want to be a great athlete, you have to invest not only your heart but your money in bowling as well.
Next time that you talk to a bowler, remember this game is so much more than Wii bowling, it’s our sport and more than likely our lives. We invest so much time, energy and money into this sport and when people act like it’s just some game that you play with friends, it’s insulting. I am proud to be a part of a sport that is just as much of a mental game as it is a physical one and I will always be grateful for the memories it has given me. If you still don’t believe that bowling is a sport, then find yourself a competitive bowler and we will show you just how much of a sport it can be.
