Growing up a bowler wasn't always the easiest and still isn't. Growing up saying I was a bowler and that bowling was a sport constantly led to arguments of how it was a sport. There would be times that I would begin to doubt whether bowling was a sport because I was knocked so far down. However, I never gave up on the fact that it was. It would begin as me, pulling up the online dictionary and try to prove the definition of sport, and the first example was always bowling.

Though bowling is not as physically demanding as football or basketball, bowling is still a challenging sport. As a competitive sport, bowling brings a demanding athletic challenge. Mental and physical precision, hand/eye coordination, unwavering muscle memory, and endurance all required to maintain bowling skill.

Consider that in any given tournament, a bowler walks 4 miles; lifts, sings and releases a 15 lb ball (in my case) at the bare minimum, 36 times, and must deliver every ball within a small amount of space within a selected mark in order to reach a target that is 60 feet away and only so big. If you choose to bowl collegiality, nationally, or even professionally, you begin to see tons of different oil patterns on the lanes that will affect your ball and how you should fix it. In bowling, every ball you own will be in charge of doing something different, one will be for a less hook, one for a greater hook, and one for our corner pins, and you have to know how all of them lay so you know which one to use when it comes to the different house shots.

Sure, bowling isn't an Olympic sport, however, it poses a truly demanding mental and physical challenge, that only one will truly be able to see as a competitive bowler.

So, with all that being said, I guess what they say is correct, bowling is not a sport, bowling is a way of life.