Sunday afternoon lights: High school bowling thrives in Texas
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Version 0 of 1. It would be a long way home for Ciera Nunez and her mother, Debra. Of course, Amarillo is a long way from most places, even Lubbock. But the journey feels that bit more distant when you’ve just been knocked out of one of the most prestigious high school bowling tournaments in Texas. “It wasn’t meant to be,” the 17-year-old said. As a senior, this was her last shot at glory. Despite her team’s defeat she performed well enough to exit without regrets: “I did all right; picked up all my spares.” Now she was picking up her equipment and heading to the parking lot for the 500-plus-mile trip back to the Panhandle. Ciera and her mother had arrived in College Station the day before last month’s annual Girls’ High School All District Tournament. With the light Sunday afternoon traffic, Debra was optimistic they would be home in only seven-and-a-half hours. “We bought a car just for traveling,” she said. “Just a little Honda.” Thanks to Ciera’s bowling and softball commitments it has clocked about 100,000 miles in a couple of years. In the quiet of the cabin as the central Texas greenery gently segued into the dull and dusty desert of the far west, someplace around Abilene, there would be ample time to reflect on what happened inside a busy, noisy and garish 40-lane alley palace in the town spiritually and physically dominated by Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field, one of the holiest shrines in college football. There was a hint of Friday Night Lights in these Sunday afternoon lanes: the very Texan strain of sports fever that could be diagnosed by the number of miles many had covered to be here, the seriousness of the participants, the intensity of the coaches and the four-deep rows of hollering, whooping parents. Nobody witnessing such a scene could imagine that tenpin bowling, one of the most evocative emblems of postwar Americana, is in trouble. The number of alleys in the US fell by more than a quarter between 1998 and 2013, according to USA Today. In 2012, AMF, then the world’s largest operator, filed for bankruptcy for the second time in 12 years. Yet at the college and high school level, the hobby - or sport, depending on your point of view - is thriving. Statistics from the National Federation of State High School Associations show 53,872 participants in 2013-14. In 2000-01 the figure was under 21,000. Bowling is now bigger than ice hockey in high schools. The number of schools offering it trebled between 2000 and 2010 and participation is roughly equal among boys and girls. That is partly thanks to Title IX, the federal law requiring educational institutions to provide equal opportunities to men and women. Offering a cheap and accessible sport such as bowling is an easy way for universities to comply. Bowling became an NCAA-recognised sport in 2003 and some 129 colleges sponsored varsity level bowling teams last year, according to scholarshipstats.com, and most student-athletes were women.For the best, high school bowling is a route to a college scholarship, as it was for Melanie Crawford, a Texan who was part of the Nebraska team that won the NCAA title last month. “The scholarship was a very nice added bonus,” she said. “One thing that I’ve really noticed [increase] is the level of competition. There’s so much more talent all over the place.” As alleys shut and families shun a night out at the lanes for more fashionable options, high schools might well prove bowling’s salvation. But for any sport to claim it has truly embedded itself nationwide, it has to take hold in Texas. Despite anecdotal evidence that student bowling is becoming more popular in the Lone Star State – it is played in 165 high schools by more than 2,300 students – there is one challenge to overcome that is tougher than a 7-10 split. The University Interscholastic League governs contests between Texas schools, whether a child is blowing a trumpet, making a speech or throwing a football. So far it has refused to add bowling to its list of sports, meaning that it lacks cash and cachet. Advocates hope that as participation and publicity grows the UIL will finally be persuaded to make bowling its 15th sport. “I’m hoping it’ll be a UIL sport [in a few years]. It’s going that way,” said Mike Scroggins, a 51-year-old professional bowler with career earnings of $1.45m. “For the longest time I don’t think people even knew it existed. Even in our town, Amarillo, there’s people who still don’t know we have high school bowling… if it ever got UIL status I think it would just explode.” Men such as Joseph McCusker and Kevin Prior are trying to light the slow-burning fuse. They are coaches from Allen, a wealthy, ambitious Dallas suburb that became a symbol of Texas excess when its taxpayers built a $60m, 18,000-capacity high school American football stadium in 2012. (It shut two years later because of serious structural failings.) Trying to bridge the gap between the gutter and the stars, the computer technology workers have built the best high school teams in the state, devoting their free time to scouting and recruiting Allen’s youth and teaching them to roll balls along floors with unparalleled precision. “I work seven days a week on this stuff. Literally over 500 hours a year in volunteer time that I spend,” said McCusker. “We start with them throwing the ball in the gutter just like anybody else and we get more out of our bowlers I believe than just about anybody else. We really push them, they believe in the program and they push themselves and they push each other. I think because of that we push our district and our district is better and our district pushes other districts in the state.” Crawford is an Allen product. McCusker said that the program had placed seven women in college in the past four years, garnering about $350,000 in scholarship money. In the pursuit of marginal gains they work on building mental resilience and have started strength and conditioning sessions. “The things we do in workouts I would hold close to the vest,” he said. They are less secretive about their slogans. “Our motto has always been ‘spares win championships’,” said Prior, speaking above the distant blare of perky pop music in the children’s party room during a break between rounds. “We’ll win with class and we’ll lose with class.” Not that Allen’s teams do a lot of losing. “We have a phrase: ‘Pressure is a privilege’,” said McClusker. “What I mean by that is when it’s the last shot and you need it for the win and the guy’s standing up there throwing the ball, there are lot of people watching him who are going, ‘Damn, I wish I had that ball in my hands’. Pressure is a privilege.” Back on the lanes, things got increasingly privileged as 21 teams became eight, then four, in head-to-head elimination contests. Sat at a desk, glasses on, computer tablet, pencil and paper in front of him, Prior charted frames and plotted angles like a Pythagoras of the pins, assessing who was in form, who was struggling and how the oil patterns on the boards were affecting the spin and the speed for his top-seeded Dallas North A team, comprised of the area’s best players. “C’mon!” urged Luis Benavides, a coach from Plano, another Dallas suburb where each year 80 kids try out for 40 spaces on the roster. “Whoa!” he said when there was a strike, stepping off his bar stool in excitement. “It’s a lifetime sport. A lot of them tried other sports and maybe they didn’t excel. They try this and have a good time and they can do this forever,” he said. “The competitive aspect is what really gets them, though.” To his left was a table piled high with merchandise including sparkly $20 “Bowling Mom” T-shirts. Above the lanes, TV screens flashed up scores and adverts, including one for a funeral home “now offering the official Texas A&M casket”. Agitated parents paced behind the lanes, or shifted weight from foot to foot, some wearing garb emblazoned with “Leave No Pin Behind” and “Some people have to wait a lifetime to find their favorite bowler. I’m raising mine.” Dallas North A crushed San Antonio Northeast 2 in the quarter-finals, sending their opponents out into the daylight, dragging heavy kit bags behind them. Dallas exuded confidence with every strike, every high-five and every huddle. “One, two, three: A-team!” But they had not faced an opponent like San Antonio North 1. Sure, San Antonio looked loose, almost relaxed, but they also seemed less consistent, less focused. The first game was agonizingly close, San Antonio taking it, 184-181, but Dallas fought back in the second, imperiously claiming it 202-186. “That’s teamwork right there!” said McClusker during a pep talk. Yet San Antonio would not wilt. The underdogs took a thrilling deciding game, 221-218, and went on to defeat North Texas with relative ease in the final. Still, in the talent evident during Dallas’ loss and in the tears that followed, and in the pained yet proud expressions on the faces of parents and coaches, it was possible to see why many in the room believed that America’s bygone pastime could be Texas’ sport of the future. And if the roads were clear, the Dallas team would be home in only three hours. |