PBA Bowler Scott Norton Discloses That He's Gay

Two public figures publicly disclosed recently that they're gay. One was Phoenix Suns President and CEO Rick Welts. The other was CNN reporter and news anchor Don Lemon. Today, PBA Rookie of the Year Scott Norton posted an article, Being gay doesn't define who I am as a person or as a professional athlete, to the PBA website disclosing that he too is gay and explaining why he's making it so public.

Scott's disclosure is no big surprise to a lot of us. He hadn't been hiding his sexuality. Go to his Facebook page and you'll see a profile photo of him with his partner. That and other such photos have been there awhile. But I imagine it is a surprise to a lot of people who haven't been to Scott's page but have only seen him bowl on TV or in person.

Some will no doubt be put off or worse by Scott's announcement. They disapprove of homosexuality, or they don't like homosexuals, or they think one's homosexuality isn't something that needs to be announced, or some combination of the above.

I personally applaud Scott's disclosure. I agree with him when he writes:

"It is extremely important for me to come out to show other gay athletes, both current and future, that it is important to come out to show that we are just like everyone else. Being gay doesn’t define who I am as a person or as a professional athlete. I'm also a professional bowler, lawyer, caring, compassionate, strong, and many other things...It's important to show people that being gay has nothing to do with one's ability to do anything as a man, least of all compete at the highest level of sports."

I don't know what difficulties Scott has faced in his personal and professional lives until now for being gay, and I don't know what, if any, difficulties and obstacles he'll face now. If he had made this announcement decades ago, it would have been a much bigger deal, and the repercussions would have no doubt been far greater. Yet, I can well imagine that there are still people inside and outside his two professions of law and bowling who will look down on him or even shun him for coming out.

I won't be one of them. I've heard Scott on PBA Xtra Frame. I've seen him interviewed on TV. I've seen him bowl beautifully on Xtra Frame and TV. I have the very strong impression that he is one class act on and off the lanes, and I wish him nothing but the best in his private and professional life.

Below is video of highlights and an interview with Scott after he won the Chameleon Championship.

PBA Announces Its 2010-2011 Award Winners

Congratulations to Mika Koivuniemi for winning the Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year award, to Scott Norton for winning Harry Golden Rookie of the Year honors, and to Jack "The Ripper" Jurek for taking the Steve Nagy Sportsmanship award.

Koivuniemi won the PBA Tournament of Champions, was the only player to make it into the televised finals of all four "majors," earned the third highest amount in prize money for a season in PBA history at $330,040, and led the PBA Tour in average at 222.50. Norton, who won the Pepsi Chameleon Championship his first time on national TV, was the only rookie to win any national title this year. And Jurek, who also won the Steve Nagy award in 2006, was, according to the PBA press release, "an overwhelming choice" to win the award again this year.

I can't say that I disagree with any of these choices. The only question I have is about the Rookie of the Year voting. Scott Norton received 445 votes, while "no other player received more than 15." My question is, Wasn't Dan MacLelland also a rookie this season, and didn't he qualify for four telecasts and outpoint Norton by a wide margin in the major statistical categories? If so, why did he lose to Norton by such an overwhelming margin? It seems to me that either he wasn't officially a Tour rookie, or a grave injustice was served in his receiving so few votes relative to Norton.

You can read the PBA press release on the award selections here.

Scott Norton's Commentary on PBA Xtra Frame

I listened yesterday to a little of PBA Xtra Frame and greatly enjoyed Scott Norton's astute and very personable commentary.

When he was asked about the difference between bowling regional tournaments and bowling on tour he explained that when one goes out on tour, one has to be a veritable "sponge" absorbing an enormous amount of information about equipment, physical adjustments, lane typographies, oils, and overall conditions from house to house and even segments of each house, and so forth, and that the touring pros who've been out there a long time have a tremendous edge in that they've already learned all this stuff while the newcomers are struggling with an impossibly steep learning curve.

He also mentioned that it took him awhile to learn to watch other bowlers with games closest to his own to help him line up the fastest on a given condition and that he initially watched Parker Bohn but discovered that Mike Scroggins and Patrick Allen had games closer to his own and thus were more helpful to him to watch.

Fortunately, Scott, who is busy lawyering when he isn't bowling, seems to have been remarkably equal to the task of learning what he needs to know, having already won the Las Vegas Chameleon Championship on TV earlier this season, finished 27th in the Tournament of Champions, and made the top 16 last week, and, if I'm not mistaken, he may be well on his way to a Rookie of the Year season on Tour.

At one point yesterday, Scott was asked how much his Hall-of-Fame mother Virginia Norton influenced his bowling, and he answered that, although she's been his bowling coach his whole life, she never forced him to bowl any particular way or at all. He said that what influenced him most was being around his mom and other top women bowlers when he was an impressionable kid and learning to bowl more of a woman's finesse kind of game instead of the power game that seems so dominant today among the men.

For more information on Scott Norton, please check out this profile article in the San Francisco Examiner, and you can watch his dominating Chameleon Championship title match performance against Sean Rash below.