Bowling Quote of the Day--Robert Smith Praises Scott Norton

"Maybe growing up in California has given me a much better grasp of these issues, but this is not Big news to us. I can honestly say we on Tour have known for a long time about Scott. I have known Scott from So California since he was in Juniors, and never has him being gay affected how we have interacted and how we have become good friends. He broke most of my records in SoCal Jr's, which is how I first got to know Scott. Since then knowing him and Virginia has been great. glad he can show how good a player he is."

--Robert Smith

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.

PBA Tour 2010-2011 Season's Most Memorable Moments

I just saw the PBA post to its Facebook wall the following question: "What was your favorite moment from the 2010-2011 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour?"I pondered this question for a moment and came to realize that not only did I not have a "favorite moment" from this season, but I could scarcely think of any that I'd consider particularly memorable.

By contrast, last season was chock full of indelibly memorable moments. Chief among them were Tom Smallwood coming almost literally off the GM unemployment line to win the PBA World Championship; Walter Ray Williams Jr. shooting 290 against Chris Barnes to claim the Masters title and, eventually, his seventh Player of the Year award at the age of fifty; Chris Barnes losing the hotly anticipated first Chris Barnes Challenge to a collegiate bowler; Bill O'Neill establishing himself as the game's next superstar with his stunning dominance during the televised finals of the U.S. Open; Mark Roth rising almost literally from the dead to appear at the inaugural Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship and even sit in the X'tra Frame booth with "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark and bowling announcer extraordinaire "Mike J. Laneside" for an extended session of his colorful storytelling about bowling's Golden Age and his insightful commentary about the action down on the lanes; "amateur" Brian Ziesig's sudden death victory over Jason Belmonte in the Mark Roth Plastic Ball Tournament after Belmo stuck the "atomic stone 7 pin" from hell on his one and only sudden death shot; and Pete Weber's impressive victories over Brad Angelo and Mark Scroggins to win the final tournament of the season, the Marathon Open, after a long hiatus from claiming any national titles.

And then there was my favorite moment of all, a moment that brought tears to my eyes and which ranks, in my humble estimation, as the most memorable and electrifying moment in the history of the PBA--Kelly Kulick's stunning performance in the finals of the Tournament of Champions to become the first woman ever to win not only this hallowed title but *any* PBA national Tour title.

Contrast all of this to the "most memorable" moments of this year: Mika's big miss and subsequent dejected sprawl at the U.S. Open, "Bottlegate,"Cinderella and the bleating vuvuzelas, and the Dick's wrong-footed strike against Barnes.

Well, actually, I'm being a little harsh. There were some fine moments on Tour this year, including Chris Barnes joining the rarefied ranks of Triple Crown winners, South Korea's "Dr. Gu" winning the PBA Scorpion Championship, Scott Norton stringing his first eight in his TV debut to win his first national title, Osku Palermaa winning his first PBA title, Tom Hess's emotional Masters win, Tom Daugherty's comical 100 game, Mika's 299 and title in the $1 million TOC and superb showings in all the majors, and Norm Duke's U.S. Open title.

Still, I wouldn't say that this was the year that was. I don't blame the PBA for this. It's just that the stars can't be in alignment to produce magic every season the way they were in the 2009-2010 season, and any season that has to follow such a magical one is bound to be under-appreciated.

Still, the PBA has my best wishes and hopes for next season.

Which were your most memorable and favorite moments of the 2010-2011 season?

Below is a short PBA video of 2010-2011 season highlights.

2011 Dick Weber Playoffs: First Week's Telecast

"Why does that happen every time? Every time I bowl, it happens every time.”

--An understandably exasperated Ryan Shafer

I didn't get to watch the PBA telecast on Sunday. Actually, it was filmed long before that but broadcast Sunday. I don't know why they can't show these events live. I don't know about you, but it's much more exciting to me to see them live and not know who wins until it happens then and there than to know it was taped weeks or even months ago and who won. But if you do a bowling blog like this one or just spend any time online, it's all-but-impossible not to know who wins ahead of the showing, and that takes away from the whole experience.

However, given the format of this year's inaugural Dick Weber PBA playoffs, I guess they couldn't show all the matches on the same day. They had eighteen players, three in each of six different regions, competing against one another to crown the champion, and that takes more matches and more time than any network commanding a decent sized audience could hope to show in one day.

In any case, having aired my mild gripes about the Dick Weber broadcast format, I have to say that I did manage to watch a recording of Sunday's telecast yesterday, and I very much enjoyed the action. It took place at Woodland Bowl in Indianapolis, IN on the 39' Dick Weber oil pattern. Commentator Randy Pederson explained that the relatively short oil coupled with more than the usual PBA concentration of oil in the middle of the lane allowed the bowlers to "play to their strengths," "maximize creativity" and attack the pattern from "multiple angles." In other words, it made the lanes higher scoring than we see on tougher patterns.

But higher scoring made for a very entertaining 90 minutes. In the first match, the top three finishers arbitrarily assigned to the Eastern region--Scott Norton, Tom Smallwood, and Steve Jaros bowled one match to determine who advanced to the next round. Norton, the California native, part-time attorney, only lefty among the eighteen finalists, and son of female bowling legend Virginia Norton who seems firmly on track to win Rookie of the Year honors and who won a national title earlier this year in Dublin, CA couldn't buy a strike until the sixth frame, leaving four pocket 7's, while Smallwood opened with his first five before leaving a 10 pin and Jaros with his first seven before sticking a 10 pin. Jaros went on to finish first with a 258. Smallwood stepped up in the tenth needing a strike on the first ball to win outright and left a light pocket 7. He then needed to strike on the fill ball to tie and pulled the ball slightly leaving a four pin and losing by 1 pin to Jaros while Norton finished with a distant but respectable 224.

The next match featured South region contestants Tommy Jones, "underrated" Ryan Shafer, and Randy Weiss. Weiss first shot ever on TV was a solid strike while Jones kept getting tapped. All three were in the match until near the end when snakebit Shafer went into the tenth frame with a lead only to get shafted with a pocket 7-10, Jones doubled and left a four pin for 238, and Weiss needed to strike out to win by one and did, shooting a 239.

The final match of the telecast had Central region finalists Dick Allen (formerly Ritchie Allen until he decided that he should adopt a more adult sounding name after recently becoming a father), Player of the Year shoo-in Mika Koivuniemi, and Walter Ray Williams Jr. This was Walter Ray's first television appearance of the season and last chance to extend his record 17 straight year streak of PBA national titles. When asked why he'd struggled so much this year compared to his fabulous Player of the Year season last year, he surmised that his recent hernia surgery, shortened grip to lessen the pain in the knuckles of his arthritic bowling hand, and the fact that his old body was simply "falling apart" had something to do with it.

Nevertheless, he and Allen opened with five baggers before Walter left a stinging pocket 7-10 while Mika was never in it and Allen struck five more times before sticking a ringing 10 and sparing for a 289.

Next week, the finalists from the Midwest, Southwest, and West/Northwest regions will compete, and they include such luminaries as Bill O'Neill, Chris Barnes, Wes Malott, Jason Belmonte, Brad Angelo, and Jack "The Ripper" Jurek.

If I haven't spoiled it for you by recapping Sunday's highlights, or you'd like to see the telecast again, you can watch all of it in the videos below, and you can read PBA.com's official summary of the action here.

Bowling Quote of the Day--No Bumper Bowling for Kids

"When I started bowling, my mom wouldn't let me use bumpers. She taught me how to bowl properly."

--Scott Norton

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.

Bowling Quote of the Day--Bowling Socratically

"I knew I didn't know anything, but I didn't know how much I didn't know until I came out here."

--Scott Norton