Bowling Grows Up, and Kiss Likes It That Way

Remember bowling, the sport we once knew?

Remember those ugly rental shoes, decorated in gold, green and clown red? Remember never knowing how to add two strikes followed by a 7-10 split? Remember those thick No. 2 scoring pencils? Remember beer bellies?

Bowling had a quaint charm about it, like a county fair. It was rough around the edges and delightfully so. No one ever confused it with the modern pentathlon.

Now look at it. Computers calculate your score. The rental shoes don’t smell and there’s almost no chance of contracting athlete’s foot. Call it a bowling alley and the proprietor will try re-racking your chin; it’s a bowling center , which is a little like saying “daggummit” with an English accent--it looks good but doesn’t sound right.

Bowling, it seems, has become an adult.

Nowhere is this more evident than at the U.S. Olympic Festival, where Santa Ana’s Steve Kiss will spend the next two weeks. The alleys--I’m sorry . . . The Bowling Green Recreation Center looks like an Orange County mini-mall. Tastefully decorated, nicely landscaped, the center features an entryway complete with futuristic bowling sculpture.

Bowl-a-Rama it isn’t.

Kiss, a member of the South team, applauds the design. He is part of this new breed of amateur bowlers, someone who respects the sport, who treats it with reverence. All he asks in return is that we respect it back.

“A lot of people don’t consider bowlers athletes,” said Kiss, shortly after completing his practice session Friday afternoon. “But it’s a lot more difficult than it seems. These people are dedicated bowlers.”

But they’re lousy bicyclists. Consider the adventures of bowler Ronald Mohr, surely the first Festival invitee to cancel because of a moose confrontation.

Mohr went hurtling over his handlebars this week while swerving to avoid a moose that had wandered onto the road near Mohr’s home in Anchorage, Alaska. The fall broke Mohr’s collarbone and his bowling wrist. While we wish him a speedy recovery, two questions beg asking:

1) What exactly was he training for?

2) Has he ever heard of a stationary bicycle?

Mohr, too, is part of the new generation of bowlers. He rode 70 miles a week, did 300 sit-ups a day. Old-time bowlers didn’t even drive cars 70 miles a week, to say nothing of sit-ups. Buttoning their short-sleeve bowling shirts was the extent of their physical exertion. That, and ordering another drink at laneside.

Not anymore, at least, not here at the Festival. All 48 bowlers attended Friday’s practice and there wasn’t a single gut in the house. Makes you wonder what the sport is coming to.

Kiss started bowling when he was 8. He lived right across the street from the old Anaheim Wonderbowl, and every day after school he would sneak over to the alleys (that’s what they were called back then) and bowl a few lines. “I was hooked,” he said.

Twenty-seven years later, Kiss still is captive to the game. Just to qualify for the Festival, Kiss had to endure the Orange County Assn. Tournament, followed by the State Tournament, the Regional Tournament and then the National Tournament, where he bowled 48 games in four days.

“Your legs are probably the most important part,” he said. “You’ve got to use the legs.”

Defender of the game that he is, Kiss then listed the other physical demands and dangers of the sport.

As you might expect, the thumb takes a beating. “They’ll just rip the skin right off it,” said Kiss, who sports a thick callous on his heaving thumb. Tendinitis is a hazard for those who like rolling the ball hard. And then there is the considerable mental strain, “which is probably the hardest,” Kiss said.

Bowling a mental strain? C’mon? I thought the most trying thing about bowling was finding a waitress to bring another round. Not so, Kiss said.

For instance, last year’s national championship determined which two bowlers would represent the U.S. at the Seoul Olympics. This year, the same championship provided the Festival with its trim 48. Lots of pressure.

Kiss, by the way, just made it with a 24th-place finish in the men’s division. “I’m just grateful to do that, to start out fresh,” he said.

The competition begins today, and Kiss can’t wait. He said he feels like visiting royalty, what with the attention paid to him by the people at Bowling Green. At the Oklahoma City airport, they carried his luggage. They chauffeured him to his hotel and to the bowling center. They’ve invited him to picnics and rodeos.

At last, Kiss got what he wanted most: respect. The bowling renaissance is complete.

Frankly, I liked bowling a lot more before it grew up.