Stus’ 300 Perfect Prod for Senior Tour : Bowling: Competitors still buzzing about his game in last week’s finals.

It’s six days later, and the next tournament in a different town is in full swing. But a luster still seems to surround Gene Stus, a seemingly ordinary guy who did something extraordinary Thursday.

Stus, 51, rolled a 300 game last week in the finals of the Pacific Cal Bowl Tournament in Lakewood. Now he is swamped with requests by interviewers who want to know his story.

“It was the biggest thrill of my life,” he said. “I just can’t realize that kind of success. I came out on the tour hoping to cash, win a few dollars and have some fun. Somebody’s looking out for me.”

Stus, a retired General Motors executive, became only the sixth bowler in the 30-year history of the Professional Bowlers Assn. to roll a perfect game in the stepladder finals of a televised tournament.

To most of America, the fledgling senior tour is unfamiliar territory.

The money is not outrageous. Stus was No. 2 on the 1991 money list with $40,900. The tour has grown from one event in 1981 to five in 1988 to 12 last year, thanks to increased sponsorship.

Many of the colorful bowlers think marketing and visibility could be better, but a 300 game by Gene Stus on national television could change all that.

“I hope it helps; we need some recognition,” he said. “We’re struggling for sponsors. The players want more tournaments and more TV coverage.

“ABC dropped us because they didn’t feel that we were worth watching.”

Stus is nearly bashful about his 12-strike perfect game and colossal $100,000-plus pay day, saying he was lucky. But his colleagues are buzzing.

“What we need on the senior tour is a little more recognition of the talent that is here,” said Dave Tuell of Tacoma, Wash. “The media should take notice of just what Stus did last week. That’s an athletic event of substantial meaning.

“In fact, I wish Earl Anthony was here taking all the money from us.”

Tuell, 56, an attorney, spent years following Anthony while he was quietly longing to play himself.

In fact, Tuell was the sponsor that first put the Anthony, the six-time Player of the Year who owns more titles than anyone, on the PBA Tour.

Stus and Tuell were two of more than 100 bowlers who entered the Escondido Senior PBA Open at Palomar Lanes this week having never played on the regular PBA tour. Past PBA stars such as Anthony, Carmen Salvino and Dave Soutar have joined the seniors. Dick Weber entered 1992 as the all-time money-winner.

But the heart and soul of the tour are guys such as Adam Toney, a retired West Virginia legislator, Manny Mora of Chula Vista, who spent 23 years in the military, a father of seven and grandfather of 18, and John Hricsina, a rural letter carrier from Pennsylvania.

Such men became professional athletes after their 50th birthday.

These are the guys Stus likes to be with, the guys for whom he threw a party last weekend.

Stus is a working man, a husband, a father. He had a heart attack at 29. He was told by a doctor at 35 he would be dead in six months. He’ll be 52 Sunday.

When he wasn’t working weekends in his stress-filled office on a GM assembly floor in Detroit, he bowled a little and played a little softball. He retired after 31 years because of his health.

He paid his $200 entry fee in Lakewood, just like all the other guys, many of whom traveled across the country in RVs. On Thursday he earned a $119,300 check for doing something Hall of Famers like Don Carter, Mark Roth or Marshall Holman had never done.

ESPN cameras were rolling. The pro bowling world was delighted, if not a little shocked.

“That was great for the senior game,” said Toney, who draws parallels to the early days of senior PGA golf. “This tour is growing unbelievable. Someday, I predict it’ll break away from the PBA, like golf has.”

Toney, 54, spent 18 years serving on the West Virginia state legislature. He built the only bowling alley in Oak Hill, his hometown, along with a reputation for getting things done. He played basketball against Jerry West in high school; he played an integral part in building an interstate highway system in West Virginia.

Hricsina, of Franklin, Pa., worked for 30 years on a 94-mile rural postal route recently shortened to 75 and made easier with the advent of the four-wheel drive. He lifts weights, pitches in a modified fast-pitch softball league and plans to retire now that he has accumulated $95,910 in Senior PBA earnings.

“I guess I could have joined the regular tour when I was younger,” said Hricsina, 54. “I looked at both sides. I suppose if somebody would have stepped forward to back me, I would have gone. But I come from a town of 7,000.”

It doesn’t bother Hricsina that the tour is becoming crowded, with seniors making up one-third of the over 1,000-member PBA. He hopes highlights of Stus’ 300 game are replayed “over and over” on TV, so more of his contemporaries stop watching and start bowling again.

Said Chula Vista’s Mora, 65, a rookie, “I look at (Stus) and say, ‘If he can do it, I can do it,.’ He tells the rest of the seniors it can be done if you really want it.”

Said Stus, “A lot of guys are excited. I guess this kind of put a spark in the senior tour.”

Tournament Notes

John Hricsina of Franklin, Pa., the tournament leader going into match play Tuesday evening, held his No. 1 position after eight games. Hricsina, the 1990 Senior Player of the Year, had the best average (216.92) and won six matches, picking up 30 bonus pins for each victory. Claude Bradley of Santa Fe, Tex., closing out with back-to-back 259 games, jumped from seventh to second position--14 pins behind Hricsina. John Handegard of Thousand Oaks was in third. Rookie Jack Calhoun from Cincinnati (who rolled a 300 Monday) climbed from 15th to fifth. Match play continues with the final 16 games today to determine the five-player, stepladder finals on Thursday.

None of the eight San Diego area bowlers qualified after 18 games. The highest finisher was Dennis Fitzsimonds of Spring Valley, who averaged 196 and finished at minus-72. He finished tied for 57th.