He Is Bowling’s Gold-Medal Booster : Amateur Championships: Pan Am champion Pat Healey also serves game’s ambassador.

Pat Healey can appear to be a bit brash, especially when it comes to talking about amateur bowling.

But that might not be such a bad thing when Healey--perhaps the top amateur male bowler in the U.S.--has the rare opportunity to speak to the media.

He prefaces some of his remarks with, “I’m biased” or “This might sound cocky,” followed by statements such as “Amateur bowling needs more coverage.”

He added, “It’s just too bad in our country we rank people as professionals and amateurs, when actually certain amateurs are better than certain professionals.”

Healey, 23, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., is outspoken. But the United States Tenpin Bowling Assn., governing body of the U.S. amateurs, is willing to put up with him.

The USTBF, conducting the U.S. National Amateur Championships at Brunswick Premier Lanes here, understands that silence is often accompanied by inactivity.

Healey apparently has a voice that his sport needs. And the timing isn’t bad.

“He’s a good guy; I think he’s very representative,” said Barb Peltz, associate director of the USTBF and national tournament director. “We want the media to gravitate to the bowlers. I think the message we want to say is, ‘We’re athletes, too.’ ”

Bowling was included in the Seoul Olympics as a demonstration sport. The USTBF was formed in 1989 partly to advance the U.S. effort to put bowling in the Olympics. That year, the USTBF joined the United States Olympic Committee and put bowling into the Olympic Sports Festival.

Another barrier was broken last year, when bowling was included in the Pan American Games and the U.S. dominated. Healey won two gold medals.

As amateur bowling continued to lobby for Olympic status last week, Healey was one of two ambassadors sent to a newly constructed Brunswick bowling center in Barcelona’s Olympic Village.

The USTBF is also trying to convince the Atlanta Olympic Organizing Committee to include bowling as a demonstration sport, if not include it in the regular program for the 1996 Games. If it happens, Healey wants to be there, knocking down pins.

There seems to be no reason why he shouldn’t. He is a two-time member of Team USA, the USTBF’s version of an Olympic squad. The six-member 1993 men’s and women’s teams will be selected at the tournament here Saturday. The top six finishers qualify.

U.S. amateurs have made great strides, he said, and now it’s time for the world to take notice.

“Of course, you have the old image of the drinkers and smokers,” Healey said. “It’s just the way bowling centers were years ago. We’re athletes like everyone else. We train hard. We lift a 16-pound object all the time and throw it down a lane and do it with gracefulness and accuracy.

“And that shouldn’t be taken for granted. As far as TV coverage and any other wire coverage, amateur bowling doesn’t get what it deserves.”

He passes the word wherever the game takes him: the Philippines, Korea, Singapore, Cuba, Spain and South Africa where, three weeks ago, he rolled his 15th 300 game.

“I guess I’ve known him since 1990, when we bowled in Manila,” said Lynda Norry of Concord, a fellow Team USA member who accompanied Healey as the lone female representative in Barcelona. “He’s very aggressive, very confident. He’s a great player. Whatever he puts his mind to, he gets it done.”

A former All-American, Healey twice finished second and once third in the National Collegiate Bowling Championships. He scrapped baseball for bowling at 13 and said he knew he made the right decision two years later, when he bowled a 799 series in a Niagara Falls junior league.

Healey said he doesn’t plan a jump to the PBA Tour soon, not with his Olympic hopes and the fact amateurs can make money. He grossed more than $30,000 last year and won $61,000 in side money at the High Roller tournament in Las Vegas in July.

“I feel for the professionals,” he said. “They’re supposed to be the best in the world. I’m sure they are, but the best should make the most money. That’s not how it is. I bowl two games (in Las Vegas) and win $20,000.”

Cashing in Vegas, however, paled in comparison to winning a gold medal in Pan Am Games in Cuba last summer.

“To win a gold medal, especially in the inaugural year of the sport in the Pan American Games and have (FidelCastro) embrace you with a medal, shake your hand, talk to you, salute the flag . . .” said Healey, “it’s just unbelievable.”

Bowling Notes

Samuel Lantto of Maple Grove, Minn., and Stacy Robards of Carmichael, Calif., were respective leaders after 12 qualifying games. Debbie Lantto, Samuel’s wife, was sixth as the two made an early bid to become the first husband and wife to gain simultaneous Team USA berths. Healey and Norry were 36th and 37th, still suffering from jet lag after returning from Barcelona on Thursday night. Gilbert Bolden of National City was 59th.