High Roller : Johnson Missed One PBA Event in 10 Years

Tish Johnson knew the streak was in danger.

In 10 years on the Ladies Professional Bowlers Tour, Johnson never missed a tournament. But on that night in 1990 in Baltimore, she sensed her iron-woman reputation was about to crack.

“I stuck in my approach during one match and fell head first,” Johnson said. “I hurt my knee but was able to finish the tournament. But I took the next week off because I didn’t want to make it worse.”

That was the only time Johnson, 33, skipped a tour event. The Northridge resident hasn’t become one of the all-time top women bowlers by playing only when the mood strikes. Whether the next stop is little McAllen, Tex., or glittery Las Vegas, Johnson hits the road every week the tour is active and is usually in the hunt for first place.

Johnson leads the LPBT this season with 5,875 points and has won $50,002, second to Anne Marie Duggan’s $54,918. She won the Alexandria (La.) Open in March to become the fourth bowler with 20 LPBT titles. She carries a 216.50 season average into the Old Dominion Open in Newport News, Va., the tour’s first stop on a three-tournament summer swing.

Johnson is on a pace to become the fifth woman to win $100,000 in one season, a feat accomplished by Lisa Wagner in 1988, Robin Romeo in 1989 and Aleta Sill and Duggan last year. Johnson, who won nearly $83,000 last season, also could move closer to Sill in total earnings. She has collected $635,607 in her 15-year career. Sill has earned $688,681.

The proliferation of prize money, Johnson said, has been one of the major changes she has seen on the LPBT in recent years. Four other bowlers--including Romeo, from Newhall--have won $40,000 or more this season and have a reasonable chance to reach six figures. Altogether, 12 players have each won $20,000 or more and there are still 11 events remaining on the season.

Much of the cash up for grabs has come from corporate sponsorship of tournaments and television contracts with ESPN and Prime Network.

“You have the possibility this year of three women going over $100,000,” Johnson said. “Three years ago, that didn’t happen. . . . I think the tour is really going to explode in the next few years.”

It wasn’t even combustible when Johnson joined the tour in 1980, backed with $5,000 from her parents. The investment took several years to pay off.

“The first four or five years were really tough for me,” said Johnson, who has turned a profit on the tour every year. “I had to learn to budget my money and take responsibility for what I was doing.”

Until then, Johnson’s life centered on junior bowling and other sports. Although she was born in Oakland, Johnson grew up in Napa, and started bowling as a toddler. She won several junior titles and was the Napa singles champion from 1978 through 1990.

Johnson also was a standout in basketball, volleyball, softball and track at Napa High. But she said she paid little attention to academics, which effectively closed the door to any four-year school, and chose to play basketball at College of the Redwoods in Eureka. She wasn’t long for the team, however.

“During the first scrimmage, I got hit from the side and blew out my right knee,” she said.

Johnson underwent surgery, the first of six operations on the knee, and has struggled with it ever since. As a left-handed bowler, Johnson’s right leg absorbs her weight when she releases the ball. And if it sticks on the approach, as it did that evening in Baltimore five years ago, the outcome can be devastating.

“Bowling puts a lot of wear and tear on your legs and, actually, your whole body,” Johnson said. “We have to carry all the stuff ourselves. You bowl 18 games in qualifying and another 24 if you make the top 24. Plus that doesn’t even include practices and the pro-ams. . . . I do a lot of walking and play golf to keep my legs in shape.”

She also does a lot of driving, and not just on the golf course. Johnson typically travels to tournaments in a 33-foot motor home, with a car in tow, for convenience and to save money. Tour stops are set up geographically and are divided into winter, spring, summer and fall swings. The short summer tour, for instance, moves from Newport News to Huntsville, Ala., and then to Ocean Springs, Miss.

Johnson flew to Virginia and will drive to the other summer tournaments in a rental car. But she’ll hit the road with her motor home in September when the eight-event fall tour gets under way.

That swing includes the Merit Mixed Doubles in December, where the 24 women who have accumulated the most points during the season will team with the 24 top men on the PBA tour.

“I save a lot of money by driving the motor home,” Johnson said. “I don’t have hotel bills, I don’t have to spend money on meals. I just put new tires on it. It’s ready to go.”

But although Johnson has logged thousands of miles, her trips are rarely recreational.

“You really don’t have a whole lot of time for sightseeing,” Johnson said. “For me, I see the bowling center, the parking lot and every once in a while a golf course. I’ve been all over the United States but I haven’t had the time to really visit.”

Johnson has rolled 37 perfect games in sanctioned play and has won two-thirds of bowling’s triple crown--the U.S. Open (in 1992) and the Sam’s Town Invitational in Las Vegas (three times). Only the Women’s International Bowling Congress queens tournament has eluded her.

“There’s really not much I don’t like about the tour,” Johnson said. “I like bowling the pro-ams. I like meeting the kids, seeing them smile and getting them involved in the sport.

“I have fun. When I make the [TV] shows, I get pumped up and I get the crowd into it.”

Even if she takes a header every now and then.