Family Comes Before Bowling - bowler Nelson "Bo" Burton Jr

Bowling Digest, August, 2000 by Paul Kreins

Though it could be argued that tenpins runs in his veins, Nelson "Bo" Burton Jr. believes that the ties of blood are stronger than those of sport or business

NELSON BURTON JR. was born into bowling. His father, Nelson Burton Sr., was an accomplished champion and considered one of the greatest matchplay bowlers of all time. The senior Burton was also in the bowling business, having owned five different bowling centers over a period of years. Frequent friends and guests at the Burton household included many of the greatest bowlers of the era such as Ned Day, Buddy Bomar, Billy Welu, Harry Smith, and Glenn Allison..

Burton Jr.--or "Bo," as his friends call him--recalls that his first bowling ball was a hand-me-down from Mr. Day, given to him at age three. "It was a duckpin ball," Burton says, "and I remember putting it in a vise and drilling holes with a hand drill." Junior's first bowling experiences in those pre-bumper days were always positive because the pinboys knew his father owned the bowling center. "Whenever I threw it in the gutter, the pinboys just set up a pin there so I'd always hit something."

As a youth in St. Louis during the 1950s, Burton worked in his dad's bowling center because all the pinboys had been called off to the Korean War. Bo graduated high school a year early and went into the Army for an eight-year hitch, serving as an infantryman and battlefield medic. After his military stint he started bowling again while attending a Jesuit college. While there, he entered and won the 1964 PBA Coca-Cola Open in Louisville, and after college he joined the PBA tour full time.

Burton feels his "instant success" was a matter of experience and the advantage of living in St. Louis, a place he calls "the Mecca of bowling" at the time. "Billy Welu lived across the street from our bowling center, and he was the captain of the Falstaff team," he says. "I got to bowl with Harry Smith, Glenn Allison, and Ronnie Gaudern before I was 20.

"When I hit the tour full time, I didn't have to go through what guys go through today. The tour transition wasn't even a transition--it was just something that was ready-made for me."

The most important thing he needed to learn about bowling on tour was versatility. Often thought of as a bowler who throws it "pretty straight," Burton insists his biggest problem coming out on tour was that he hooked the ball too much. "Billy Hardwick was beating us all, so I learned to throw the ball straight," he says. "I think that was the best thing I did to give my career longevity."

Burton bowled full time for about 11 years, until he was selected to replace the inimitable Welu in the ABC-TV announcer's booth as Chris Schenkel's sidekick on "Pro Bowlers Tour" telecasts. During those 11 years, where he focused solely on bowling, he amassed Hall-of-Fame credentials by winning 12 PBA tournaments and seven ABC titles, including the 1976 Masters. He was the PBA player of the year in 1970.

After cutting back to a part-time bowling schedule, Burton won five more PBA tournaments, including the 1978 U.S. Open, and two more ABC titles. His nine ABC tournament titles are the most in history, and his ABC average of 206.66 for 23 years was the highest lifetime average until 1984. He was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame in 1979 and the ABC Hall of Fame in 1980. Burton Jr. and his father are the only father-son combination in the ABC Hall of Fame in the performance category.

ALTHOUGH MOST PEOPLE remember Burton for his bowling accomplishments or his color commentary on "Pro Bowlers Tour," his primary source of income came from real estate development in the St. Louis area. He bought his father's bowling center in 1978 and hooked up with an excellent business partner with whom he developed real estate projects such as strip malls, condominiums, and apartments. He also purchased half-interest in a 500-acre farm where he raised corn, wheat, cattle, and soybeans. His projects became a lucrative and diversified source of income. So much so, that his television and tour responsibilities were becoming more difficult and less rewarding to fulfill.

In 1978, with two children and a third one on the way, Burton went to ABC-TV Sports chief Roone Arledge to tell him he was going to leave the tour and, consequently, the broadcast booth. His bowling center and other projects were making more than he could earn traveling every week. Instead, Arledge made Burton an offer he couldn't refuse, which kept him on television but effectively ended his career in the bowling business. "I just couldn't do it all," he says, "especially a cash business like a bowling center." He sold the center later that year.

Burton's partners in his real estate business and the farm allowed him to continue those ventures successfully. "A lot of things I've had lucky in life are great partners," he says. "In television, nobody can deny how terrific Chris Schenkel was. In my farming business I had a great partner named Dave Terbrock, and in the real estate business my partner was an incredibly smart and honest guy named Jeff Iken. These guys were so good they allowed me a lot of time to concentrate on my television career."