Angling to make more Canadian history: Bill Rowe Jr. has won international medals by the boatload, but that elusive first PBA title is what motivates him today - Then & now: Bill Rowe Jr

Bowling Digest, Dec, 2002 by Dick Denny

BILL ROWE JR., ONE OF CANAda's most decorated bowlers in international amateur competition, has an unfulfilled goal: "I would like to become the first Canadian to win a title as a PBA member," says the 37-year-old Hamilton, Ont., resident, who quit the sport for a year and a half after two unsuccessful stints on the PBA tour as a teenager.

Rowe--who won a gold medal and two bronze medals in the 1995 Pan American Games at Buenos Aires, the Atlanta Bowling Challenge at the Summer Olympics in 1996, and a whopping five silver medals in the 1997 FIQ American Zone Championships at Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic--thought about bowling some in the 2002-03 PBA season. He has not held a PBA card since 1985. But Rowe's commitment to the Dominican Republic through the end of 2003 as assistant to head coach Craig Woodhouse, a fellow Canadian, for that country's national amateur team ended any possibility of reaching that goal--at least for now.

"I never had any success on the tour, but I feel if I went out now, I could make an impact," Rowe says, who was Canada's male tenpin Bower of the Year for five straight years, from 1994 to 1998. "When I bowled on tour as a teenager, I didn't have anybody to teach me about lane conditions and the knowledge you have to have to be a contender."

Through his three two-year stints with Team Canada in the mid-1990s, Rowe acquired the expertise he never was able to secure while trying to make it as a foreigner on the PBA tour in the early 1980s. "Today I have the confidence and ability to win," Rowe says. "But I'm no fool. The opportunity to help coach the Dominican Republic national team came up quickly [early in 2002], and I couldn't pass it up. At the end of 2003, I'll evaluate the situation. I'd like to get more involved in coaching in Canada."

Like most Canadian kids growing up in the 1970s, Rowe learned to bowl 5-pins. Rowe rolled at Mountain Lanes in Hamilton--when he wasn't pursuing Canada's national pastime, hockey.

"My grandparents took me 5-pin bowling," Rowe says. "A funny thing was that my grandmother always gave me one point for every pin I knocked down. [In 5-pins, each frame is worth 15 points: five for knocking over the headpin, three each for toppling the pins in the position of the 2 and 3 in tenpins, and two each for the corner pins.--Ed.] She would say, `Bill is scoring around 20 or 30 a game.' For the longest time, my parents didn't know I was doing really well. I began to bowl league in 5-pins when I was six."

On Saturday afternoons, Rowe would watch the PBA tour on ABC-TV. "That was our only exposure to bowlers such as Earl Anthony, Mark Roth, and Marshall Holman," Rowe says. "I used to try to hook the 5-pin ball between the pins, and I would spin it so much. But I kinda got bored with 5-pins, and my last game was when I was about 12."

A year later, Rowe's hockey career came to an inglorious end. "I was a scrawny kid who played goalie," says the 5'9", 160-pound righthander. "I wasn't very good. In my last game, I had 12 goals scored against me. That same week, I was offered a part-time job pin-chasing at the local tenpin center [Skyway Lanes]. That allowed me to bowl for free."

Rowe credits the late Skyway Lanes proprietor, Ed Nalborczyk, with helping to instill a love for tenpins into him. "[Skyway Lanes] was a small 24-lane, family-run center," Rowe says. "Ed had great rapport with all the people. I was bowling in a Saturday morning league at Burlington Bowl, which opened in 1977, and then I found out there was a Sunday morning league at Skyway. I joined that league partway through the season, and I was hooked on the tenpin game."

Bowling has always played a big part in the life of the Rowe family. Father Bill, who once managed Grimsby (Ont.) Pro Bowl, averages around 190; mother Dawn carries a 175 average. She and Bill Jr. purchased the Skyway Lanes pro shop, The 11th Frame, when Rowe was 15 and ran it for a year and a half. "I was in the pro shop business about 20 years, and I've drilled my own equipment for years," Rowe says.

He has two younger sisters--Kim Rowe, 35, and Tracy Huskins, 32--both of whom bowled more for recreation than competition. Tracy frequently reminds her brother she is one-up on him in bowling. "When Tracy was nine, she converted the 7-10 split," Rowe laughs. "I've never made it in sanctioned play."

Once Rowe committed to tenpins, he quickly began to make a name for himself. "In my last of three years in juniors--I was 14 then--I averaged 208," he recalls. At 15, Rowe decided it was time to step up to competition with male adults. He joined the Monday Night Classic at Skyway Lanes--"The league of the city," Rowe says--and averaged around 200 that first season.

During the same season he stepped up to adult competition, Rowe crossed over the border and began to test himself in tournaments and on television in Buffalo. For a 15-year-old, Rowe did admirably.

"I bowled in the Frank Caseo scratch tournaments and on the `Beat The Champs' TV show," Rowe says. "I think I made the TV show about eight times and won three or four times. It was good experience."