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Episode 4 Recap (Feat. Stu Williams): The Unofficial Born To Bowl Podcast
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A
Welcome to another episode of the unofficial Born to Bowl podcast. I'm your host, Jared Polin. Now, before we get too far into this episode, I do want to let anybody know who's listening on the FroKnowsPhoto podcast channel. There is currently another podcast channel set aside for the unofficial Born to Bowl podcast. It is there. So I'm going to finish the series and the season out on this channel and if we do, for whatever reason, get to continue on, then I will transition it over there and that's where all the future Born to Bowl podcasts will end up. We will put a link down below in the description so you can go and follow or subscribe to that channel so you can get all of the future podcasts. So in this episode, we're going to recap episode four of Born to Bowl. I also sit down with Stu Williams, who is a he's a staple of the PBA Tour. He is one of these pros that has been out there since 2008 and he's only won twice, which is, I guess, better than winning zero times. But he hasn't won since 2018, but his first championship was in 2011, then it was 2018 and now he is still out there trying to make his way in the world. We'll have an interview with him at the very end of this episode. But I want to get into the recap first this week and talk about about episode four, which starts off with Australia. Actually, right before it gets to the Australia part, it starts to talk about shoes. We talk about Belmo, who has a shoe addiction. He fell down the rabbit hole of buying Nikes. And it goes into that. Now, I could tell you earlier Cuts had a little bit more of the shoe discussion in there, but obviously, you know, we've got 28 minutes to work with. You have to make choices of what to cut and what stays in and what goes and what is best for storytelling. But what I found, and I didn't know this until we were making the show that bowlers used to spit on their hand and put it on the bottom of their shoe to help them stick if they were sliding too much and if they needed more slide and they were not sliding enough, they would take ash from the cigarettes that everybody smoked at the bowling centers. It was literally, you walk into a bowling center, it was just puffs and puffs of smoke floating in the air, lots of cigarettes. Kind of insane when you think about it. And if you're of a certain age, you then know what it was like to be in Establishments like bowling centers, when smoking was still allowed. I mean, through the 90s, that was still allowed. Which, when I say through the 90s, we're talking 35 years ago now. You know, it's just so stupid getting older. But I thought it was kind of cool to know that they used to put Astro on the bottom of their shoe to help them slide. I mean, and we also saw the montage of people sliding that go over the line. Never go over the line. It is slippery. The. There is oil there. And here's a fun fact I learned from Simonson is that at regular bowling centers, as part of their insurance policy or something, the first two feet of the lane cannot be oiled. Now, when the pros are bowling, it's basically oil all the way up to the foul line. But the first two feet are there because a lot of people will step over the line. Over the line. That's a foul. They will step over the line. And, you know, I don't know how you don't stay behind the line. I mean, the line is there. Don't cross it. When. When I took my niece and nephew bowling when they were like, nine or eight or however they old they were, I was like, here's the rules. However you get the ball down the lane doesn't matter. Two hands, One hand doesn't matter. Do not cross the line. No going over this line ever. And if someone is bowling next to you, you let them go before you go. It's called lane courtesy. So we went into that anyway, first two feet. I found that to be pretty interesting that it's like a legal thing for insurance purposes, that they don't put oil on the first two feet to really stop people from sliding. So as the episode continues, we end up in Australia with Jason Belmonte, and we get to see where he grew up. And I love seeing the old photos and I love seeing the old footage of. Of Belmo running to the line. He had this different approach. It wasn't as cool and as measured as he was at the beginning or as he is now, where he would, like, run and just, bam, throw the ball. Tons of revs, tons of speed. And that's something that is something you do when you're younger. And as you get older, you then start to slow down a little bit. Not in a bad way, but you get more relaxed and more calm and more measured and more scientific and not just get up there and wing it, which works, but it only works for so long. So if you didn't listen to the episode with Jason Belmonte, where I had him on, I believe that was a couple of episodes ago. I highly recommend you listen to it because it's a really fascinating interview that dives into a lot of why his parents started a bowling center at a time when they had no bowling centers in Orange, New South Wales, Australia. Kind of crazy, four hours from Sydney to do that. But we get to see Belmos home life a little bit, we get to hear from his wife, we get to see some of his shoe collection, we meet some of his kids and you see what it's like. I mean he has to go a long way to get back. So he drives four hours to Sydney. I mean, I didn't talk about this when I interviewed him, but he drives four hours to go from Orange, New South Wales to Sydney to fly out. Then you've got a flight that's what like 17 hours to get to. Is he going to LA and then from LA has to fly somewhere else and, and then has to show up on tour. I mean that is a long way to go to do this. But he does what he needs to do to provide for his family as well as provide for himself to be a successful bowler on the PBA tour. After we get through Jason Belmonte in Australia, we now get introduced to the World Series of Bowling. What makes it the World Series of Bowling is there's a lot of different exemptions that come in for bowlers that aren't on the PBA tour. So there's a lot of Malaysian bowlers and they are very good. And so they're getting these exemptions to come out and bowl. And the reason they can do that is because the World Series of Bowling covers almost a three week long span in one location where there's like five different animal patterns. And so everybody bowls on these different patterns and it changes from week to week or however they do the tournament. And you might only bowl six or eight or nine or 12, less than 12 games to determine who's going to be on the TV show. So if you come out firing hot and you're like some amateur, not an amateur, but somebody who's not out on tour. Often you come out hot and you stay hot. You might find yourself on one of the shows. That's why with the World Series of Bowling that's where you see Packy Hannah. I believe Packy won his first tournament at a World Series of Bowling. I know that Kyle Sherman won his first tournament or you know, singles tournament at the World Series of Bowling. And then you had Kevin Williams also won as well, but what's interesting that we see right off the rip in the episode is that EJ made the finals for every one of those tournaments. I should also that these tournament points and pin fall adds up to get to the World Series of Bolt. To get to the finals. The World Series finals. Now those smaller tournaments are $30,000 each and the World Series is worth 100,000 to the winner. At the beginning of the season, this season 2026 bowling season, Brandon Ponta, the rookie rolled a 300 game and he got $10,000 as a bonus. He won 100 grand plus the 10,000 for bonus for throwing a 300. I was just watching on Instagram there was a guy back in who threw a perfect game on TV and won. $100,000 was the bonus. We need to bring back the big ass freaking bonus. You bowl a perfect game on tv, it's a quarter million dollars. I mean at the very least make it $100,000. That was 100,000 in 1996. That's 20 years ago. And now it's 10,000 bonus. Come on. I know it was a little more rare back then, but let's go. It doesn't happen often. Give these guys some major incentives to go for those on TV. 300 games. So we pick it up with EJ losing time and time again. Now losing in the sense of he finished second in those tour in those specific animal patterns. So he didn't win. And that is a problem because it can mentally be draining. Obviously you get to the finals and you keep losing. That's not good for the mental state. You might start to fall into a rut time and time again. You do that and then we'll get to the episode, the ending of the episode where we see Belmo and EJ going head to head for a major at the World Series of Bowling. Belmo wants to take back his crown as the best bowler in the world and EJ wants to keep on rolling throughout this season. But before we did that, we see how Kyle and Jesper room together and they show their griddle and they show that they usually have like an air fryer and their kitchen stuff is below. They're in a regular hotel room in Reno, Nevada and they share the room for weeks. They've got their PlayStation set up, they've got food so that they're not spending a ton of money on eating out every night. Cuz that shit adds up over a three week period. It's insane how much this stuff adds up. These guys need to be frugal and sensible on the road, which is crazy as professional athletes to not be able to, you know, go out to eat all the time. Right. Cause you have to be careful and save the money. But we get introduced to Jesper and I just love that he's just like. And Jesper, he's quiet and it cuts to Jesper and it's quiet and he doesn't say anything. I love Jesper. He's awesome out there and he is quiet. His nickname is the Iceman because he is. Well, he's from Sweden, so it's probably why they gave him the nickname the Iceman. But we do get to see ej. Sorry, we get to see Kyle face off with Jesper. Now that's one of those matches during match play where the winner gets 30 extra pins. It's not like one person goes home and the other doesn't. But we encounter and we hear Kyle talk about he's going to bowl a 700 and I'm going to go home. Basically what he means by that is that Jesper was just bowling out of his mind and Kyle was not bowling very well and we were watching him fry out in front of us. And the mental game during that season was definitely tough. We've encountered this time and time again throughout the series and even going into episode five, we're going to have a culmination of the mental game for Kyle show up. That's no spoilers. That's just what's going to come up with in. In episode five. And yeah, Jasper just, you know, beat Kyle pretty bad there to win the extra 30 bonus pins and also get further into the tournament himself by winning those games. We also hear Kyle talk about the ball splitting and being like the second time or third time this has happened. So what he means by a gash in the ball, sometimes balls can split, sometimes they can get chunks taken out of them, sometimes they can crack. A lot of that happens because of the, you know, the machinery in the back. If it gets rubbed the wrong way on the carpet in the back, that's dragging it over to the hole to return it to you. That could create an issue. But this seems to be a recurring thing with his spare ball. I don't think it's been an issue this season in 2026 now, you know, when I've been out there to see these guys, I don't think I've heard anything like the ball is still doing that or maybe he just switched spare balls, I don't know. But yeah, that was something that happened right there. But the biggest culmination of the sear of the episode was this match between Belmo and ej. Now, I wish we had more time to show the match before because it was. Belmo was in the first seed, EJ was second seed, and then Timmy Foy Jr. Was bowling. Actually, was Timmy Foy the second seed. And EJ had to run the ladder a little bit. I don't recall. But I know that Tim Foy faced E.J. tackett and Tim Foy had not. I don't believe he's been in a major finals, and I know he hasn't won a major yet. I don't know if he's won a tournament yet to be. I know that I don't think he's won a tournament yet. But that was a really awesome match. And Timmy Foy had a chance, but EJ still ended up taking him out, and it was super emotional. Now, if we, you know, I wish I could show that footage because you get a lot of footage when you're shooting and not everything can make it, especially when you got 28 minutes. And that was one of the times I wish we had more time to show EJ's path, to get there and go through the struggles that Timmy Foy Jr. Had after finishing that match. That would have been. I wish we could share that. But that's just what happens. You have to cut things, and they end up on the cutting room floor. And that's just the nature of the beast. But we see the back and forth nature of this. Of this match. EJ comes out strong. Belmos holding on. EJ throws a split in like the fourth frame or the fifth frame, and that changes the entire match. And when Belmo steps up, you know, because an open frame is hard, an open frame can really crush your. Your. Your ability to come back and win. So after EJ opens the. The thing that you want to do is you want to strike. You want to strike because you start striking, you start stacking pins. They're not called points. They're called pins. For ex, if you roll a turkey, so you have two strikes and you roll a turkey, you end up getting 30 pins in that frame. Plus, if you. Because you can go back three pins, you go back three frames to add 10 to each one of those. Now you throw another strike after that to get your fourth strike, you add 10 pins back to the last three frames. That fourth one doesn't get any more. That's how you end up with 300 all the way. If you go all the way through. But yeah. So when you're striking, if you go, strike spare, strike spare, you're not building and stacking pins. You start throwing turkeys and four baggers and five baggers and six baggers. You are adding lots and lots of pins because you're adding 30 pins every single time. That's where it starts to build. Anyway, that was a quick side note. So Belmo steps up, rolls the ball, and you can see it in slow motion. It shimmies, right? It does not finish in the pocket. It starts to look like it's going to hook. And then you hear him say, how did that ball go so straight? What looks like happened is it hit an oil spot, and instead of continuing to hook off of the dry, because when it's dry, it grabs and has more friction on the lane, and it hooks back in this shimmied right and stayed straight, causing it to miss the head pin, you know, the pocket between the 1 and 3, leaving an almost impossible split, which he did not convert, which left the door open for EJ to step on the gas. Stepped on the gas. Belmo stepped on the gas himself. Could have used a couple of breaks where he got. Well, he did get one break on a strike where he's like, how did that strike? And he put himself in a great position for a chance to win with EJ Coming up, needing two strikes to win. He gets the first strike, and then he steps up for the final roll. If he gets this strike, he is the World Series of Bowling champion for that year. I think it was 20, 25. And he rolls, and it goes down the lane. And we cut back to his ball rep, which I should probably talk about his ball rep carrying his. And I'll get back to the final, final ball in a second. If you've already seen it, you know what happens. But his ball rep, Brett Spangler, carries from city to city a fridge, and he packs his own food or buys his own food especially. Well, for three weeks. If they're going to be in the same place for three weeks, then of course, he wants to have his own food there. So he could just heat it up in the microwave or do what he needs to do. But this was a scene that we fought hard to keep in the episode. I believe originally it was a little longer, but remember, 28 minutes, you got to make some cuts, but still being able to see this. And to show that he's carrying it through the boat, through the hotel, down the street, and he takes it to the ball truck, which you've seen the ball truck A couple times on the series so far. But Sully, who runs player services, allows Brett to have a place on the truck to put his refrigerator so it can go city to city. It's kind of. It's a transport, and so that's what he's able to do. Transport it to other cities. Okay, so sorry for the side note, but we get back to the final roll, and E.J. and everybody's waiting, and boom. Strike. For the World Series of Bowling Championship. Another major. He puts to rest all of those losses that just happened leading up to this, and he wins. He gets 100,000 bucks. Belmo finishes in second, gets $50,000, and I follow him all the way down. I mean, this is a massive bowling center. Oh, we didn't even talk about this bowling center being where the. Where that is where Kingpin was filmed. Now, it doesn't look exactly the same because they got rid of the stadium seating that used to be up there, but it's still the same bowling center where Kingpin occurred. And side note, when Bill Murray, I think, needed to throw a turkey or three strikes in a row to win, he literally threw three strikes in the row in the movie. He did it for real. So that's awesome. But, yeah, I followed Jason, and this is the tough part. You know, it was just me following Jason after his loss, going into the paddock, the back room, and it's mostly empty because everybody's already left. It's just EJ Versus Belmo, and there's a few straggling balls and a few bricks of, you know, holding up the. Where people would put their different balls in their ball bags just sitting around. And I was trying to show the vastness of the room. We don't really see it in this edit, but I did get a lot of clips where you show the vastness of the room with just Belmo sitting there upset because he just lost. I mean, it's. It's damaging. And so he's sitting there. You know, I get a little closer. I change my angle. I want to be a fly on the wall. And there's a reason, like, you'll know my clips in the show generally are the ones that are lower to the ground. Not because I'm short. I'm short, but lower to the ground, meaning I get the camera down as pretty low to the ground, because I think that that makes a shot more intimate. I feel that it draws you in more than being eye level. It brings this person to reality more, and that's why eye level sometimes is fine. But I like to get down lower than eye level because it just makes your subject seem larger than life. But also, when you get the camera down lower and you go wider, it makes it feel like that you're being invited into something that nobody else gets to see. So it's kind of like you're not there, but you have all access to see what's going on behind the scenes. It's like you're a fly on the wall. You're just. You set the camera down low, you go wide, and it's an intimate type of shot, and that's what it conveys to me, at least, and that's why I shoot in that style. But then I went up to Belmo after we asked him a couple questions. Isaac asked him a couple questions, and we got his reactions. It was like, fucking right. Like that was a genuine reaction. Fuck. Because he lost, you know, and he's, like, off to Detroit, you know, because they had to go do the Masters. That was coming up in Detroit. And then we cut to EJ packing up his car, and the $100,000 check is going with him. I found that to be one of the coolest closing scenes we could do, is seeing that he's literally carrying the $100,000 check and trophy, and he's got to go into the car to drive 36 hours, or however long they did to get to practice for the Masters, which is happening. Which was happening in Detroit. Pretty insane. I'm going to leave it there. Let's do the interview with Stu, and then I'll be back. To wrap this up, I have a very special guest on the unofficial Born to Bowl podcast this week. It's none other than the greatest bowler of all time, Stu Williams.
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B
I'm the greatest bowler of all time who can put up with you.
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A
Is that. Does that mean you're the only person who puts up with me?
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B
Probably.
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A
See, the reason I have such a rapport with Stu is because when I first went out on tour. Not on tour, when I went and did my first shooting and everything, I. There's different clicks on the PBA tour. You have the younger guy clicks. You have the other people clicks who go out and stay up late, and you have the old people. And I count Stu as an old person because he's a couple months younger than me.
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B
Yeah. I think you like me because I was the only person who actually knew who you were when you did at the bowling center. Yeah.
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A
Oh, you're a fan.
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B
A fan. No, I think it's more. I'm aware I wouldn't go as far as saying a fan.
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A
Right. Well, we gravitated towards each other, which was very nice. I found my group on the road, which was Stu's group, which was kind of fun.
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B
Yeah, we had a good time. We eyes made contact across the bar at Texas Roadhouse.
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A
That's true. And someone paid for the bill.
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B
You did. And then we returned the favor a couple of days later.
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A
And.
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B
Yeah, this is where we are. I'm getting texts on Wednesday night complaining about the fact that you can't make a single pin spare. And, yeah, I guess that's where we've got to.
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A
Well, I didn't text you last night, did I?
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B
Well, I guess you didn't make it to bowling.
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A
No, I bowled and I missed a lot of single pins. I. I hit the pocket really hard yesterday and I missed 10 pins, seven pins, six pins. I. I hit the pocket really hard and I. I was. I was rolling pretty well, except I couldn't. I couldn't clean up a single pin spare for some reason.
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B
Yeah, because you saw there's.
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A
There is that. Thank you. Stu, on November 18, 2011, you won your first PBA title at the Bear Viper Open. Now, was that Bear, as in the drug?
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B
Yes, it was. It's Bear, I guess.
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A
Yeah. You won in 2011 and you won in 2018. And that's it?
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That is it, yes. I mean, I'd argue for someone who's like myself, that's actually quite good. Two is a lot more than zero.
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A
But what keeps you going in all of these years of bowling on the tour?
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I think what keeps me going is I get to the point that I'm 44 years old and I do my tax return and I go, I don't know how I'd make that much money if I did something else.
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A
So you're doing okay?
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B
Yeah, I mean, I'm not, like, killing it, but. Yeah, like, I have. I make a very small percentage of my income from the tour. It offers me a platform to gain sponsors and bowl basically full time all year round. And living in Texas, there are many, many events that we can bowl almost every week of the year. So, Yeah, I mean, obviously the. The biggest differentiator in how much money I make is my performance on tour each year. But it's not the only way that I make money during the year.
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A
Right. And that's one of the things we hit on with Born to Bowl is the struggle that many players must go through in order to attempt to make a living. I mean, you have a family and you're still out there making a living, which is a testament to being able to scrape, you know, scrape by and make it work. I mean, I know that when I'm out there, I'm pulling for you and you tend to be around the bubble, you make the cut and then something happens.
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B
Yeah, I mean, there's just a lot of good bowlers out there and it's like, it's very difficult in the current environment if you don't have a, I guess a separator, you know, like you do something that somebody else doesn't do. And with the way Boland is going, that is power. Like, if you imagine right now, bowling, if you were to equate it to golf, is a little bit like if you hit the ball 330 yards off the tee, the fairway is very wide and if you hit it less than 300 yards off the tee, off the tee, the fairway is about the size of a cart path. And that is how bowling is with a high rev rate and a lower rev rate. So once you get into that higher rev rate, there is a lot of advantages, and there should be advantages because it's more difficult to achieve. But the balance between, I guess, accuracy and power, I feel like at the moment in the game is a little twisted.
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A
There is a lot of power now and a lot of the young guys throw pretty damn hard. We were watching Spencer Robarge the other day. I mean, he's hitting 22 miles an hour, just beating the shit out of the left hand side of the lane and, and exploding pins and just brute forcing it.
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B
Yeah, And I think that there should be weeks where that is the right answer. And like, I just think that part of the reason why the younger players are doing so well is because there is way more knowledge. The Internet has made people, you know, way. It's way easier to gain that knowledge at a much younger age for one, and then for two, I just think that the lane conditions are a lot higher scoring than they've been in the previous 20 years that I've bowled on tour, or 15 years, whatever, that I've bowled on tour. And that stops there being an advantage to the more experienced player. Because there isn't like a learning curve. If we're averaging 230, the game is quite simple. When we're averaging like 215, the game is a little more challenging. I mean, this week is a good example a bowling in New York. The pattern, certainly the first day was significantly more difficult than we've bowled on in the past. And the PBA tweeted just the other day that six of the top 24 or six of the top 20 are under the age of 24 right now on the PBA Tour in the rankings. And I think only Ethan Fury, he was the 20th guy made the cut this week. And I think that's just because Boland was more complicated this week. And those young guys don't necessarily have the experience to deal with that, because that is one of the times when experience helps.
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A
Do you think that this is a choice that the PBA is making is to try and do higher scores versus making it more technically difficult?
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B
I don't know. I would hope so, for the simple reason that if it isn't, then they're not achieving what they're looking for on a fairly regular basis. They haven't told us that's what they're looking for. But you would have to think that, you know, when we're having tournament after tournament where records are being broken, you would think that that's what they were aiming for, because that would be the only logical conclusion to it. And I don't think that players should be the ones who are dictating the conditions, because that's just not like everybody's gonna vote for their own self interest. Like that's. That's pretty much everything in life. I think everybody would like there to be a little bit more variety, whether that be in the scoring pace or in the type of conditions or whatever.
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A
If you were to choose something that would help you out, what would it be?
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B
I'd want the lanes to be impossible if we bowl on something that's really difficult. Spare shooting is more important, obviously, because you're going to be taking two shots more often, and I'm a fairly good spare shooter. And combine that with the fact that a lot of the time when the lanes are a lot lower, scoring, the power isn't as dominant of a factor. So. And then also when the scores are a little lower, you need a little more patience. And some of the younger guys aren't quite as patient because they're too used to, you know, throwing eight, seven or eight strikes every game. So those games when they can only get one or two strikes become a little more frustrating to them than they do to some of the older players
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A
on the Born to Bowl front. What. I mean, what were you thinking? When I. When I came out on the road and was like, I got an idea. This is what I want to do,
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B
I was excited because I felt like you were one of the first people who was from Outside of the industry, who showed that you actually cared about the game? The players like trying to make things better, trying to give them a. Give this sport a platform that wasn't traditional, so to speak. And, you know, with being a sports fan and seeing the growth that Formula One had had from basically doing nothing except having a Netflix series. I mean, I'd argue that the Netflix series actually influenced the outcome of the first season, that they actually did it. They. They just bent the rules to have a more exciting finish. But, but I think overall it brought a lot of awareness and it brought along a lot of new young fans to the sport. So that's kind of. That was the direction I was hoping that we were going to be able to go with ours.
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A
And what have you thought so far now that you've seen most of the episodes?
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B
I've kind of enjoyed it. I think it gave a balanced look. I think some of the Bowland Die Hards are going to be a little frustrated that, you know, some of the silly jokes that are inserted in, you know, with ball sacks, etc. Etc. But overall, I think that that's just, you know, a little humor that, you know, some people have to just, I guess, swallow and not. And not necessarily be. So, you know, bowling is kind of a nerdy sport, like, and you just got to, like, take it on the chin sometimes when, you know, you teased a little bit. I mean, it's just. It, it's not, it's not a bad thing. It's just, you know, I think I
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A
talked about something on one of the past episodes of the. The Unofficial Born to Bowl podcast where people have challenged you at the bar. Have you been challenged at the bar to a Met? Like, someone's been like, I'm better than you. I could do what you guys do. And you're like, all right, let's go do it.
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B
Has that happened? 100%? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a. We had a. A guy, me and Dom was sat at the bar watching the US Open in a. In a Twin Peaks in Indiana. And, you know, he. He was. He was worrying that of the 37 screens that they had that were all playing the Purdue Indiana game, that. The one that was in front of me and Dom at the bar had the bowling on. And yeah, he was, he was very much like, oh, I could beat these guys. And Dom kept. Because the guy was sitting to my right, Dom kept, you know, giving me the nudge. Have a word with your mate here, like, laughing at me. So eventually I turned to him and I was like, yeah, you don't know what the. You're talking about. And then we went back and forth a little bit, and Kimberly Pressler actually saved us because she came on and she was introducing the top finishers. And then we were actually on the screen, me and Dom, because we'd finished in the top, I think, 20 at the US Open that week. And of course, a bunch of the guys in the bar were like, holy shit, they're on tv. So then they started, you know, cheering, and by the end of it, the guy kind of realized that he was a moron. And he actually came to the next event we had in Indiana. He came up and he bowled the ptq. The ptq, the Pro Am. And he was about as bad as you would expect. A guy in a bar who probably earlier in the day was yelling at the MLB guy that he couldn't hit the ball or, you know, whatever. All sports fans.
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A
Yeah, I mean, people think that. That bowling's easy, and we obviously know that it's not. If it was so easy, everybody could do it, and you'd be striking left and right.
- [32:59]
B
But I also think that Boland at times doesn't realize it gets very, I guess, territorial. And, you know, any criticism of. It's just like, oh, my God. And it's like, you know, players respond to people on Facebook, and I'm like, you're out of your mind. Can you imagine how many people criticize Patrick Mahomes, who's like, the best quarterback in the last 10 years in the NFL, and like, oh, my God, he's washed up. He needs to go home. Do you think Patrick Mahomes is going on Facebook going, no, I'm not. Like, I just think that, you know, once you. Once you gain some sort of traction and you're in the mainstream, you're going to be open to criticism. And I think people, you know, have a little bit thin skin in bowling.
- [33:47]
A
So if you were to. They would. If the PBA came to you and was like, stu, we want you to Design next season. 27.
- [33:58]
B
What.
- [33:58]
A
What changes. What changes are you making to the tour? You have a budget, so you can make it happen. What are you doing to make the tour better for the future?
- [34:08]
B
I think that this is a really interesting question because I always feel like when you're involved in something, it's a bit like, are you aware of, like, Sunday Ticket, the NFL product? Yeah. Well, I feel like the people who just watch bowling are, like, watching the CBS broadcast, and then the players have more information, so they're like, Watching the Sunday ticket, you know, they get to see all the games and then like the people like Tom Clark and you know, the people above him, they like get the coaches film so they see all of the angles. And I think that's what's really difficult for us as players because, you know, there are things that we would love to see happen, but they're just, they're never going to happen because that's just not realistic. So if we're going to do it where it's like I was designing it and everything was perfect, like, and we could do whatever we wanted. Is that how we want to take this?
- [35:01]
A
Yeah, go for it. And then we could hit back with realistic after. But go, go. Pie for the pie in the sky.
- [35:07]
B
I mean, what I would like to see is, I'd like to see the, the, the majors split across the sea, across the year a little bit more. So maybe we'd have a couple of majors earlier on in the season and then we'd have maybe a couple in the back end of the year and then depending on how schedules were, we might have one in the summer. So that if a guy like for example, Bill o' Neill actually picked up an injury, was forced to miss the U.S. open and St. Louis, that's a large part of the season. And then he comes back probably earlier than he wants to, because if he misses any more weeks, you know, that's his earning opportunity gone for the whole year. So he's playing at probably 70 right
- [35:52]
A
now,
- [35:55]
B
but what choice does he have? So that's why I feel like if we were to do it and like we would surround each major as like almost a mini tour. So you'd have like maybe five weeks and a major, you'd have like a two or three week break. However, however that worked. And then you do the same thing. I think that that would be something where the players were able to miss some of the events because, you know, you can play all the events if you want to, but like, you know, golf has 35, 40 tournaments a year. The best players aren't playing all of those events. You can pick and choose a little bit. You know, if they go to somewhere where you just historically haven't done very well, you can skip that event if you want to. Whereas right now with only having, you know, 12 or 15 events and like some of those events being like, you know, the World Series where it's like kind of on top of each other and we're going in one bowling center and like that's a third of the season almost. You know, if you don't like that bowling center, that's a really big hit on your financial ability. So having those events across the year I think would be the first big step that I would like to see. And I understand that that's a little difficult with television. You know, TV doesn't necessarily want us at certain times of the year and whatever, but that would be the first thing I think the players would love to see where we'd be able to bowl like the PBA tour, like year round rather than it just be like the first four months of the year and then we're done basically.
- [37:30]
A
Yeah, that's definitely tough. Any rule changes
- [37:36]
B
in regards to what, like playing conditions? What like.
- [37:39]
A
Yeah, I mean like lane conditions, oil patterns, eligibility, equipment.
- [37:45]
B
I mean, I think that I would, you know, in the perfect world, I'd like to see us go to places that had bigger bowling centers because a lot of the issues come from us. And I, and I want to preface this by I think the PBA understands this. I don't think this is like a. They're just totally ignoring this and they'll do whatever they want. I think that this is a difficult scenario. But when we have the multiple squads, it just causes no end of like pain. It's like a pain in the ass when we have the multiple squads because when they're all in the lanes, like squad to squad, it's not necessarily very easy to make them the same. Like the players, like the, which group of players. It's like how do you split those players up, you know, and you have one squad that's stronger than the other squad or weaker than the other squad or whatever. That causes a lot of heartache. So, you know, in my perfect world we'd be able to have like fields of, you know, 100 players or more bowling and everybody would be bowling at the same time.
- [38:51]
A
I mean, ideally, I know what I would change. My biggest thing is like I care about dinner, I care about lunch. I also care about how these bowlers have no opportunity to have lunch and dinner at a reasonable time. And so for those of you who have never been to a tournament, it is kind of shocking how it works. They start at like 11 generally like bowling at 11 in the afternoon, in the morning and we'll finish about three. Yeah, finish about three. So now you're going to go eat something and then they come back and they have another block around 6 o' clock or 6:30. And the reasoning that has been given for that is to allow fans who, to who get off work to come in and watch the bowling. But the truth of the matter is there's 50, 75, maybe 100 fans max that will ever show up and watch these things. Now with the show, it may expand because I think some of the best bowling to watch is during the preliminaries when everybody is bowling across the bowling center and you are feet away from the greatest bowlers in the world. That is the best opportunity to watch. But it also makes it difficult when you're finishing at 9:30, 9:45 with your, your match and then you're in these little towns that don't have very much going on and you end up at Texas Roadhouse, which. But it's not even so much the Texas Roadhouse. I can find food at Texas Roadhouse.
- [40:15]
B
No, I understand that point.
- [40:16]
A
You're saying 9:45, you're eating. So it's like not good on the book. There's no reason you shouldn't start bowling at 8:30, 9:30 in the morning. Like go 9:30, go even 10 o', clock, you're done at 1 and then come back and start at 5.
- [40:32]
B
Yeah, I understand. I agree with you on the last block. I don't really see the point of a starting so late. I don't think that there's that many people who watch all six games or, you know, all six games anyway. I think that most times, if you're talking about kids come in, they're going to be. Want to be leaving before 9:45 when we're finishing to get back, you know, because we're bowling in the week. I think that also, I don't know how we can do it, but we need to have a. And it's a bit like, and I understand this is gonna sound a little bit like we need more sponsors and give no context of how you get more sponsors. You know, let's like just the most ignorant thing people say, oh, we just need more sponsors, sponsors, as if they're just gonna come. But we. I feel like we need a better environment in the Bowen center, like more things for people to do while they're watching. Because I feel like Boland's biggest problem from my eyes anyway, in professional bowling this is nobody actually cares who wins. I don't know if you've noticed this on the shows, but the people who go outside of a couple of occasions, you know, like when EJ's in Indiana, for example, and even then the crowd aren't exactly super partisan. They just don't necessarily care who wins. They're Just like, yay, strike. Go bowling.
- [41:59]
A
Like, that's. That's one of the things I would love to change is the rooting. The. The. The applause meter. Basically, the. When a strike happens, cheer when a thing happens, go ooh or ah. And I just want natural reactions at a sporting event.
- [42:15]
B
Well, I just think the problem is at most sporting events, like basically all sporting events, people actually have a root and interest. They actually care who wins. In Boland, nobody really cares who wins, like, outside of the players, families.
- [42:30]
A
Well, the one time at the masters, we heard a little outburst from one of the players friends who. Who was like, yes. When someone missed a strike.
- [42:39]
B
Yeah. And that, you know, I don't.
- [42:42]
A
People.
- [42:43]
B
Again, another thing where people get, like, super, like, butt hurt. Like, when people cheer against them, it's like, who cares? Like, it's real sport. Like when Liverpool go and they play Manchester United and we play at Old Trafford, Manchester United's home ground. When Liverpool score, they're. They're. They're. They're screaming obscenities at the Liverpool players. You know, they'll be booing, whatever. Like, there's like 500 people in the stadium from Liverpool fans. They're going crazy. They're super happy. I just don't know why people can't grasp the concept that, like. Like, if I'm bowling against EJ in Indiana and I get lucky, it's okay for the crowd to abuse me. It's okay. Like, you want your guy to win. I got a lucky break. That's okay. Like, it's not a big deal. Like, I'd love it if the. If the crowd was way more partisan and they cared, but it's just nobody seems to care who wins. They just. They just. I. A lot of the time, the people who go are almost observers rather than fans.
- [43:49]
A
We might hopefully change that. And with the show.
- [43:53]
B
Yeah, maybe.
- [43:53]
A
Hopefully you have a rooting interest. I mean, there's gonna be people that love Simo and there's gonna be people that don't love Simo. There's people that love Belmo and don't love Belmo. Right. And so it's just. It's just tougher in those environments because I guarantee you they would probably remove someone from the crowd if they were saying something.
- [44:12]
B
Yeah, well, they probably would because the player would probably complain about it rather than just, you know, getting on with life.
- [44:18]
A
Are you calling the players in the PBA soft stew hot?
- [44:22]
B
Yeah.
- [44:22]
A
Yeah. You want to go into that a little more?
- [44:25]
B
I just. I just think, just in general, people are just they just take everything way too personally.
- [44:31]
A
Yeah.
- [44:32]
B
Like. Like, we don't have to, you know, we don't have to, bro. Hook it out every time we finish a match.
- [44:39]
A
True.
- [44:40]
B
Yeah. It's just disingenuous at best.
- [44:43]
A
Yeah. No, I like realness. You know that. I like it raw. I like it. I like it to be that way. And when you see the guys that just compete. Yeah, it's great. You compete against each other and you're disappointed when you lose. It's always tough to congratulate the other team when you lose.
- [44:57]
B
There's a big difference between shaking the guy's hand and going, nice job, and to need like a hog every time.
- [45:03]
A
I hope that there's changes. And from an outsider who also gets to see inside, like. Like me. I've seen many facets of the PBA over the past four years, and I just think it's one of the most inviting situations for a spectator to ever go and watch professionals do something.
- [45:23]
B
Yeah. I think that as players, we give way more access to fans than almost any other sport. The players are super accommodating. Like, even when players are, like, really frustrated, you know, I've never seen a situation where the player hasn't, like, you know, if you ask the player right at the wrong time, most times, you know, the player will be like, yeah, I just need a minute. And you go in the paddock and you'll get kind of annoyed.
- [45:53]
A
One of the things you mentioned are, like, the fans coming out. And I know that at the toc, there's always the. The school buses come rolling in for one of the blocks, and they put on a rooting interest. They put on T shirts with players names on. They put on wigs for Kyle Troop. I mean, that's always fun.
- [46:10]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, sometimes they don't necessarily. I don't know that all of Those kids are 100% always the fan of the one bowler that they've got, because it's kind of a class thing. You know, each class picks a team. But, yeah, it's cool. It's definitely something different. And, you know, Chris Loechetta is from that area, or he'd lived in that area. And a bunch of the kids whenever his team. Whenever he was bowling, like, probably like five or six years ago, the kids were super into his team. Like, all of the kids on his team were screaming every time he would strike. And really into it. So that was like a, you know, a authentic cheering, so to speak. Yeah.
- [47:01]
A
And. And with the TOC coming up, that is one of the events where you are super close to the pros, there is not a lot of room one for me to film anything because it's super small and super tight in there. But it's also one of the most famous houses that you guys still have to bowl at, correct?
- [47:19]
B
Yeah, when. When we bowl up in Fair Lawn, that's the one where they have the sign by the entrance. You know, through this walks the greatest bowlers in the world.
- [47:28]
A
And then I walk through the door, so it gotta be true.
- [47:31]
B
Yeah. Your sign should say, through this door walks fans of the greatest bowlers in the world.
- [47:38]
A
Oh, got it.
- [47:39]
B
So, yeah, Akron fell on Akron. Fellown is like a tiny little piece just off the, you know, the outskirts of Akron. But yeah, the Bowland center has changed ownership a couple of times, you know, through the changes, but it's always been like, for the majority of time, the. The home of the toc. Back in the day, when you went down the. The main street there, they would actually have the banners of the players who'd won. They had, like, little signs on all of the. The light poles in the town. So it's. It's really cool when you go to some of the places that aren't quite as big as cities, because Bowen is like the thing for the week, you know, in that area. So, like, some of the best places that I've really enjoyed bowling. Columbus is like an incredible place to bowl because there's just. It's. It's quite a big town, quite a big city, but it's still small enough that Bolin is like a big deal being there that week. And, you know, we went back there and I haven't bowled there since, I don't know, like, 2013 or something. Well, in it, over in that area, we have been to Columbus in the interim, but, like, there's just a bunch of guys who were coming out and were saying, oh, I remember you and your rookie year. And, you know, that was 2009. And they watched me bowl at the bowling center just down the road there. And then we bowled over at Wayne Webb's house probably like five or six years. And it's just. It's cool that, you know, they. Those same people are still coming out to watch the events. So I like going to those sort of, like, slightly smaller towns, cities, because bowling is just more important to them. Like when we go to Las Vegas, like, a lot of the time, nobody really cares with that, you know.
- [49:43]
A
Yeah, I understand how it all works. Yeah. So we're going to be wrapping up the season shortly. Not the bowling season, but the born to bowl season. Do you have a rating? Have you? I mean, I know I hear from you from time to time. You can give it a rating from 1 to 10. What would you. What would you give it so far?
- [50:01]
B
I thought that the first episode set the table pretty nicely. Are we going out of 10 or are we going out 5? Like what we do?
- [50:09]
A
Let's do 10. So it's expanded.
- [50:12]
B
Okay. So like, I thought that the first episode was probably like a seven. Like, I thought it was. It was good. It, like, say. I think most people liked episode two. Like, you know, it showed kind of the raw, unfiltered abuse that the bull reps received from the players, rightly or wrongly. That was actually a fairly unique look, though, because you had a bull rep in Rob or in Rob Gotchell who was willing to challenge the player in Simonson, and you saw how, you know, I mean, I think that Simo came across to some people as like, that was real. And to some people he came across as being a little bitch because he was screaming at the bull rep. And the minute the bull rep said something back to him, he lost his mind. And it's like that. That's an interesting back and forth relationship between the bull reps and the players. Trust me, I've been there where I've been frustrated with them when they'll say something at the wrong time or something that just doesn't work. And it just, you know, you're frustrated, but you forget that. Like, it's unreasonable to expect the bull rep to be right 100% of the time when the player isn't right 100% of the time. So that part of it is very challenging. I think it's an emotional relationship. So I think that episode, I think was everybody's favorite. That was kind of a 9 out of 10. Nice episode. I think the EJ episode for me was a little flat. I think EJ is a incredible bowler and an incredibly nice guy, but he isn't. He doesn't necessarily. I don't think EJ evokes very many opinions from the. From people just in general about him. I think he's very straight down the middle. Like, there are a bunch of people who dislike Belmo and there are a bunch of people who love Belmo and there's a bunch of people who absolutely adore Simo, and there's a bunch of people who absolutely hate Simo, and I think EJ has way less people who dislike him, and he probably has Less people who really like, you know, are obsessed by him. And that means that, like, the episode is not as much of an emotional roller coaster. It's much more, you know, flat. Yeah. And that's not necessarily to criticize ej, that's just kind of his personality. He's like, he just. He's better than everybody else at the minute, but he isn't, you know, he's not necessarily in people's faces so much. You know, Belmo was quite happy to tell people that he was better than they were. EJ does, but it's just in a slightly different way. It's not as confrontational and I think that's just, you know, that's just the personalities and I think that makes for a little bit less compelling viewing at times because I think there's more of a respect for EJ's just all round ability and like, the things he's doing are incredible, like. But I don't necessarily think that because he does. Well, a lot of the time it isn't quite as much a rollercoaster of emotions as it is for someone like Simo or Troop and for. I haven't actually seen four yet. Was I in Job?
- [53:40]
A
Were you in it? I mean, you're barely in the show. Your voice is in there every once in a while.
- [53:44]
B
I mean, so the episode was probably shit.
- [53:46]
A
Yeah. No, no, it's actually a very good episode. My dad liked it a lot.
- [53:50]
B
I mean, your dad likes everything though. It's like, oh, Jared did it. Oh, it's great.
- [53:55]
A
That's not true. You didn't grow up in the house where Jared did stuff and then dad didn't like the stuff.
- [54:02]
B
No, I mean, I'm sure it'll be interesting because you go. You went down to Australia to see all the cameras. Went to Australia to see Belmo.
- [54:10]
A
The cameras were already in Australia. Well, that was, you know, how you have to deal with Australia. When we did that, that was quite
- [54:16]
B
interesting though, the way that happened, right?
- [54:19]
A
Oh, yeah. Not going into how that happened.
- [54:22]
B
No, I just meant the fact that you could see directly through the camera lens and stuff. And that part was kind of interesting, I thought.
- [54:29]
A
Well, yeah, the fact that the camera people were set up in such a way that we could watch and listen and have a laptop next to the camera with a. With video so that we could chime in and ask questions directly to Belmo. That part was certainly interesting.
- [54:44]
B
Yeah.
- [54:45]
A
Not having control though, for me of the angles and the lighting and the camera choices and the lens choices is a lot more difficult when you're 18 billion miles away.
- [54:56]
B
Yeah. And they can also just switch you off by shutting the laptop.
- [54:59]
A
Yeah, just shoot. Shut me off. Shut me off.
- [55:02]
B
I just like when you were describing it to me and the technology they were using, I thought that was very, very cool.
- [55:08]
A
Yes, that stuff was cool, but I guess we should kind of wrap it up. I know you're taking a break, but you'll be back for the toc.
- [55:15]
B
Yeah, I. We had some. It's been a long trip so far and it hasn't necessarily been super successful. And as you could see during this episode, dealing with Brady at times is, you know, it's pretty challenging. And my wife has been, you know, doing that at home for the last eight weeks. So combined with my not great performances and the mental toll that takes on you when you're bowling and then combine that with, you know, her having to do all of that alone, it just made sense. When I looked at the schedule I could take, I could miss this event and then the doubles, which is a non points, it doesn't really count for points or anything, could miss that event. And I got a 17 day break that seemed like that was probably for the best. And then historically I've done pretty well in felon at the toc, so I just felt like that was, you know, that gives me the best opportunity to prepare for that and, you know, and be ready to go, you know, when, when I get set for that.
- [56:27]
A
Well, we appreciate you coming on. Maybe you'll actually catch up on finishing the series when you can.
- [56:31]
B
Yeah, well, I've been watching it with my wife. We'll. We'll probably watch it next Monday. We'll watch the two episodes because 30 minutes goes by pretty quickly.
- [56:41]
A
It does go by quickly. So anyway, Stu, thank you for coming on today on the unofficial Born to Bowl podcast. Quickly.
- [56:48]
B
I just wanted to thank you personally for like believing in bowling and trying your best. I know that was a long process and I know that you, you don't necessarily get as much of the credit as you deserve for making that show happen. So for all of your loyal listeners, just understand that Jared put a lot of sweat equity into making that happen and he also faced a lot of road barriers from people who should have been helping him to get it where it got to. So while, you know, we'd love it to be longer and we'd love it to be more episodes and everything else, the fact that Jared was able to get that from nothing to something on HBO is a testament to his grit, determination, and the fact that he's a nerd just like the rest of us and loves Bolan.
- [57:44]
A
There you go. I'll take it. Thank you, Stu.
- [57:47]
B
If you are interested in Ballin, check out the Beef and Barnesy podcast. That's with me and Chris Barnes.
- [57:53]
A
Yes, I'll put it in the show notes to check out Beef and Barnes, where you can listen to Stu and Chris Barnes, the professor, or whatever the hell they call him.
- [58:03]
B
Yeah.
- [58:04]
A
And there you have it, guys. That was Stu Williams coming on. Thank you for coming on, Stu. Always nice to have conversations with Stu because, yeah, I did fall into the clique with him and, yeah, we became friends. And I. And he's also the person I call whenever I have questions about the PBA or questions about bowling. I get on the phone with Stu because he always generally has the answers quickly. If I need to get in touch with somebody, he's got their number. If I have a question, he's got answers. So that is basically it. There. There is one more episode in this season, and that's episode five, which will air on Monday on HBO and hbo. Max, I hope you have enjoyed this so far. I hope you've enjoyed the series. I've enjoyed it. I think the reception has been tremendous. I think we couldn't have asked for anything better. Bowlers like it. Non bowlers like. Biggest complaint, it's too short. Nothing we can do about that. It's better to be too short than too long and lose people's interest. So that's it, guys. Thank you very much for listening to the unofficial Born to Bull podcast. I'm Jared Pollin. We'll see you.