Jeremiah Rooney

For the past several years I have been working hard to get to the level of skill that would allow me to begin competing in the PBA as a professional. Over the last 4 years, I have spent countless hours improving my bowling game. 

My journey in bowling started at the young age of 11. I was involved in the youth bowling program at a local center near my house called Town and Country Lanes. At this young age, I realized just how much I loved to bowl and dreamed of being good enough one day to compete in the PBA. I bowled all through middle and high school until I graduated at the age of 17 from High School. At that point in time, I was averaging in the 180s and wanted to start bowling more competitive events and get a decent coach who could take me further, but at the time my parents talked me into going to college the next year and in the meantime wanted me to get a job and work for a year before going to college. They essentially told me that life would be easier if I had my college degree.

I went to college for two years and graduated with an associate's degree in Computer Sciences through the Montana State University here in Billings, MT. Immediately after graduating, I went straight to work. I still had my passion for bowling and would bowl as much as I could, but I realized very quickly that I did not have very much time to dedicate to my passion as I went to work full time. As time went on, I began to realize that I had to dedicate myself to my career and began to do so. Shortly after making that decision, I met the girl of my dreams and got married in 2008.

I am sure you can imagine what happened next because it happens to so many people. People have dreams when they are young and then a lot of people, for one reason or another, forget about their dreams as life goes on, or they do not pursue their dreams for one reason or another. Some people are afraid to pursue their dreams, some just think it will be too hard. In my case, life, in general, got in my way. Once I met my wife, I started to focus solely on my career and my relationship with her. We had kids 2 years after meeting and that of course meant now having to focus on raising my family. 

As time went on, I realized that I had this part of me that felt incomplete and it’s that part of me that was holding me back on many levels. In 2015, I spoke with my wife and we both decided that it was time for me to get back into bowling. At the time, I did not know what level I wanted to participate in again but I felt that part of me screaming inside about what I wanted to do at age 11. The last league I participated in as a youth was back in 2003, prior to graduating high school. It was now 2015 as I entered my first adult league. I realized very quickly that things had changed so drastically in the world of bowling after 12 years of no bowling.

As I came back to the sport I loved, I learned very quickly that there was a lot to learn if I wanted to be competitive again. I established my adult average at 147. After that first season, I decided that it was time to dedicate myself back to the sport I loved. I spoke with my wife, and we made the decision that I was going to start dedicating a big chunk of my life to pursuing my dream. I began to set goals for myself to raise my average each league season which required me to dedicate time to practice. It also required me to get a coach who could help me achieve my goals. 

During this time, I decided to also involve myself in the youth scene again by volunteering as a coach for youth leagues. The youth program had changed so drastically over the years that I could not believe it. Now, youth bowlers had scholarship opportunities as well as national youth tournaments to attend where they could compete against youth from other states for a chance to win scholarship funds. 

Initially, being a volunteer coach meant that you had to attend the youth league and help write down scores and essentially make sure the pace of play kept going as needed and did not involve so much coaching. I disagreed with this approach and instead, decided that I would try to help the kids get better instead of just writing down scores and ensuring the pace of play kept going. This of course was not the most popular decision amongst some people in the bowling community as they did not see me as the type of bowler who should be coaching – mainly because they saw my average so low and saw me bowling and did not think I had the skills necessary to teach kids. Little did they know, that if I was not practicing improving my own game, or bowling a league night, I was constantly doing my own research on YouTube and other bowling resources to learn new skills and techniques so I could not only learn these things myself but pass them onto the next generation of bowlers.

During the 2016 league season, I established my average at 169, which was a huge jump up from the previous year's average of 147. I also was happy to accept a staff bowling contract position with a company called California Bowling (also known as, Lanemasters). During this season, I made the decision to change from a one-handed bowling style to a two-handed bowling style (made famous by Australian bowler, Jason Belmonte). 

During the 2017 league season, I established my average at 172. The change to the two-handed style was tougher than I thought it would be. I worked through the challenges and established my 2018 average at 180. During these two seasons, I began to gain the respect of those around me as they started to see just how hard I was working at getting better at the sport I loved so much. They also saw my dedication to the youth bowlers and began to respect that I knew what I was talking about when coaching youth bowlers. My own two girls were involved in bowling at this stage as well and I wanted to ensure that they were receiving the coaching they needed to get better. During the 2017 season, I shot my very first 300 game (something I thought I would never honestly achieve), and I did this during a local tournament. 

The 2019 season came, and I found myself establishing my average at 176 and not improving very much during that season. Honestly, at this stage of my life, I was dealing with some struggles at my job, and it looked like I was going to have to switch jobs to maintain my position in the technology world. This was very stressful for my family and I as I had been at my previous job for 4 years now. I had just started a new opportunity at one of our local Hospitals just prior to COVID. Unfortunately, this meant that my new job came to an end quickly as the Hospital started tightening its belt in preparation for the financial hit from COVID. This season was cut short as bowling centers across the USA were shut down due to COVID regulations. During this period, I was faced with the same struggle that many bowlers nationwide were faced with. With no bowling centers open, how were we supposed to practice getting better? I made the decision to build my own bowling lane in my backyard so I could practice at home. I believe this alone showed both my girls just how dedicated you must be to achieve your dreams as they saw me outside practicing on sunny days. It was during the early months of the Pandemic that my oldest girl (age 9 at the time) came to me and told me that she wanted to bowl professionally someday. This made me tear up as I remembered back when I was 11 and had the same dream. 

I knew that no matter what, I had to achieve my dream, so I could show my daughter what it took to get there and to never give up on her dreams, even when the road got tough. She caught on as she began practicing with me and dedicating herself to getting better.

As the 2020 season approached, I was nervous as I was unsure how things would go after some of the COVID regulations were being lifted. The 2019 season was so short, and I had just started to compete in local amateur tournaments when the pandemic hit. The season started, and I established a 188 average – my hard work during the pandemic had paid off. It was during this season, that I determined it was best to reconnect with my roots and go back to Town and Country Lanes to not only assist with their youth program (which really needed the help as they only had two volunteer coaches and had over 30 kids to coach) but to also support the bowling center. I signed my kids up for the youth league and began helping that program. During this season, I competed in as many amateur tournaments as I possibly could. During this season, I began to realize just how difficult the competitive scene was. 

I competed in a total of 8 events across the season, many of these events were more than 500 miles from my hometown. I realized very quickly that the cost of going to tournaments was difficult. Not only did I have to drive great distances, but I also had to pay for entry fees into tournaments as well as room and board. During this season, I won one tournament near the end of the season. This was a more localized event, but I had to go through several good bowlers to achieve first place. I averaged 214 through qualifying and 207 during match play. I made the initial cut in 3 other events during the season.

I began the 2021 season with a new goal, to obtain my PBA card. This required me to not only improve my average (the goal I’ve had for several years) but improve it to the point of maintaining a 200 average for at least 36 games of league bowling. I decided it was time to return to the bowling center I bowled at as a youth, Town and Country Lanes, to bowl league. After the established period, I achieved my goal and established my average at 204. 

Over the last two seasons, I have seen the youth program at T&C grow immensely. I have been able to help so many kids achieve higher levels of performance in the sport. My own two girls remain involved in the youth program and my oldest daughter is getting to the point where she is averaging quite high for her age (she is now 11 and is averaging over 110). I see the passion in these kids, and I love helping them maintain that passion. Because of this, I came up with a new goal of obtaining all of my coaching certifications up to the Gold Level and I have been working on that this year as well. As the season started, I decided that I wanted to help revamp the youth program in my hometown so our youth realized just how big of an opportunity bowling can provide for their future from scholarship opportunities and nationwide competition. 

I began a YouTube channel just before the start of the season, my primary goal is to document my road to the PBA to provide youth bowlers and amateur bowlers a glimpse into what it takes to get to the professional level. During this season, I have competed in 6 amateur tournaments and have a third-place finish in one event, and have cashed in two other events. I have also begun my PBA journey by competing in my first PBA regional in Grants Pass Oregon. I placed 30th out of 60 bowlers - even though this was not a cash spot, I proved to myself that I can compete on the professional level. 

At this point in my journey, I have successfully acquired my PBA card as I have met my average requirement and it is now time that I begin competition on the PBA. The company that I have been representing during my journey, California Bowling, did offer me a PBA contract to bowl on the PBA professionally on their behalf. The contract in question is mostly incentive-based, which most are. This means that for me to get any sort of assistance from the company for bowling events, I must make cuts and place high enough in the rankings. As you can imagine, the cost of competing in PBA events is much higher than in amateur events as they are not only farther from my hometown, but they are more expensive to enter, even as a PBA member. I am looking at an average cost of $250 per event for entry fees alone. 

The travel costs will vary based on the distance I have to travel to get to the event. With the cost of Gasoline rising recently, I have realized quite quickly that I need to have some sort of sponsorship at some level to begin my PBA journey.