A Canadian teen gives the PBA a shot

IT'S NOT EASY TO knock down only five bowling pins instead of 10, but in fivepins, at least you get three shots instead of two.

But after bowling fivepins for two years, Jack Perry, at age 10, decided to try the tenpin game that his 13-year-old sister, Amber, was bowling in a youth league in Woodstock, Ont., Canada, outside London.

"My parents threw me in to give me something to do," says Perry. At 14, Perry was the youngest competitor at this past spring's PBA World Championship at Taylor Lanes outside Detroit, about a two-hour drive south of London.

"When I started off, I was pretty decent," continues Perry, who turned 15 in April. "I started to average 200 about two years ago, but I was really excellent this year. I think that's because I got a lot of practice and support from my parents [Gary and Robin]."

"In fivepins you don't focus in an area," he says. "You pretty much just throw the ball. You have in-betweeners. You don't turn the ball a lot, but you can get the job done."

Perry, who has worked at a bowling center for the last three years, says there hasn't been much pro bowling on Canadian TV in the last two years, but when he watched the PBA bowlers for the first time a couple years ago, "I decided that's what I wanted to be."

So he bowled in two pro-ams, the first in Erie, Pa., two years ago and the other at Taylor, Mich., at last year's World Championship. And in April 2003 he won the Canadian Junior YABC championship in Colona, British Columbia.

With the new restrictive format for qualifying to bowl on the tour, Perry will need to try his hand at regional competition if he's to reach his goal of making the PBA tour.

"If there are qualifiers close to home, I'll try a couple," he says. "Once you get a win, it loosens you up. It makes me a lot stronger. I realize it's a whole new game out here. You have to be focused."

Perry says he bowls in a Sunday morning men's money league that includes a lot of jackpots--"I break even on most stuff"--and also bowls in a three-person mixed league.

Out of a field of 236 at the World Championship, Perry stood in 141st place after six games. After 18, he missed the cut and wound up 185th, averaging 183.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Century Publishing
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