Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

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March 17, 2010

Perfectly cool

Brooks bowls a 300 game

By TOM BONE Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD — Kevin Brooks approaches the long lanes of a bowling alley with the coolness of a veteran of the sport. He managed to maintain that cool earlier this month as all the pins fell before him and a magic number approached.

The result? His first perfect 300 game.

The Bluefield High School junior, 16 years old, said he kept reminding himself, “Just stay calm and be consistent. There really wasn’t too much going through (my mind). I couldn’t think about much at that moment.”

His father Al Brooks, who bowls professionally on a senior tour, admitted, “I probably was more nervous than he was. In the 10th frame, I was shaking pretty bad.”

“I guess when you’re up there bowling, you’re concentrating a little more, and you try to control your nerves. But when you’re back here watching, you have no control over it, and you get more nervous ... .”

Kevin Brooks reached the coveted milestone while competing for his high school team in the school bowling league at Mountaineer Lanes on March 8. His 300 was sandwiched between games of 234 and 213, for a 747 set.

It helped Bluefield High maintain first place in the Monday evening spring circuit. “We’re doing pretty good,” he said on Monday, before devouring a fast-food meal with his teammates prior to the weekly competition.

His teammates managed to contain themselves during Brooks’ feat on March 8, respecting a sports superstition.

“If you talk about it, you supposedly jinx it,” he said. “But afterwards, they were ecstatic.”

The school league began play in Brooks’ freshman year, three years ago.

“I was pretty happy about it,” he said. “I want high school bowling to be well known and everything. I wanted to be really competitive in it. I just like bowling, so it’s no big deal to come out here and bowl.”

He gets plenty of practice. In addition to bowling in the school league and a Saturday league, Brooks said, “I try to get out here whenever I have any free time. It varies from week to week.”

The closest he came to a 300 game in the past was a 278, “but I messed up the ninth frame,” he said.

Al Brooks said that being present for the perfect bowling score balanced out another rare milestone that his son accomplished on the golf course.

“In his very first match as a freshman, he had a hole-in-one,” Al Brooks said. “I try to make it to all of his matches, but I wasn’t able to be there that day.”

Kevin Brooks said that he plans to continue golfing on the Bluefield High team, though he has scaled back his basketball playing.

Kevin said his father got him started bowling at about age 4.

His mother Carol Brooks said, “He’s been working at this for a long time, a lot of years. It’s always exciting to watch, but especially to (watch him) accomplish something like that.”

While Al and Carol Brooks ate their own dinner on Monday at the Cumberland Road bowling establishment, Al went through the training process for a young bowler.

“First you develop how he walks, and basically the slide on the lane,” he said. “Then he learned how to release the bowling ball correctly.”

He said Kevin “started out at a very young age. He learned his release at about 6 years old. He’s been doing that ever since.

“His wrist gets stronger and stronger. And as he progresses, we just keep buying him better equipment — and let him keep going.”

Kevin Brooks said, “You practice tempo and time. Everything has to be on time. You have to be able to release at the right point, and hit your mark on the lane consistently.”

Brooks said the constant practice has “paid off,” but consistency is not at all easy. “It has its ups and downs — you can get your timing off pretty easily. Little stuff can throw you,” he said.

Al Brooks said, “If he puts more work in, then his limitations will be whatever he wants to make of it, I believe — because he’s got enough talent to take it wherever he wants to take it.

“It’s up to him to put the work in and get better.”

Looking at the larger picture, Al Brooks endorses the sport of bowling “because the whole family can do it, and do it together. We all enjoy bowling, and we all enjoy being at a bowling alley, I guess.

“You ask my wife, (and she’ll say) I live at the bowling alley, too much.”

Carol Brooks said she would “definitely” recommend bowling to young people, “because it’s something that you can practice and work on it. It’s something that you can get fairly good at.

“It’s not quite like football, where you have to be a certain size or anything like that. No matter what kind of skills you have, it’s something that they can enjoy.”

She added that it brings out “camaraderie among the kids,” and allows them to make new friends.

Al and Carol Brooks bowl in the Tuesday night mixed league at Mountaineer Lanes, and the two are in separate Thursday night leagues.

Carol Brooks said, “I’m not a bowler, per se, like they are, but I bowl. It’s something that we always will do. And I enjoy watching (Kevin), as well as Al.”

Kevin, meanwhile, knows that his father has several 300 games to his credit. He said, “I don’t think I’ll get as many as he has, but I’d like to get a couple more.”

— Contact Tom Bone

at tbone@bdtonline.com

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