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 Lady
of the Lanes
SF
senior Tammy Veneski
finds that bowling success comes naturally
By
Brian Knavish
Envision an avid
bowler. What image comes to mind? Perhaps a frumpy, middle-aged
man with a Budweiser in one hand and a ball in the other? Or maybe
a skinny guy with one of those wrist thingies those bowlers wear?
Whatever your perception, chances are you don’t picture an
athletic 17-year-old girl.
But Tammy Veneski, a
senior at South Fayette High School, is more than just an avid
bowler. She’s an exceptional bowler, as evidenced by the two
national championships and more than $7,000 in scholarship money
she’s won playing the sport.
Tammy’s greatest
bowling successes came at the United States Bowling Conference
Youth Championships in 2005 and 2007, taking the crown at both
tournaments, making her the only person to ever win the USBC
Division I Youth Championship twice. All this success from the
same girl who is a standout on the South Fayette varsity
volleyball and softball teams.
A Veneski Thing
Bowling has been a Veneski family passion for decades. Tammy’s
father, Jim Veneski, has been bowling since he was a child. For
years he played in competitive leagues, but these days, he’s in
a more casual bowling group that hits Sports Haven Bowl in
Bridgeville every other Saturday.
Each of his three
sons has also been involved in the sport to varying degrees
throughout their lives, so when Tammy was a child, she, her dad
and her three older brothers would frequent the lanes. No wonder
the sport came so easily.
“I started bowling
when I was 10. My dad got me into it,” says Tammy, now 17. “He
was always into bowling, and it started because we’d all go out.
It was a lot of fun.”
Jim says he
immediately noticed something different about Tammy’s approach
to bowling compared to most youngsters starting out in the sport.
She wasn’t content with the two-handed, between the legs roll
down the aisle. She had a desire. “She was different, especially
because of how she was really listening to what you had to say,”
explains Jim, who is also
Tammy’s bowling coach.
Jim began working
with her to develop her talent, even taking her to his favorite
pro shop where he had Tammy’s ball drilled in the same pattern
as his own. Jim says the enthusiasm his daughter had for the sport
was obvious from the beginning. “She was a natural, but she
always enjoyed it. She wanted to do it, I didn’t push her.”
That competitiveness
is one of Tammy’s signature traits, Jim explains, noting that it
has helped her excel in all sports and is one of the reasons she
was elected captain of the South Fayette volleyball squad this
year.
“She’s the kind
of person, if her team plays poorly, it makes her angry,” he
says. “She’s the kind of person who knows what she wants, and
goes out and gets it.”
A Natural
While the determination to be good was there from an early age,
the struggles and learning curve were not. “Bowling comes pretty
natural to me,” says Tammy. “I’ve never had to practice
much.”
When she showed up at
the 2007 USBC Youth Championship Tournament, held in Buffalo, N.Y.
in July of this year, Tammy hadn’t bowled in approximately three
months. “Life is so busy, I really didn’t have time,” she
says. “The night before the tournament, I went out and threw a
couple of games for practice.”
In order to advance
to the championship, Tammy had to knock her way through several
local and regional tournaments, just as she did in 2005 when she
won the championship for the first time, but those tournaments
were months prior. This time, she simply shook off the “rust”
by going out and winning the title.
The USBC
Championship, as her father explains, is as high as a bowler her
age can go. Tammy competed in Division 1, which is the highest
level of junior (ages 12 to 21) competition and is reserved for
those players with an average score of 150 or more.
When Tammy got to
Indianapolis for the championship tournament for the first time in
2005, she was wowed by the pageantry and size of the event. The
tournament featured bowlers from all 50 states, Canada and several
other foreign countries.
“There really were
a lot of girls my age there. More than you’d think,” she says.
“When you go to a tournament like that, it’s kind of
overwhelming.”
She excelled, taking
home first place along with $2,000 in scholarship money. While
others around her shrugged off the success, Tammy knew just how
significant her championships were. “She was kind of bummed
about it,” says Jim. “She’d say, ‘I don’t think people
know how big of a deal this is.’ She went as far as she can go
for her age group, and she’s proud of it.”
 For
the Fun of It
While her bowling successes are staggering, Tammy keeps her
achievements in perspective. She views the sport as a fun hobby,
nothing more and nothing less. And she’s managed to spread that
fun to others. Despite a hobby that is anything but standard for a
young girl, Tammy says she’s received virtually no heckling from
her peers. Instead, she’s taken them to the lanes with her.
“My friends and I
used to go bowling a lot,” she says. “Even now and then we go
all-night bowling.”
Fully aware of her
prowess, some of her friends take aim at Tammy. “They joke with
me and say they’re going to beat me.” None have been able to
knock down more pins than her. While Tammy figures bowling will be
a part of her life forever in one capacity or another, her focus
right now is on her life as a high school senior. As captain of
the volleyball team and softball season around the corner, there
isn’t as much time for bowling as there once was.
“I’m still in a
league on Saturdays at Sports Haven, but I can’t always make it
with volleyball,” she says.
Tammy is also getting
ready for her leap into college. Tammy plans on enrolling at the
University of Pittsburgh in the fall, where she will study
physical therapy. Tammy says she’s never really thought about
bowling professionally, but she contends that, no matter how busy
she gets, she will always find time for the sport.
“I’ve been
bowling for so long, I’m sure I’ll always do it.”
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'Tis
the Season
