Go team USA!

Yes, I'm as caught up in Olympic fever as much as anyone. But I'm not talking about THAT team USA.

10 years ago I took a beginning bowling class at the U. I think it was more of a filler class than anything else. Something to kill the time between English and history. I know I didn't need the one credit hour it gave me. Luckily, 2 of my good friends, Nate and Spencer took the class with me.

We learned the ins and outs of bowling from the U of U's infamous bowling instructor Chuck. If you ever bowl up at the U, say hi for me as I think Chuck is still around. He taught us all the lame bowling terminology - taps, noses, splits, things you'll never use in real life (like almost everything else you learn in college). Chuck even taught us how to score by hand, another unnecessary skill which I already knew.

Chuck has a pretty funny practical joke that I'm pretty sure he does with every beginning class. He owns a lightweight fake rubber bowling ball that looks like it would weigh 18 pounds. While teaching the "briefcase" technique, the ball flies out of his hands directly toward whoever he thinks is the prettiest girl in the class. After a good belly laugh, Chuck is back to business, telling us about what kind of wax they use on the lanes and how often they replace the pins.

Anyway, now to the meat and potatoes of this post...

I swear to you we had professional Russian bowlers in our class. Sure, they said they were from Draper or Sandy or maybe even as far away as Spanish Fork; but the facial hair and the hint of Russian accents were dead giveaways. And man these guys could bowl! Why they were in a BEGINNING bowling class is beyond me. I know not one of them had an average of below 180.

We spent weeks building our handicaps, all in anticipation of the 2 week tournament at the end of the semester. The winning team got t-shirts! T-shirts! Let me stress again - the winning team got t-shirts!

When it finally came time to pick our team name, the choice was obvious: Team USA. We were going to take those Russian commies down!

The trick to winning a handicapped tournament is improving each game. I'm pretty sure the Russians knew this as they laid up the first week or so only to get better each week. But we had our own improving to do. We got better, and better, and better, and going into the final day of class, our team was ranked #2 - directly behind the Russians. That final day, we were paired directly against the Russians to compete head-to-head for the championship.

That day, Spencer, Nate and I all showed up with 2 things: Our A games and our mini-American flags. We'd wave them after every strike and spare, with the hope of getting into the Russians heads to psych them out. It would take a breakdown by the Russian team and a near-perfect day from us to knock them off the top.

The stars aligned that day. All 3 of us bowled well above our averages. If I remember right - I was close to 190! The Russians started to break down. They started to bicker with each other. After every missed spare you could hear them saying Russian swears under their breaths. After all was said and done, we had done it! We were crowned champions! I'll never forget the feeling of elation I had, and the look of disappointment on those bearded commie faces, as I slipped on my championship t-shirt.


I still have my t-shirt. From time to time, especially now during the Olympics as I'm feeling extra Patriotic, I pull it out of the closet and put it on as I cheer for team USA, all the while remembering the true team USA and the amazing feat we pulled off 10 years ago at Union Lanes.