My most embarrassing bowling moment

I’ve been able to compete at the highest level in bowling, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my fair share of embarrassing moments on the lanes. And, my most embarrassing moment came at my first tournament at the highest level.

I joined the Professional Bowlers Association a few years ago and played in a local tournament. It was a regional tournament that was held in Lakeland, Florida. The good thing about the place is that it’s where I used to bowl in my league when I was in college, so it helped with some of the nerves from my first professional tournament.

These tournaments are spread over three days. On Fridays, there is a practice session. Qualifying is on Saturdays and if you make the cut you have to come back on Sunday to compete in the matches and finals.

It didn’t take long on tournament weekend for me to be completely embarrassed. I went to the practice session and it was extremely wet in the bowling center. While practicing, I tried to take a shot and hoped to slide while shooting the ball, but I didn’t. My foot planted instead of sliding and I went flying into the lane and landed on my butt.

I got up, very embarrassed, covered in oil from the road, and had to go clean myself up.

Luckily, there aren’t many spectators in the building during the practice session, so I didn’t make a fool of myself in front of a bunch of people.

Fortunately, if you play the game long enough, it happens to everyone. Even though I felt completely humiliated, all the guys were so nice and made sure I was okay.

Needless to say, this idea stuck in my head for the rest of the tournament, and every time I went to shoot the ball, the main concern I had was not to shoot the ball well, but not to fall. So my first professional tournament was a flop, but the experience is one I will surely never forget.

When things like this happen, it’s very sobering, because no matter how successful you might be at something, you’re still human and you’re always going to have moments where the outcome is a little less than you expect it to be.

These moments are great, because they build character. It might suck at the time, but when you look back, you laugh a lot and realize that you learn a lot more from adversity than you do from success. Life is not about what happens, but how you react to it.