Back in the heyday of bowling on the eastside of the Big Island, you could walk into Hilo Lanes and see leagues, families and individuals searching for strikes and spares on all 40 lanes, a raucous, stimulating scene that gradually wore down and was then snuffed out altogether.
It’s been a couple of years since Hilo Lanes shut down and the attraction of bowlers both serious and frivolous has disappeared. The shell of the place is still there, an object of interest from potential buyers, but as time drags on, people have done what they need to do to find a spot to haul out that ball and go pin hunting.
“I thought that was going to be the end of it,” said Damien Chow, the long-standing Hilo High School coach, “but then I was encouraged by principal (Robert) Dircks and by (director of athletics) Kurt Kawachi to try to keep it going; they provide school vans for us and they’ve been supportive all the way.”
All the way up the hill, that is, to the six lanes at Kilauea Military Camp, inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where young bowlers from eastside schools have been pursuing their technique, chasing this game and strengthening bonds of friendship.
That last part is probably a larger component of this sport than it is in other sports. In 26 years of coaching this discipline at Hilo High, Chow has formed some opinions about what separates this tempting game from some of the others. It looks easy, and it turns out, the biggest splash in the game — the strike that sends pins crashing, bowling answer to baseball’s home run — isn’t all that challenging. It’s everything else about the game that keeps you coming back.
“I think it’s different from most sports because you compete with everyone under the same roof, all at the same time,” Chow said. “People talk about learning life skills in all sports, how they build teamwork, supporting each other, working on your skills to help the team, and we have all of that in bowling but I think it’s a bigger part of it than in other sports.”
You learn a little thing here or there from your coach, your teammates, even your competitors. In his time, Chow has had a couple high school bowlers who won full ride scholarships to mainland schools, but it’s been a long while, 20 years or so, and he stresses this isn’t about winning scholarships.
This is a discipline in which you can develop some competence fairly quickly and that, in itself, tends to lure in newcomers.
“It’s a mental game, definitely,” Chow said, “and while everyone wants to throw strikes, you can do that almost by accident without having proper technique.
“The truth about it,” he said, “is that anyone can throw a strike here or there, the trick, if you want to call it that, is to learn how to pick up spares, that’s how you get your average up.”
Chow suffered a badly broken leg when he fell out of a tree a few years ago and he’s just now nearing full recovery, so he hasn’t bowled in a while. When he was active on an almost daily basis, Chow was able to nudge his average up to a high point of 204, but he’s still chasing that magical 300 game.
He got close once, starting with nine strikes before he ended with a personal high of 277.
At the moment, he’s looking for interested high school students who might want to be a part of a team in the fall season when bowling starts up again and wants interested high schoolers to contact him. Nine bowlers are allowed on the active rosters for boys and girls and at the moment he has just six boys expressing interest.
He wants to keep it going because, well, this is what he does, but also because he understands this is a lifetime sport, one that breeds communication in a supportive, yet competitive community.
If Hilo Lanes gets sold, refurbished and reopens with a flood of renewed interest, the high school kids who get involved now will have their spot secured and by then, their technique may be ready to chase the big numbers.
In the meantime, Chow just hopes he can get enough interest to fill out teams of nine girls and nine boys to begin competing again at a level of full participation, just like the old days.
Contact Bart with comments, questions at barttribuneherald@gmail.com
