Published: December 03, 2008 10:29 pm      

Strike force

Brooks bowls past Pappas

BLUEFIELD — Some consider knee replacement surgery to be a crutch. Do not tell that to Al Brooks. The Bluefield native won the George Pappas Gastonia Open last month in Gastonia, N.C., beating the tournament’s namesake in the final.

The 55-year-old Brooks began bowling at the behest of his father, who took him to the alley in Princeton. When it shut down after two years, Brooks began coming to Bluefield.

Since then, he has amassed 43 years of bowling and has gone through 11 knee surgeries, including two total knee replacements in 2004. After that surgery, the lefty had to literally relearn how to bowl.

“I had to learn how to bowl all over again technically,” Brooks said. “I went from a five-step approach to a four-step approach. I went from planting my knee to sliding.”

In a sport where balance is key to execution, Brooks’ surgery left him with a severe handicap.

“With the knee replacements, unfortunately you can’t feel yourself fall,” Brooks explained. “If you trip, your brain don’t tell you that you’re tripping until it’s too late. You already fell. You’ve got to learn to walk, make sure you walk heel-to-toe. How I’m bowling as good as I’m bowling, I have no idea.”

But that has not stopped him. Brooks is currently averaging 215 and four of his 17 300 games have been bowled after the surgery.

Brooks, who has carried a 200 average since the age of 10, has been playing in Professional Bowlers Association-sanctioned tournaments since the 1970s.

“I’ve competed against them in the ’70s, and I’ve beaten a few of them, some of the best bowlers out there,” Brooks said. “Jason Couch, I beat him in a tournament in Roanoke in the ’70s. Pete Weber, I beat him in a tournament in Knoxville in the ’70s.

“In the ’70s and ’80s, before my knees went out, I bowled in 28 regionals, cashed in 23 of them.”

In 1985, Brooks underwent his first knee surgery. He estimates that he went under the knife once every other year until having to have both knees replaced.

“I just felt like my window of opportunity was coming to an end again,” Brooks said. “It’s always been a dream of mine to want to go out there and bowl and I always said when I turned 50 I was going to join the PBA Senior Regionals.”

But when he turned 50, his knees went out. He needed the replacement surgery and it would be years before he could live his dream.

His previous years of experience served him well. Soon he was playing in PBA-sanctioned events and found himself in Gastonia in mid-November.

One of 73 players in the tournament, Brooks had to qualify to bowl with the final 16. His first two games were solid, but then he bowled a 180 and a 168.

“I told my wife, ‘The lanes are a little slicker up at the upper end. I’m going to have to change balls,’” Brooks said. “So I made a ball change and came back and shot a 226, 246, got me back into the tournament.”

He followed those games with a 290 and a 226 to qualify in the No. 2 spot for the round of 16. There he beat George E. Lord from Mulberry, Fla. 3-2 in a memorable contest.

“Every one of our games went to the 10th frame,” Brooks said. “We tied the first game and I beat him in a one-frame roll off. The second game he beat me by two. The third game I beat him by eight. The fourth game he beat me by three and the last game I had to strike-spare in the 10th to tie him and I struck out in the 10th to beat him by 10, 247-237.”

After edging Lord, Brooks dispatched Earl Herndon of Richmond, Va. 245-224, 247-214 in the quarterfinals and bowled a 299 in the semifinals to rout Jeff Bellinger of Columbia, S.C. who bowled a 203.

Only one man stood in the way of Brooks winning George Pappas’ tournament and it was PBA Hall of Famer George Pappas himself.

“It was a match I won’t forget,” Brooks said. “I struck. He struck. I left the 7 pin. He left the 10 pin. In the third frame I struck and sometimes the outside part of the lanes, shooting the 7 pin, stick. So when I stick it hurts my knees.

“So my knee was a little sore anyway and what happens if I don’t stay down and slide through the shot, my knee will come up and hyper-extend. I walked about 10 lanes down. I was trying to walk it off and luckily it just hurt for a little while.”

The injury effected Brooks for the next few frames and gave Pappas an opening.

“The fourth frame I got a little soft, left the 6 pin and I missed it,” Brooks said. “So I said, ‘Oh no. George is on strike-spare-strike. If he strikes here he’s going to dominate me.’

“He threw probably one of the best shots I’ve seen him throw all tournament. And he leaves the only true tap in bowling. He leaves the solid 8 pin. And then he gets up on the next swing and he leaves the solid 7 pin. I said, ‘Well he gives me a chance.’”

Brooks was back in the match and he took advantage of his new life.

“I get up in the fifth, strike, sixth, strike, so we’re back tied again,” Brooks said. “I strike in the seventh, actually take the lead. And then he gets up in the seventh and leaves another 10 pin. I said, ‘Well, this might be my tournament.’”

But it would not be that easy.

“I get up in the eighth and I leave a solid 7 pin,” Brooks said. “He gets up in the eighth and he strikes. He gets up in the ninth and he strikes. I look at the scoreboard and I said, ‘If I strike in the ninth, we’re dead tied.

“So I get up in the ninth and strike and I strike out in the tenth, shoot 227. He’s got to strike out in the tenth to tie me and we’ll have a roll off. He gets up with the first ball in the tenth and leaves a solid 10 pin and I win the match 227-206.”

Brooks did not see Pappas miss. After striking out, something for the Bluefield native actually went bad.

“I went and got a drink of water. We were on (lanes) 23 and 24 at the time,” Brooks recalled. “And it went down the wrong way. I ran all the way to 31 and 32 in case I do cough I don’t mess him up.

“I turned around to see that he left something. I bet people was wondering what happened to me. ‘He really don’t want to watch him bowl.’”

Brooks averaged 231 in 17 tournament games. He won $1,600 and a trophy without a name plate. Actually it did have one, but it was being engraved with Pappas’ name as the winner. But that did not diminish the achievement.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to win a PBA tournament,” Brooks said. “It’s not the money, it’s the status of it to be able to say that you’re a PBA champion. There’s not a handful of people that can say that.”

Brooks will be bowling again in another PBA regional this weekend and plans to enter two more tournaments in South Carolina in the new year. He is currently fourth in both points and money in the south region and wants to finish in the top 10.

No matter where he finishes, bowling will continue to be a part of his life — no matter what his handicap is.

“It’s in my blood. It’s something I love to do,” Brooks said. “I would probably bowl in a wheelchair if I had to.”

— Contact Jed Lockett

at jlockett@bdtonline.com