While I sat on my couch last week – working on my new digital Mental Game product I’m about to deliver to the world – a number I didn’t recognize came up on my phone.

Yet, I answered quicker than I have ever answered a call. I lost my breath when I saw the Caller ID name under the number. Melissa McDaniel.

When I answered, Melissa was barely able to get her introduction out before I began screaming with excitement into the phone. The call was from USBC President Melissa McDaniel, and I knew why she was calling.

I had been waiting for this potential, life-changing call. I knew the voting ended December 30, 2022. And it would be a lie to say I wasn’t thinking about it. A lot. Every day, my dad asked me while we were on vacation in Mexico, “did you hear anything yet?” I assured him he’d be the first to know.

I recently came across an article supporting the idea that before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. In this study, they were monitoring someone’s brain as they died and they saw which part of the brain was most active. It was your memory cortex, where your memories are stored. I felt like that part of my brain was activated when Melissa told me that I am going to be in the Hall of Fame. 

My entire career flashed before my eyes in short snippets. Me as a young girl barely able to get the ball down the lane.

Late night practices in smoke filled bowling centers.

Coaches spanning from 1989 until today.

Gold medal moments.

Hands in my face crying defeats.

Both the agony and the bliss of it all.

The people who are partly responsible for my journey to the Hall of Fame. 

My parents and all of their support. 

My non bowling friends who didn’t really understand my sport but always completely understood its significance to me.

My grandma. Who is the very reason I began bowling.

Eric Hartman, who in 2020 sent me a random email telling me that in a few years I would be eligible to get into the Hall of Fame. And then said he wanted to nominate me, and asked for my permission.

All of these moments flashed before my eyes in just seconds. Like a movie. 

My movie. My bowling journey that started when I was 5 years old. To those early days when I cried because I couldn’t keep my ball on the lane. To that moment at age 12 when I decided I wanted to be one of the best bowlers in the world.

My story begins as just that small town girl, dreaming bigger than maybe was normal. That girl who dreamed of being the best bowler. In the world. That girl didn’t care that it wasn’t normal where she came from.

No one in small towns dream big. But I did. Because who was to say how good I could be at anything? I understood early on that I got to dictate my success. In life. In bowling. In my relationships with people. In my eventual contribution to my favorite sport ever by way of the Elite Youth Tour. Everything.

I. Get. To. Dictate. My. Success. 

What I don’t get to dictate is how people view that success. Sometimes those two things don’t align but in this circumstance I am so very grateful that they did. 

I am so grateful that there was a very noble group of people who took a look at my resume as submitted by historian Eric Hartman… They reviewed all of the accolades I collected over so many years of pouring my heart onto the lanes… And they felt that I was worthy of the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an athlete in their sport. 

The Hall of Fame.

As I look through my Facebook and Instagram messages I am so humbled by the number of people who reached out to me. These individuals are from every single stage in my life. From literally all over the world. Sweden, Australia, Malaysia, Denmark, Mexico, Venezuela, Finland, Germany, Phillippines… Childhood friends I spent time every night practicing with until midnight. High school friends who had no idea you could spend weekends traveling for bowling tournaments. College teammates. The coaches who have had the greatest impact in my career. Family. Competitors throughout the years. My best friends. My sponsors who have believed in me for so long. So many people took time to reach out and congratulate me. 

And, I felt all the love. All of the support. All of the sincerity. I feel it all and I feel so grateful as I sit on my couch right now writing this, barely able to see the screen through tears welling up in my eyes.

Thank you, bowling. 

For giving me opportunities to reach the highest level of my sport. For teaching me that failure will be more important than success. For allowing me a path that I could carve out, bringing many important people with me to the highest level of my sport where I would realize one thing. For giving me all the memories – and all those special nights practicing, the thousands of hours I have spent staying down at the finish, watching my ball hit my target, feeling frustrated, and inspired….

It all led me to a place where I could inspire and influence others through this sport. Where I could pave the way, and set the platform for others to shine.

Thank you, bowling, for allowing me to realize that this is the reason I began in the first place.

This weekend I will put on my 94th Elite Youth Tour event. I will add to the impressive $300,833 that we have already awarded on our tour, and I will sit back and watch youth bowlers that remind me a whole lot of myself.

Because I was one of them. 

I was hustling from youth tour to youth tour. I was grinding just like they are to surround myself with the right people. I hustled to find the right coaches. I failed. Just like they do. And won, just like they will.

I was them. 

And now I’m on my way to the Hall of Fame.

This small-town girl from Dyer, IN, who bowled The Kegel Opens against the boys in Indiana and skipped Christmas at home as a kid to be in Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Youth Invitational.

Thank you, bowling.