When Belief Hits Different: The Power of an Unwavering Witness

There’s a moment after every shot when your eyes go looking for someone.

You don’t always mean to do it. You throw the ball, the pins react, and before you’ve even registered the result, you’re scanning for a face. You’re looking for the reaction. You’re looking to see what it meant.

For me, that face has always been John’s.

My husband has watched me bowl through every version of this career. The wins worth framing. The losses that took weeks to shake. And here’s what I’ve learned about looking up and finding him there.

He never changes.

Strike or open. Title or heartbreak. His face is the same. He isn’t grading the shot. He isn’t measuring me against the score. He’s just… there. Watching through a lens of growth and love, never judgment.

I never have to wonder what John thinks of me after a bad game. I already know. He loves me no matter how it goes. And that one thing changes everything about how I compete.

Do you know what it feels like to bowl for someone who already believes in you?

It’s freeing.

It’s stepping onto the approach with nothing to prove. It’s knowing your worth was never on the line in the first place, because the people who matter most will love you whether you strike or whether you miss. The result stops being a verdict on who you are.

When you’re not bowling to earn love, you bowl free. And free is where your best self lives.

For a long time I didn’t understand the difference between being witnessed and being judged. So let me save you some years.

Being witnessed is objective. It’s just what happened. The shot was high. The game was 180. That’s it. No story attached. No meaning layered on top.

Being judged is subjective. It’s someone deciding what your performance says about you. Your value. Your future. Your worth as a person.

And here’s the part that took me far too long to understand. Almost all of the judgment I was so afraid of… didn’t exist.

All those people in the crowd I was certain were judging me? They weren’t. Everyone is watching. Everyone is deciding. That’s the story I told myself. But the truth is they were too busy thinking about their own game to spare a single thought on mine. The harsh witness I kept performing for was never really there. I built that courtroom in my own head. And I was the only one ever sitting in the judge’s seat.

Which brings me to the people on the other side of the approach. The parents. The coaches. The ones watching from behind the settee.

If you love an athlete, hear me on this. The most powerful gift you can give them isn’t a swing tip or a pep talk. It’s to become their unwavering witness.

Watch with objective eyes. See what happened, not what it “should” have been. Let the shot just be a shot. And when they look up for your face, because they will, let them find the same steady belief every single time. Strike or open. Win or loss.

An athlete who knows they are loved no matter the result is an athlete who is finally free to find out how good they can be.

Your skills get you to the door. Belief walks you through it.

So be that witness for someone. Watch them with steady eyes and an open heart, and refuse to turn their worst frame into a verdict.

It will change everything for them.

I promise you it did for me.

If you’re a bowling parent who wants to be that steady presence for your kid, that’s exactly why I wrote Out of the Settee. It’s a short, honest playbook for supporting your athlete without piling on pressure. Find it at parent.beyondthelanes.com/out-of-the-settee.

Some Lessons Are Taught. The Best Ones Are Caught.

No one ever sat me down and explained it.

I just watched. And somewhere along the way, I caught it.

The lesson was never spoken out loud. It went something like this:

There will be more hard days than perfect ones. But the perfect ones are built from the hard ones. And one day, every hard one will be worth it.

No one taught me that with a speech. I caught it by watching the people who lived it in front of me.

The believers saw it first

Before I ever believed in myself, someone else did.

The coaches. The mentors. Those who saw something in me I couldn’t see yet.

They didn’t lecture me into becoming who I am. They didn’t hand me a list of rules for staying calm when the lane turns on you.

They showed me.

I watched how they carried a bad break. How they stayed steady when the score sheet wasn’t kind. How they kept showing up, frame after frame, on the days that didn’t go their way.

Not one of them said, This is how you handle pressure.

They just handled it. And I was watching.

The day my daughter was watching me

Here’s the part I didn’t plan for.

My daughter, Jersey, travels with me to events. She’s seen me win. She’s also seen the days that fell apart.

There was one event that did not go well. Nothing was landing. The frustration was real.

And in the middle of it, Jersey said something I’ll never forget.

“Mom, I noticed that when you weren’t doing well, you didn’t lose your calm. You stayed focused. You didn’t overreact to what was happening.”

I stopped.

Because when Jersey competes, I’m always trying to coach her toward that calm. I’m always trying to get her there.

But that day, I didn’t get her there with words. I got her there by letting her watch me live it on a day that hurt.

Showing her was more powerful than telling her ever could be.

I don’t lecture. I show.

People ask how I teach the mental game.

The honest answer is simple. I show.

I would never ask an athlete I coach to do something I’m not willing to do myself. I won’t tell you to stay composed after an open frame and then come unglued after my own.

If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. On the good days and the ugly ones.

That’s why being watchable matters more than being right.

Being right is about you. Being watchable is about everyone learning from how you carry yourself, whether you meant to teach them or not.

To the believers, and to whoever’s watching now

This time of year, I think about the people who saw me first. The ones who believed before there was any proof. The bowlers I admired, the coaches, the mentors who never turned it into a lecture.

They just lived it where I could see.

So if there’s a young athlete watching you right now, know this. They are catching far more than you are teaching. They’re catching how you lose. How you reset. How you show up when it’s hard.

Be worth catching.

Some lessons are taught. The best ones are caught.

The hardest place to lead by example is from the sidelines. If you’re a bowling parent who wants to support your athlete without losing your own calm, Out of the Settee is the playbook built for exactly that.

They Saw Me Before I Could See Myself

There’s a man standing on the guttercap.

He’s pointing at the second arrow. Not saying much. Just pointing, over and over, until my eyes finally learned to live there instead of chasing the pins forty feet away.

That was Dave Ladd. My first bantam coach. Before I knew anything about angles or release or the mental game, he taught me one quiet thing: look here. Trust this. Throw it there.

I was a kid. I had no idea he was handing me a foundation.

Most of us don’t remember the moment someone decided to believe in us. We were too busy being twelve. Too busy bowling. Too busy not knowing yet who we were going to become.

But the belief was there. Working underneath everything. Long before we caught up to it.

Then there was Joe Johnson. My prep coach. The one who made sure this game never stopped being fun.

Because here’s what the believers understood that I didn’t yet. You can’t pour your whole life into something you’ve started to resent. Joy is fuel. Joe protected mine.

And I had a goal at twelve years old that should have made grown adults laugh.

I wanted to be one of the best in the world.

Not the best in my house. Not the best in my city. The world.

I told Dick Tucker that. My childhood coach. Mr. T. The one who ran late-night practices and never once sugarcoated a single thing he said to me.

He didn’t laugh.

He didn’t pat me on the head and call it cute.

He looked at the goal, looked at me, and got to work helping me reach it.

That’s the thing about a real believer. They don’t just nod along. They roll up their sleeves. Mr. T showed me what kind of bowler I wanted to become long before I could see her myself: accountable, hardworking, honest. He held the mirror steady until I could stand to look in it.

Three coaches. Three completely different men. One thread running through all of them.

They saw me before I could see myself.

I think about that a lot now, standing where I get to stand.

Because belief is borrowed before it’s ever owned. Someone has to hand it to you first. Someone has to say I see it in you enough times that you finally start to repeat it back to yourself.

I didn’t manufacture my confidence out of thin air. It was given to me. By a man on a guttercap. By a coach who guarded the fun. By a man at a late-night practice who refused to let me lie to myself.

Never forget where you came from. Never forget who carried the belief while your arms were still too small to hold it.

So now I get to stand on the other side of it.

When I work with a young athlete, I bring all three of them into the room with me.

I teach them to lock onto the one thing they can control, like Dave and his second arrow.

I keep it fun, like Joe.

And I hold them accountable and honest, like Mr. T.

I take a little piece of every coach I ever had, and I pass it on. That’s how a legacy actually works. It doesn’t end with you. It moves through you.

But maybe you’re reading this and you never had a Dave. Or a Joe. Or a Mr. T.

Maybe no one ever stood on the guttercap for you.

Here’s what I need you to hear.

You still get to decide.

You get to decide your path. You get to decide how good you want to be. Nobody else holds that pen. Not a coach who never showed up. Not a believer who never came.

Just you.

And no, it won’t fall into your lap. You don’t get there by wishing. You get there by working. You fall down. You get back up. You throw the next shot. And somewhere in all that getting back up, you become your own first believer.

That’s not a consolation prize. That might be the most powerful thing of all.

Because the believers get you to the door.

But you’re the one who walks through it.

Who saw it in you before you did? Go tell them today. And if no one did, become the person who sees it in someone else.

Want a little belief in your corner every week? Winning Wednesdays sends one mindset reminder straight to your phone every Wednesday morning. Pocket-sized fuel for the week ahead. Join at https://mindset.beyondthelanes.com/winning-wednesday

The Sisterhood of the Lanes

I was probably nine.

The envelope had my name on it. In real handwriting. From a real, actual professional bowler.

I tore it open and there she was. Jeanne Maiden. Signed photo. To me.

I stared at it like it was a relic.

A woman I had only ever seen on television had taken the time. To find a photo. To sign her name. To put it in an envelope. To mail it to a kid she had never met.

I think I forgot to breathe.

That moment shaped me more than she will ever know.

Because here’s the thing about being a little girl in this sport. You don’t just need someone to teach you how to bowl. You need someone to show you it’s possible. That women belong here. That a girl can throw a hook and watch it carry the pocket. That a woman can stand on the lanes and be soft and fierce at the same time.

I had those women.

Leanne Hulsenberg. Kim Kearney. The first time I saw them on TV, hooking the ball, I felt something click. Girls can do that, too. They didn’t just show me how I wanted to bowl. They showed me who I wanted to be.

Dana Miller Mackie. Kind to her core. Strong on the lanes. She taught me you don’t have to choose between the two. You can be the warmest person in the room and still leave nothing on the table.

Jeanne Maiden Naccarato. A signed photo I will never throw away. The first proof I had that the women I looked up to were also looking back.

That’s the sisterhood.

Years later, I would be the one signing photos.

I would walk through bowling centers and see little girls staring at me the way I once stared at Jeanne. And I’d remember every pro who didn’t look at me when I asked. Who scribbled and turned away. Who treated me like an inconvenience.

And I’d remember the ones who knelt down. Who asked me my name. Who looked me in the eyes and made me feel like I belonged in this room.

You don’t get to choose which kind of pro you’ll be remembered as.

The girl across the table decides that.

So you take the time to connect.

Here’s something I’ve noticed competing alongside women my whole career.

We are accountable. To a fault.

The men I’ve bowled around tend to move on. A bad shot is a bad shot. They reset. They throw the next one. Most of the time they blame something else.

Women? We chew on it. We try to “throw it better” instead of moving on the lane. We carry the last frame into the next one. We let perfectionism dress up like discipline and call itself a virtue.

It isn’t.

The strongest women I have ever competed against were not the ones who threw the perfect shot. They were the ones who threw the next one without flinching.

Free is a skill. And it’s a skill more of us need to give ourselves permission to practice.

So how do we build a stronger sisterhood in this sport?

We let two things be true at the same time.

I am rooting for her. I want to beat her.

Both. Always. Without contradiction.

You can have mutual respect and hope for the best for them, while also hoping your score is higher.

To every woman who came before me. Who signed the photo. Who knelt down. Who looked me in the eye. Who showed me you should be proud to “throw it like a girl.”

I see you. I am because of you.

To every woman bowling next to me right now. Making your spares. Picking yourself up after a rough go. Carrying your nerves. Trying to figure out how to be soft and steel at the same time.

I see you too.

And to every little girl I’m going to meet at a tournament this year. Standing there with a sharpie and a photo, hoping I’ll connect.

I will connect.

Because someone once connected with me.

That’s the sisterhood. Frame by frame. Generation by generation.

We don’t just bowl in this sport.

We pass it on.

Strong Like Bull

She wasn’t even five feet tall.

But when she said it, you believed it.

“Strong like Bull.”

That was Grandma Betty. My loudest cheerleader. My best friend. The first woman who ever showed me what strength actually looked like.

Before I was a world champion, I was a little girl in a bowling alley with my sister Kassy, watching our grandma put a ball in our hands for the very first time. She didn’t do it because she had a plan for me. She did it because she loved bowling, and she wanted to share what she loved with the people she loved most.

That’s how she did everything.

She had every health problem in the book. You’d never know it. Not because she was hiding anything, but because she genuinely didn’t see the point in dwelling. Complaining doesn’t fix it. That was her whole philosophy. So why waste a good day being pessimistic about it?

She loved the sun. She loved moving her body. She loved her friends. She loved fiercely, and quietly, and without ever making a show of any of it.

I wrote her letters from the time I could hold a pen. Through middle school. Through Team USA. Through college. Through every version of myself I was trying to become. She kept every single one.

She believed in me before I had any reason to believe in myself.

And here’s what I didn’t fully understand until later: She wasn’t telling me how to be strong. She was showing me. Every time she walked into a room without a complaint on her lips. Every time she chose kindness when she could’ve chosen bitterness. Every time she said you can do this and meant it harder than I did.

That’s the thing about the women who shape you.

The lessons that stick aren’t the ones they teach. They’re the ones you watch.

I watched her be kind to strangers. I watched her be generous with people who couldn’t give her anything back. I watched her smile through pain that would’ve leveled most people I know. And somewhere in all that watching, I learned the lesson that became the foundation of everything I built later.

You can be fierce and kind in the same breath.

You can compete with everything you’ve got and still treat your opponent like a human being. You can want to win badly enough that it almost hurts and still lead with grace. You can be barely five feet tall and walk through the world like you own every inch of it.

Strong like Bull.

That’s not a contradiction. That’s a blueprint.

I think about her every time I step on the approach. Every time I write to a young athlete who’s lost their belief. Every time I tell a parent that the way they handle their child’s hardest tournament will matter more than any score on the sheet.

Grandma Betty never coached me on a single technical thing. (Well, she did always tell me to “puuuush that ball out” which I still don’t really know what that means.) She gave me something far more valuable than mechanics. She gave me a way of being in the world.

And now I’m a mother.

I watch my daughter watching me. I see her catch the way I respond when something doesn’t go my way. I see her clock the words I use about myself when I think no one’s listening. I see her absorb everything I’m not saying out loud.

It’s humbling. It’s terrifying. It’s the most important coaching job I’ll ever have.

Because here’s what I know for sure. One day she’ll tell someone about the first woman who showed her what strength looked like. I want her to describe a woman who was kind. Who didn’t complain. Who believed in her more than she believed in herself. Who chose grace, again and again, even when grace was the harder choice.

I want her to pass it down to her own kids one day.

Not because I taught her to.

Because she watched.

So to every woman who shaped someone without ever realizing she was doing it: thank you.

To every grandma who put a ball in a kid’s hands and said go ahead, you’ve got this: thank you.

And to Grandma Betty: I’m still writing you letters. They just look different now.

From the lanes to life, the strongest women I’ve ever known taught me without saying a word.

Your skills get you to the door. Your mindset walks you through it. The women who came before us put the door there in the first place.

If you’re a parent walking alongside a young athlete this season, the way you show up matters more than any score on the sheet. The Out of the Settee playbook will help you become the steady presence they remember. Get it here → https://parent.beyondthelanes.com/out-of-the-settee

Dear Bowler: A Love Letter to the Game (and the Journey)

Dear Bowling,

You have had my heart since 1985.

That is a long time to love something.

We have grown up together. We have celebrated. We have drifted. There were seasons when I tried to leave you. I questioned whether you loved me as fiercely as I loved you.

You tested me.

But I always came back.

Because eventually I understood something I was too young to see in the beginning. The hard lessons were not rejection. They were refinement.

You were shaping me.

You took me around the world. The world.
You carried me to places so far south I felt the breath of Antarctica. You brought me into rooms with princes. You let me wear my country on my chest. You showed me how big life could be.

But you also broke my heart.

I remember walking through the airport after you shattered me on live television. The cameras were off. The lights were gone. But the embarrassment was still burning in my chest.

I replayed every shot. Every decision. Every mistake.

And there I was. Rolling my suitcase through a crowded terminal, trying to hold myself together while the world kept moving. No one in that airport knew what had just happened. No one knew I felt exposed. Small. Questioning everything.

And you expected me to board the next flight.

To show up at a world event the very next day.

To compete.

To represent.

To smile.

You did not give me time to hide.

At the time, I thought you were cruel.

Now I understand you were teaching me something only heartbreak can teach.

Resilience is not built in comfort.
Confidence is not built when everything goes right.
Composure is not built in private victories.

It is built in airports after failure.
It is built when you compete again before the wound closes.
It is built when you decide that one moment does not define who you are.

You taught me how to lose in public.

You taught me how to adjust instead of collapse.
How to breathe instead of blame.
How to step onto the approach with courage even when doubt is loud.

And somewhere in all of it, you gave me more than competition.

You gave me perspective.
You gave me lifelong friendships.
You gave me another love of my life, a partner to walk beside me long after the final frame.

What a ride we have been on.

When I think of you, my heart feels different. Fuller. Wiser. Stronger.

I do not love you because you always rewarded me.

I love you because you required something from me.

Patience when I wanted instant results.
Discipline when motivation faded.
Faith when the scoreboard disagreed.

You taught me that the process is the point.

That perfection is a myth.
That imperfection is where growth hides.
That purpose is not found in a single score, but in the person I am becoming because I keep showing up.

You never gave up on me.

Even when I doubted myself.
Even when I wanted to quit.
Even when I felt embarrassed, exposed, and exhausted.

You were still there. Waiting at the foul line.

And I came back.

Every time.

Forever yours,
A Bowler