PICAYUNE PEOPLE: Young bowler Maddox Mott strikes gold

Strike one! Strike two! Strike three! High-fives all around!  

This isn’t a baseball field; it’s a bowling alley. And this isn’t a batter striking out; it’s a bowler striking gold.

Marble Falls High School freshman Maddox Mott’s ability to hit strikes recently sent him to the United States Bowling Congress’ Junior Gold Championships in Detroit, the most prestigious youth bowling competition in the United States. It’s the equivalent of qualifying for the Little League World Series.

“I went to the biggest tournament for youth in bowling,” Maddox said.

To qualify for the championships, Maddox bowled in monthly San Antonio Youth Bowlers Tour tournaments. Players bowl five games, and for every 15 competitors, those with the three best scores move up. That’s a lot of competition. 

“He finished in the top three,” said Tiffany Mott, Maddox’s proud mom.

“You have to bowl mostly better than everyone,” Maddox said.

He competed against more than 3,000 other youngsters at the Junior Gold Championships. He bowled five games a day for four days, making it through the qualifying rounds and finishing his first big tournament ranked 192 out of 613. He was in! 

Maddox said it was exhausting and exhilarating, and he loved the energy, but it’s much more than that.

“Every time I go to a new tournament, I gain new info and friends,” he said. “The bowling community, in general, is just amazing.”

A younger Maddox played most of the sports popular with kids his age but none really stuck until he started bowling with his dad at Putters & Gutters in Marble Falls. Not only did he get the hang of it, he got good at it—and fast. He knew it was the sport for him.

“I started bowling better than everyone,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“In my family,” he then added.  

Like many young bowlers, Maddox started out using both hands. But rather than “growing” into the classic one-handed grip, he chose to refine his two-handed hold into a precise grip with a tricky windup and release. He uses bowling balls with only two finger holes that are custom-drilled. 

Maddox bowled for about a year at Putters & Gutters, improving his game under the tutelage of his dad and grandmother Betty Mott. You can tell she’s made an impact.

“She’s a great bowler,” he said. “She’s 82, and she’s still good.”

When Maddox decided to become more serious about the sport, he started training at Highland Lanes in Austin, which nurtures junior league players looking to compete nationally. He had an opportunity to practice daily and work with adult professionals and coaches eager to promote the sport and see the youngsters succeed. 

Maddox took every opportunity to practice and improve his game. He began bowling in tournaments and started winning, earning his way into the Junior Gold Championships.

“The coaches really helped me refine my throw and make it better,” he said.

Two years later, 14-year-old Maddox has earned college scholarship money in competitions and an appreciation for his growing and varied collection of bowling balls.

Ask him about bowling ball attributes, and he will offer a dissertation on how he chooses different ones for different shots, weighing in the varying degrees of oil on the alleys. Maddox has three “pearls” for strikes and a few others for spares, including one for hooks, a “solid” that stalls the hooks until later in the roll, a “hybrid” with an even sharper hook, and a urethane for when the alley is running a little thin on oil. 

The Phase II solid is his favorite. 

“It doesn’t give me any bad scores,” he said.

Aside from constantly working on his game, Maddox also studies up on USBC and Professional Bowlers Association rules and regulations. Learning and understanding those rules is important to becoming a serious competitor and is what makes the sport so appealing and challenging, he said.

Maddox’s best, most memorable moment, however, wasn’t a specific win. It was the first time the nervousness of competition vanished, and he experienced the “zen” of shutting out the world and being in the moment. 

“I really ‘dialed in,’” he said. “I had tunnel vision. I didn’t focus on anything but bowling. That tournament, I shut off the nervous switch.”

His high score for that competition was 268. In bowling, a perfect game is 10 strikes in a row for a score of 300, and no, he hasn’t achieved that just yet.

“It’s one of my goals,” he said.

A perfect game for Maddox is “hitting the same shot every single time and succeeding,” he said. 

That’s how he got to the Junior Gold Championships in the first place. Even in the world of bowling, that’s a home run!

Written by contributing writer Terry Schroth

terry@thepicayune.com