Every PBA champion has a story that most fans recognize as their breakout moment. Some of these happen to be very small and quiet (Rick Lawrence) while others happen to be large and noisy (Jason Belmonte). Tom Smallwood’s win this Sunday in the PBA World Championship just might have been the biggest ever.
The World Championship telecast was the grand finale of the World Series of Bowling, culminating a seemingly endless journey from Detroit in late summer to this weekend’s delayed WC finals featuring a fantastic four of Smallwood, Wes Malott, Bill O’Neill and Rhino Page.
The PBA’s plan of parading the finalists across the country on a whirlwind media tour worked to perfection in getting some early press for the finals, and the story the press seemed to gravitate toward most was the epic tale of Tom Smallwood’s journey from laid-off GM auto worker to budding PBA Tour star.
For those of you not already familiar with the story, it goes a little something like this: family-man Smallwood gets laid off from his assembly line job last Christmas (thanks for the timing GM!), his wife gives him the OK to try out for the PBA Tour, he finishes third in Tour Trials to earn a PBA Tour exemption, he lights them up in the World Series of Bowling, making one show (the Scorpion, where he finished 4th ) and qualifying for another in one of the Tour’s biggest events.
Another storyline heading into the live TV finals was the three-month wait between qualifying and the finals. The players who made the show were absolutely razor-sharp by the end of the World Series (five weeks of straight bowling on some pretty demanding conditions has a tendency to do that to you), but after the 12-week layoff and then coming back to one of the softest conditions in PBA history as the only warm-up, the level of play was sure to be down a bit (a fact that was confirmed by speaking with the players throughout the week).
Semifinal number one was hyped as one of the best new rivalries on the PBA Tour, as Rhino Page faced Wes Malott for the umpteenth time in the past two years. Page was like a caged animal all week, made even more restless by a 300-279 finish in the Pepsi Red, White and Blue USBC-sponsored event to narrowly miss the match play cut. By the time the show started, he was ready to burst. A couple of early taps put him behind in the match, but he quickly recovered with a double in the 4th and 5th , as Wes stalled after an opening four-bagger to leave the 5th open with a missed 2-4-8-10.
After gaining the lead however, Rhino stumbled, leaving a bucket in the 6th, then going high in the 8th. In the pivotal 9th frame, Rhino tugged one slightly and left a 6-7-10, resulting in an open frame and an open door for Big Wes. Needing to stay clean with good count in the 9th and 10th, the reigning PBA Player of the Year went strike, spare strike for a 203-191 victory to move on into the final. The loss capped off a tremendous first half of the season for Rhino, which puts him second in points, third in Player of the Year points, and second in earnings.
Our second semifinal put us back on the Smallwood train, and standing in the way of the station in this match was another strong PoY contender Bill O’Neill. Like Page, O’Neill couldn’t wait for the finals, especially after missing the cut in the RW&B scorefest. After a week of practicing and thinking about his strategy for TV, O’Neill was probably in the best position of the four finalists to put a stranglehold on PoY with a win in the WC. But it was not to be as Bill struggled the mightiest of the four finalists after making a tactical error in his lane-play strategy (which he admitted to me after the show…he said he wanted to throw something with more surface but got faked out with the shinier ball after throwing four perfect shots for strikes in practice just prior to air time) and never finding a groove with his strike ball.
Smallwood, on the other hand, was as nervous as Tiger Woods in confessional, especially after opening the match with a big 2-10 split for an open frame. O’Neill’s struggle-fest and resulting 159 score was exactly what TS needed to calm the old nerves, and he rode that wave to a runaway victory 52-pin victory (it would have been more had Smallwood not opened in the 10th while experimenting with a different ball for the title match). Like Page, O’Neill also finds himself in great position heading into the second half of the season, tied for the lead in PoY points (with Smallwood), fifth in points and third in earnings.
This set up the storybook final between David (Smallwood) and Goliath (Malott). For myself, there was a pretty huge bit of foreshadowing heading into this match that occurred during the elimination match play rounds of the WC in Detroit. While filming the Round of 8, my camera was positioned between Malott’s and Smallwood’s matches, and Big Wes, comfortably in command of his match from the beginning, struck up a conversation with me between frames. I asked him about where Smallwood came from and he told me that all the players on Tour knew of Smallwood and how good he was. Later in the match, when Wes encountered a bit of a problem, he then told me that he wished he could get his ball to read like Smallwood’s was reading. I remembered that as the title match began.
Both players got off to fast starts with Wes tossing an opening four-bagger followed by two nine-spares, and Smallwood keeping pace with a strike, spare, four-bagger of his own. As if to make the drama even more compelling, Wes’s thumb cut open and started bleeding like a sieve between shots. This was mentioned in passing from the booth, but from where I was sitting just a few feet off the set to the right, I can tell you that the thumb was BAD. And since Wes can’t use patches because of the way he grips the ball, there was nothing he could do but cake the powder on and get the shot off his hand as quickly as he could.
That revealed, Wes somehow continued to make quality shots (the two brooklyns on the right lane notwithstanding) and he found himself with a shot at locking up his first career major victory with a double in the 10th frame. His first attempt crept a little high and he tripped the 4-pin only to leave the 10. He spared that and finished with a strike to post 228, forcing Smallwood to get the first strike in the 10th and seven pins for the win to complete the ultimate Cinderella story. To say the he threw a good shot for the wheat would be a bit like saying kids like Santa Claus, because this shot was an absolute sugar plum. He split the 8-9 and, after a small release of emotion (he did still have to get seven, which was no gimme on this pattern) he stepped up and threw another good one for a strike that put him in the 240’s. A nine-count fill gave him a final score of 244 and a permanent place in PBA history as a major champion.
Tom Smallwood is about the most unassuming guy you’ll ever meet in your life. He enjoys hunting, is a doting father and husband, and thoroughly understands that winning a bowling tournament is not going to fundamentally change anything at all about who he is as a person in spite of the fact that it TOTALLY changes the way people see and treat him. Listening to his story as he tells it so matter-of-factly (now to literally dozens of media outlets and counting…see below for a list of recent stories) is absolute proof of what you can accomplish with a dream and a lot of hard work and it is precisely what we need to help counteract the shocking pile of salacious gunk that Tiger Woods’s recent story has dumped upon us. And what’s perhaps even better than that is hearing the genuine feelings of goodwill and respect that his opponent Wes Malott had for him and his family after such a disappointing loss where he could have easily emerged victorious (listen to Malott’s interview on the PBA World Championship Post-Game Show on Xtra Frame). Personally, it makes me feel proud to be associated with such a great group of individuals, a group of athletes who, unlike so many of the athletes we put up on a pedestal these days because of the simple and singular fact that they earn a lot of money, are truly worthy of our attention, respect and admiration.
Here are a couple more notes on this week’s show:
- Almost spit up my drink after Randy responded to Rob’s “Hambone” call on Malott’s final match four-bagger, “How dare you! It’s a major!”
- Tyler Cacioppo’s mugging for the camera was fantastic and hilarious. He’s the kid suffering from Crohn’s who Rhino befriended last year…watch a piece on their touching relationship below.
- Loved the look of the show set especially the four player banners…it was also nice to see a different environment after six weeks of the same set.
The PBA returns to ESPN January 3 with an encore presentation of the Motor City Open, then, on January 10 we’ll see the finals of the Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open presented by USBC. I promise a lot of fireworks on that show, plus another potentially Smallwood-esque story in Wayne Garber’s unlikely run to the telecast. We’ll also have a new Xtra Frame calendar published shortly to let you know what we have planned to keep you entertained during the holidays, so be sure to check back soon for that!
TOM SMALLWOOD’S RECENT MEDIA HITS
RHINO PAGE and TYLER CACIOPPO FEATURE
