For Garner, Bowling Is More Than A Game

Century Lanes in Hampton, VA

For many of us, joining a bowling league is an opportunity to share great times and spirited competition among friends and co-workers. It’s an outlet, and little more. Sure, there is the chance to latch on to a dream team and win one’s league, a feat which comes with a marginal cash prize and bragging rights around the water cooler. In short, it’s fun. Because of the built-in handicap, the bowler with a 120 average has as much chance to be on a winning team as the more accomplished bowler who peaks at about 180. Interspersed among the masses of high rollers are a couple of gamers who average a smidge over 200. To average over 200 is to enter rarefied air and achieve an “Idol” like status within the league.

For Hampton’s Josh Garner, bowling is becoming more than just a game. You see, this season, Josh’s average is an unheard of 228.

And to quote Garner, this (average) is “kind of low for me.”

Looking at his history, this should come as no surprise. Although Garner just turned 21, his accolades in the sport exceed those of most bowlers who have been in the game since duck pins were popular. After all, how many people in your league were featured in Sports Illustrated?

Garner was, as a featured subject in the May 31, 2004 “Faces in the Crowd” section, and he was wasn’t even a teenager at the time. To quote SI, “Josh, a 12-year-old seventh grader at Spratley Middle School, became the third youngest person ever to bowl a perfect game and have an 800 series in the same day.”

Did I mention that he was 12 when this occurred?

Garner is the youngest Peninsula bowler to roll a 300 game, as well as the first to bowl back-to-back perfect games at Century Lanes in Hampton. For the record, his best series is 824, a staggering 274.7 average for three games.

More recently, Garner made local headlines when he rolled back-to-back 300 games. On September 19, he scored a perfect game (as part of a 746 series) on his home lanes at Century. Then, the next night he rolled another 300 as part of a 763 series, using a newly drilled ball which he pulled out of the box just before the game. For the former Kecoughtan graduate, these represented his 15^th and 16^th perfect games. For good showing, on September 26^th, during the Hampton Handicap League at Century, he rolled one more perfecto – number 17.

Bowling has become Garner’s game of choice these days, although he did pitch and play shortstop all four years of high school for the Warrior baseball team before graduating in 2009. It’s a year-round endeavor, with the typical winter season lasting approximately 36 weeks, followed by a truncated summer league which goes for “three or four months.”

As previously mentioned, bowling has become more than a game for Garner. Century Lanes had been owned by his grandparents for over 30 years, but when they passed on, it looked like new owners would take over.

Says Garner, “I was taking some classes at Thomas Nelson (CC). But when they (grandparents) passed, I decided to use some of the inheritance money to get the center back into the family. So I bought into Century Lanes.” For Garner, the move was part sentimental value (“my parents said that I started bowling as soon as I could push a ball”) and part business venture, a chance to put real world usage into the business theories learned in junior college.

There may be more chapters written in Garner’s bowling career. Along with becoming a part-owner of Century Lanes, he would like to move his game to the next step, which includes taking a shot at joining the PBA.

“In the near future, I’d like to work on getting some sponsors, so that I can pay the fees to enter into these larger tournaments, and hopefully become a professional.”

Century Lanes is located at 1519 East Pembroke Avenue, Hampton, VA. Their phone number is (757) 722-2551 and their website can be found at bowlcentury.com.