The parking lots are empty, and most of the stores that are not closed look like they should be. Venture five minutes north, however, and you’re in No Man’s Land. The surrounding area is filled with craft coffee shops and popular restaurants like Urban Crust and Lockhart Smokehouse. Plano Super Bowl is a five-minute drive from downtown Plano. Mooney’s response: “Everybody has been bowling. After all, the interviewer notes, it’s an incredible turn of events, but it feels too hyper-local. Mooney, was asked why he felt compelled to tell Fong’s tale. In a podcast interview about the D Magazine story, its writer, Michael J. This incredible story was the subject of a taut D Magazine feature in 2012 and a short documentary by The New York Times in 2015. A doctor later discovered that Fong was likely having the stroke during the last few frames of his near-perfect series. Instead, he bowled an 899, then went home and had a stroke. In January 2010, the then-46-year-old came within one throw of tossing three 300s in a row. If people outside of Collin County have heard of Plano Super Bowl, it’s probably because of Bill Fong. “I should’ve never hit you with that bowling ball.” “You want to study creative writing?” my dad asked. Most of the jokes focus on my career or clumsiness. I approached my father for a hug, and my forehead met his 15-pound bowling ball in a skull-rattling collision that prompted hours of tears and decades of jokes. My father, who I’ve always known to be the strongest man in the world, was mid-windup, like Nolan Ryan preparing to mow down a minor leaguer who was just called up for a cup of coffee. The first time I went to the Plano Super Bowl, my father hit me in the head with a bowling ball. “Gotta run,” he says, before rapidly backpedaling back to his lane. Out of the corner of his eye, Lewis sees that his turn has once again come. Plano Super Bowl is packed and buzzing with the din of a hundred-plus players locked in friendly competition. Thanks to a stable crop of regulars and what its brass describes as “an unparalleled devotion to customer service,” both centers are alive, well, and insistent that their best years are still ahead of them, despite COVID-19 devestating small businesses around the country.Īs Lewis talks to me about his continued hunt for that elusive perfect game, I sneak a look at our surroundings. I assumed Plano Super Bowl and JB’s Allen Bowl would be on their last legs, two sad establishments emblematic of a bygone era. I started researching this story before the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders. Both establishments also occupy parts of town that often feel forgotten on the east side of Highway 75, far from developments like Legacy West. While the Main Events and PINSTACKs of the world continue to gain popularity, centers (they prefer the term “centers” to “alleys”) like these become increasingly rare. Lewis and Connerly are just two of the many local bowlers who frequent Plano Super Bowl and JB’s Allen Bowl, the only two independently-owned bowling alleys in Collin County. Both were at Plano Super Bowl, where Lewis competes with his team, the Monday Blenders. He has bowled two perfect games: one on November 24, 2014, and one a year and a day later. Lewis is a league player, and a skilled one at that. “I just got addicted,” he tells me, eyeing his alley to make sure he doesn’t miss his turn. He bowls three days a week after picking up the game 11 years ago. “This is my comfort place.”ĭerryck Lewis, 51, has a similar story. “These are my people,” he tells me one night, surveying the throng of bowlers, some of whom are league players, but most of whom are just there for fun. He left his job at a rubber plant factory, got a new gig driving school buses (“The best job I ever had,” he says, grinning) and found the Plano Super Bowl. When his wife got a DFW-based job in 2000, Connerly claims she had to bribe him with Dallas Cowboys tickets to convince him to leave Louisiana. It’s a familiar haunt where he can share laughs and bowl a few games with friends. The amiable 67-year-old bowls at the Plano Super Bowl twice a week. Then, the next bowler steps up, steadies his gaze, and lets it fly.Īfter 20 years bowling here, Warren Connerly still doesn’t mind the noise. It’s the kind of sound you can grow to like, even love: plastic smashing into wood, pins colliding in a brief moment of chaos. The noise reverberates throughout Plano Super Bowl every second or so, usually accompanied by shouts of triumph or harrumphs of regret.
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