It is anyone's guess what exactly went through Kelly Kulick's mind the moment she stood on the approach at Red Rock Lanes in Vegas last Sunday with one strike standing between herself and history.

Maybe she heard those tearful phone calls with her mother a few years ago during a difficult season as the first woman ever to obtain an exemption on the men's PBA Tour.

"She was there to lend an ear," Kulick says of the season she spent as the first woman to obtain an exemption on the traditionally-male PBA Tour. "It was difficult, just the overall attention at every tour stop, it was the same thing over and over. I never got comfortable."

"Her mother has been her rock, her support," says Kulick's friend and fellow Team USA member Tennelle Milligan (right).

Maybe she grinned somewhere inside herself at the thought she had last week of leaving bowling behind for culinary school.

"It's kind of funny, just last week she was telling me that she was questioning how much bowling there might be in her future. She said she was going to enroll in culinary school. She really enjoys cooking and thought it might be good to go back to school," says reigning Women's World Singles Champion and two-time PBA Women's Series titlist Stefanie Nation (left). "Obviously, things have changed now in just a matter of days."

Maybe she had to laugh at the outraged 7-year-old girl she was, the one who opted for Little League over softball and quit the team a year later because the coach would only play her in centerfield in the last inning or two.

"I don't know what provoked me to do that," Kulick says of her preference for Little League as a young girl. "After a year I didn't feel like I got treated well, and I moved on and got more playing time."

But when she traded centerfield for center stage last Sunday afternoon at 32 years old, 25 years must have felt like no time at all to wait for a revenge so stunning as to inspire "tweets" by the likes of Terrell Owens and press releases from Billie Jean King.

At last, Kelly Kulick had survived the disappointments and self-doubt that anyone destined for greatness must endure along the way. And now nearly two million people tuned in to see her beat the boys at the boys' own game just as she had wanted to do all those years ago.

And who knows, maybe that Little League coach who never gave her a chance recognized her name on the screen as he flipped through the channels that day and paused.

It may be true that the days when Mickey Mantle made no more money than Dick Weber are behind us now, and Nike may not yet be soliciting a professional bowler to star in their next commercial.

But as news spread that Kelly Kulick had become the first woman to win a title on the PBA Tour, people who otherwise might not have noticed understood that whether it is bowling or basketball, the New York Table Tennis Federation or the New York Yankees, the chance to find the legend in yourself is there if you're willing to work hard enough.

"The first thing about Kelly is hard work, dedication, passion, being true to yourself. That is what she is all about," says PBA Hall of Famer Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (left). "She has worked very hard to do what she has done in her career."

Hard work is exactly what it took for Kulick to win last Sunday. Though the feats of Danica Patrick or Billie Jean King are as laudable as they are legendary, the tournament in which Kelly Kulick found the legend in herself was no one-shot race or tennis match.

"Rolling a 15-or 16-pound ball more than 1,000 times over several days requires a lot more strength and stamina than wielding a pool cue," writes Jeff Richgels for The Capital Times.

In fact, Kelly Kulick's victory at the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions required no less than the following: bowl 48 games in three days in which you compete only against players who are themselves PBA champions, and beat them often enough to make the televised finals on ESPN. And even then, there are no guarantees. Good luck.

"My body hadn't hurt that bad in a long time," Kulick admits of that grueling test of her skill and endurance. "Mentally I was just trying to keep things in perspective and stay focused."

Even reigning PBA Player of the Year Wes Malott saw his thumb tear and bleed down the stretch, and PBA Hall of Famer Norm Duke withdrew just 12 games in with a nagging ankle injury. Hands gnarled with callous and patches glued over sores are as common a sight on the PBA Tour as the bags of chips rowed in vending machines behind the lanes.

Anyone who thinks that professional bowling is not a physically grueling sport might want to shoe up and give it a try themselves. And while those who thought that a woman could not endure the long format of a major championship such as the PBA Tournament of Champions has been proven wrong now, they may not know that this is the same Kelly Kulick who made the title match of the 2009 USBC Queens, a premier women's bowling tournament — and lost.

The victor? The only other woman to bowl for a title on the Men's PBA Tour — Liz Johnson. Kulick may have been the first to win a PBA Title, but the talent in the women's ranks is so high now that she surely will not be the last.

"Today these women can really bowl," PBA legend Bo Burton said in an interview with BOWL.com last year. "And they're in top shape. Take Shannon O'Keefe, here is a young woman who was trying out for the Olympic softball team. Or Diandra Asbaty, I mean you go on and on. These young ladies can really bowl."

But as for the culinary career that history put on hold last Sunday, there is still hope.

"Kelly is a great cook," Carolyn Dorin-Ballard says, "and when she opens her restaurant, I get to eat there for free."

Kelly Kulick, no stranger now to defying expectations, has a little more in the works than just a free meal.

"When I open my restaurant, not only will Carolyn eat there for free, she will have her own booth with a picture of herself right there on the wall above it," Kulick promises, "and only Carolyn will get to sit there."

 

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