Ath­lete of the Week: Ameer Lawrence

Fresh­man Ameer Lawrence be­came a ris­ing star in the Bethel men’s bowl­ing team’s in­au­gural sea­son. He won his first in­di­vid­ual tour­na­ment at the Siena Heights Uni­ver­sity Halo In­vi­ta­tional on Sept. 28.  

Lawrence bowled four years com­pet­i­tively for Bishop Noll In­sti­tute in Ham­mond, IN. He scored a per­fect 300 score in mul­ti­ple high school games. 

Be­low is a lightly edited tran­script of a re­cent in­ter­view with Lawrence. 

Q: What have you learned from this sea­son? 

A: Some take­aways…I would say is just col­lege bowl­ing in gen­eral – learn­ing how to be a lit­tle bit more com­pet­i­tive and the skill that’s out there, not just on our team and in our con­fer­ence, but just around the coun­try. It def­i­nitely shows how pre­pared I need to be and how much stronger I need to be. I think that’s what I was look­ing for com­ing into col­lege bowl­ing. 

Q: Could you talk a lit­tle bit about your high school days, and how it has com­pared to now? 

A: High school is much eas­ier. I think I’ve had a good start since my fresh­man year (of high school) be­cause I was told I was just so much far­ther ahead in high school bowl­ing and I ac­tu­ally like high school bowl­ing. The peo­ple I met were some great peo­ple. But high school and col­lege (bowl­ing) are very dif­fer­ent, es­pe­cially on a skill level be­cause in high school, you get peo­ple some­times who are just start­ing out…and col­lege (bowl­ing) has more ex­pe­ri­enced peo­ple. 

Q: Were there any as­pects of col­lege bowl­ing that you had to ad­just to? 

A: Def­i­nitely lane play. I like to stay pretty tight with my an­gles and up the lane a lit­tle bit more. In col­lege, I’ve had to al­most loft the gut­ter. I’ve had to do that maybe once or twice in tour­na­ment…and I’ve re­ally had to just men­tally stay in it be­cause we have 10 to 12-hour tour­na­ment days most of the time. The men­tal as­pect, mak­ing ad­just­ments and then, get­ting out of my com­fort zone is the most chal­leng­ing as­pect of col­lege bowl­ing, be­sides pat­terns and com­pe­ti­tion. 

Q: Tell me about the oil pat­terns on bowl­ing lanes. Did the ra­tio of the oil pat­tern dif­fer from tour­na­ment to tour­na­ment in high school bowl­ing like they do in col­lege bowl­ing? 

A: Up to my ju­nior year of high school, I think our sec­tion­als pat­terns were like 4:1 or 5:1 in ra­tio. It was much…eas­ier and freer. I think my se­nior year, the pat­tern was like 2.2:1, so it was a lot harder. In col­lege bowl­ing, pat­terns can be any­where from 3.1:1 to 1.7:1 and it’s so much harder. Ty­pog­ra­phy, length, how much (the balls) eat up an oil pat­tern and dry the lanes up all play a fac­tor into col­lege bowl­ing as well. 

Q: Are there any fierce com­peti­tors or ri­vals that you have played against yet, or are you just feel­ing the com­pe­ti­tion right now? 

A: I think my only en­emy for the most part is the lanes. If I do want to have an en­emy, every­one is my en­emy in the tour­na­ment. I don’t re­ally have one spe­cific per­son. For me, I don’t worry about other peo­ple. I get very me­chan­i­cal…so I worry about my­self. 

Q: If you could de­scribe the cul­ture of Bethel’s team, how would you de­scribe it? 

A: Di­verse – in skill, tal­ent, at­ti­tude and men­tal game. 

Q: Are there ways in which you and your team­mates try to help each other out? 

A: Oh, yeah. All the time. In team for­mat games, each in­di­vid­ual score makes up the team’s score, so we’re still try­ing to help each other out. We’ll tell each other what the moves are and how to ad­just. In baker for­mat games, it gets much more cru­cial be­cause each in­di­vid­ual only gets two shots a game…it helps to have a talk­a­tive team. I am not a talk­a­tive bowler, but if a team­mate asks for my help, I’m more than will­ing to help them.  

Q: What’s been your fa­vorite mo­ment from this sea­son? 

A: My very first col­lege tour­na­ment. I was a ner­vous wreck and…there were so many thoughts go­ing through my head. Even though I did­n’t win that tour­na­ment – I came in sec­ond – I still think that’s my fa­vorite mo­ment. Once I got past the first (tour­na­ment), I thought, “I think I can com­pete with these guys. I’m not los­ing my touch.” 

Q: What are some things you hope to im­prove upon as the sea­son goes on? 

A: Ac­cu­racy and be­ing less me­chan­i­cal. I have strug­gled with these things for the past three years. 

Q: Why do you love bowl­ing? 

A: I’ve been do­ing this for fif­teen years and if I don’t love it, then I need to be find­ing some­thing else to do with my time. It’s just some­thing I’ve al­ways done…my fam­i­ly’s done. We love go­ing to [bowl­ing] tour­na­ments and we love trav­el­ing. I travel at least three times a year for bowl­ing. 

Q: Could you also talk a lit­tle bit about grow­ing up? You said your whole fam­ily fol­lows bowl­ing pretty closely. 

A: Pretty much…yeah. I think the only (fam­ily mem­bers) who don’t bowl is my mom. My grandma used to bowl; my dad used to bowl…my grandpa never re­ally bowled. Com­pet­i­tively, my aunt bowled. The first time I was at a bowl­ing al­ley I was six months old or some­thing like that. I guess I was cry­ing a lot and when they got me to the bowl­ing al­ley, faced me to the lanes and sat me there, you did­n’t hear an­other word out of me the en­tire night. That was a trig­ger for my fam­ily to be like, “Okay, this kid loves bowl­ing.” By the time I was two or three, I started throw­ing a bowl­ing ball. When I was five or six, I started com­pet­ing.