Joy deserves to be the featured player of the week after winning the Women's side of the Lake County County Indiana Classic presented by United Way. Through the first three PBA Women's Series events Joy has proven to be very consistent in all three weeks, making match play and finishing the qualifying rounds in 5th, 1st, and 2nd. She not only led the women in Cheektowaga but out scored the men as well by averaging over 247 during the Qualifying rounds.

During the week of Cheektowaga she set a women's sport shot record by shooting 847 for the first 3 games of the tournament.

There are a lot of people that are saying who is this girl?

I will do my best to tell you...Then when Joy calls me and tells me I got it all wrong I will edit it :-)

I have seen Joy bowling at several tournaments over the years, she is one of those girls that catches your eye even if she isn't throwing a bowling ball. I have watched her several times and the one thing that stood out was how quiet she was.

When she qualified for the PBA Women's Series in Reno I noticed she was using a couple Brunswick balls and wanted her to know that if she would like anything to just let me know. Qualifying for the PBA Women's Series is an accomplishment it itself and I wanted her to know that Brunswick recognized her accomplishment.

I finally heard her talk when she said thank you and went on her way. I did not hear from her again until about two weeks before the Women's Series was about to begin. I got an email reminding me of what I had said and a request for anything I could do for her. The next thing I found out was how much she likes to text message. My text messaging ability has greatly improved since that day. Not only did I learn how to use text messaging but I learned out to receive video messaging. It was the first time I have ever worked on a bowlers physical game over the cell phone. Joy would send me a video, I would give her my opinion of what I saw and repeat the process again.

I can't recall how long it was before I actually spoke to Joy. I thought this shy girl must have a different side over the internet. She was very sociable and "talkative" when she was using her text messaging form of communication. I thought about calling Joy several times but chose not to thinking there was a reason this shy girl was texting... maybe she was more comfortable that way.
 
Text messaging led to Instant Messaging over the computer. I hadn't IM'd anybody for several years. I had to download AIM it had been so long. I was surprised to see my old contact list was still there. I was intrigued by the conversations we were having. It was quite obvious how passionate Joy was about her opportunity to bowl the PBA Women's Series.

I am a big fan of women's bowling for a couple reason but none bigger than my belief that the industry needs a place for women to bowl. First women are terrific ambassadors of the sport. As a general rule women can put on a happy face much easier than the guys do no matter how well they bowled. Our fans are very close to our athletes and I see a much friendlier aura around women bowlers than men bowlers. Second I think women are very influential with the youth bowlers. Most women bowlers express a passion and a love for our sport that only a few guys can do.

I decided to learn more about Joy. I found out she bowled for Morehead State. They won the National Championship twice while she was there, she was 2nd team All-American, and bowled for Team USA.

Obviously this girl could bowl.

I met Joy in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin at the USBC Masters tournament at which time I began to realize that I didn't really know Joy at all. She was as far from being quiet and shy as she could be. That was only my first surprise. I began to watch Joy's game closer and realized that this girl had real potential.

The strength of Joys game was being covered up because of too much focus on ball reaction. We began to unlock the keys to her physical game. The two most important elements were her arm-swing and thumb exit.
Joy has a natural release that could allow her to attack parts of a lane that only a few bowlers can use. When you watch Joy you will see her thumb kind of kick back to the right. We had talked about getting her swing higher so she could develop more swing momentum and if the ball wanted to fall off... let it.

Joy was not utilizing the best parts of her game and I could see she was a quick learner. Our focus has been on her arm-swing since we first started working together. You could see the acceleration in her arm-swing pick up and the exit of her thumb starting to match the acceleration. There were a couple other things to clean up that were inhibiting her swing and release but just like the other elements we were working on she committed to cleaning them up.

One thing I recognized about her game that is usually one of the most difficult elements to fix was her mental game. I began to hit Joy pretty hard in this area because I thought that would be the key to getting her where she wanted to be. I can be pretty brutal in this area and many bowlers don't respond very well to the straight forward approach I take. I don't take that approach to upset the bowler but am convinced that a bowler can not win against this type of talent without the right attitude. As much as Joy's physical game has improved I don't thing anything was as important to her success as her mental game.

If you get to watch the show again take special note to the way Joy carried herself. It is not very often that you will find a bowler on their first live TV show express the type of focus and control Joy thrilled the crowd with. At the end of a show I evaluate the performance of a bowler not based on the results but on strategy, execution, and the aura surrounding them. I can tell you that Joy's evaluation was as brilliant as the smile she shared with us when she received the champions trophy.

That trophy may have been given to Joy for her performance in Merrillville at the Lake County Indiana Classic, but in reality it was the reward she earned for the commitment and passion I could sense in the text messages two weeks before the Women's Series began.