Carolyn Dorin-Ballard
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Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (born 1964) is one of the top female ten-pin bowlers in the world. She is a member of the
Professional Women's Bowling Association The Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) organizes and oversees a series of annual tournaments for the top competitive women ten-pin bowlers. The series is often referred to as the "women's tour" of bowling. The PWBA was formed in 1960 ...
(1990–2003 and 2015–present) and has bowled in PBA Tournaments as well. She was an exempt competitor in the 2008–09 and 2009-10 PBA Women's Series seasons, which were sponsored by the United States Bowling Congress (USBC). Between the PWBA and the PBA Women's Series, she has won 22 professional titles. Carolyn was a 2008 inductee into the USBC Hall of Fame, and a 2020 inductee into the PWBA Hall of Fame. Dorin-Ballard is a member of the Roto Grip Professional Staff, and also endorses Turbo 2-N-1 Grips, USBC and Ballard's Bowling Solutions. She has also served as the USBC's Director of Coaching.


Personal and family

Her father was a
POW POW is "prisoner of war", a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. POW or pow may also refer to: Music * P.O.W (Bullet for My Valentine song), "P.O.W" (Bull ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Born and raised in
Linden, New Jersey Linden is a City (New Jersey), city in southeastern Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area, located about southwest of Manhattan and bordering Staten Island, a boro ...
, she graduated from Linden High School in 1985. Dorin-Ballard is married to PBA Hall of Famer Del Ballard Jr., whom she met in college. The couple has a daughter, Alyssa, and the family now resides in North Richland Hills, Texas. She is also the sister of former professional bowler and TV bowling analyst Cathy Dorin-Lizzi, who won a PWBA title in 1999. Her brother-in-law (Cathy's husband), Jeff Lizzi, was a member of the PBA and won a 1992
PBA Tour The PBA Tour is the major professional tour for tenpin bowling, operated by the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA). Headquartered in Mechanicsville, Virginia, over 3,000 members worldwide make up the PBA. While most of the PBA members are Reg ...
title. Daughter Alyssa is a standout bowler for the Vanderbilt Commodores collegiate squad. In 2022, Carolyn and Alyssa won the PBA King of the Lanes: Royal Family Edition made-for-TV event. As the only mother-daughter combo in the competition, they eliminated Parker and Brandon Bohn in the semi-finals before defeating
Chris Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, and Christine. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name * Chris Abani (born 1966), Nigerian autho ...
and Ryan Barnes in the finals. In bowling circles, Carolyn is often referred to by just the initials, "CDB."


Bowling career


Amateur

Carolyn attended
West Texas State University West Texas A&M University (WTAMU or WT) is a public university in Canyon, Texas, United States. It is the northernmost campus of the Texas A&M University System and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Southern Associat ...
on a partial bowling scholarship. While there, she led the University to back to back national titles and was a three-time All-American. She was the MVP of the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships in 1989. She graduated in 1989 with a B.A. in Communications. She has been a member of Team USA for multiple seasons. In 2011, she was part of the team that went to the WTBA World Women's Championships in
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
and took home gold for the United States in the team event for the first time since 1987.


Professional

During the original existence of the PWBA Tour, Carolyn was one of its top bowlers. Carolyn had 20 Tour titles over a 14-year career (1990–2003). She won her first title in a doubles tournament in 1991 with her partner,
Lisa Wagner Lisa Wagner (born May 19, 1961) is a retired professional ten-pin bowler who competed on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour from 1980 through 2001. She is the all-time leader in officially recognized PWBA titles with 32. Amo ...
, who was one of the top bowlers on the tour in the 1980s. Dorin-Ballard's first singles title was earned at the 1994 Lady Ebonite Classic. With the support of her sister and husband, her career really took off in 1997, when she began a string of eight titles in four seasons, beginning with the 1997 Three Rivers Classic. In that period she was the runner up in the Player of the Year voting all four seasons. Among Dorin-Ballard's 20 PWBA titles (tied for seventh all-time) are three major championships (1997 and 2001 Brunswick World Open, 2001 WIBC Queens) and a Player of the Year award in 2001. The 2001 season was her career year. She won seven titles (including two of her three majors), posted an average of 214.73, and earned $135,045 in prize money. She received many honors this year including nomination for an ESPY award. She tied or broke 11 PWBA Tour records in 2001, including setting a record for most titles (7) and the most TV finals appearances (18) in a season. ( Patty Costello earned eight professional titles in 1976, but two of the titles were in the spinoff LPBA.) In WIBC (now USBC) competition, she won three WIBC Titles (2000 All-Events Champion, 2001 Team Champion, 2004 Doubles Champion with Lynda Barnes). She was a seven-time WIBC All American and six-time ''Bowlers Journal'' All-American. Before the PWBA disbanded, she had moved up to sixth on the all-time Tour earnings list (over $910,000). She won two PBA Women's Series titles (2007 Great Lakes Classic and 2008 Cheetah Championship). She also won the PBA Women's Series Showdown, a non-title event held in April, 2009. In 2006, she joined top female bowlers from around the world in the USBC Women's Challenge tournament. The event took place on a single lane, in the middle of a shopping mall in
Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
. This event was particularly challenging, because all of the distractions of a mall (music, voices, people walking in the upper level) were present during the entire tournament. She made it to the semi-finals where she was defeated by Clara Guerrero. (Guerrero would go on to lose to Cara Honeychurch in the final.) Following the disbandment of the PWBA in 2003, Dorin-Ballard started to bowl against men in PBA competition. In 2007, she became the first woman to bowl a perfect game in a PBA event, doing so in match play at the USBC Masters. As a member of the PBA Southwest Region, she once rolled back-to-back 300 games in a PBA Regional Tour event. The only major missing from Dorin-Ballard's resume is the U.S. Women's Open, although she has made the semi-finals five times (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010) with runner-up finishes in the 2003 and 2009 events. Carolyn is known as one of the best female bowlers of all time, and at the Kegel training center also has the title of being the most accurate player in history of the testing center, hitting the exact target over 30 times in a row at exactly the same speed. During the PBA Women's Series Showdown in 2009, CDB rolled 20 consecutive strikes over two games to earn the distinction of rolling the most consecutive strikes in the history of televised bowling (male or female). (The previous mark of 18 consecutive strikes had been set by the PBA's Ryan Shafer two years earlier.) Currently a Roto Grip staffer, Carolyn is representing the brand with her recent bowling with Team USA and was on the roster for the PanAmerican games. In 2014, Dorin-Ballard won the BPAA's Dick Weber Bowling Ambassador Award, an honor given annually to the "bowling athlete who has consistently shown grace on and off the lanes by promoting the sport of bowling in a positive manner." In 2020, Dorin-Ballard was inducted into the PWBA Hall of Fame for Superior Performance. Carolyn currently manages the New Jersey Kingpins PBA League team, with husband Del.


List of professional titles


PWBA titles

Major championships in bold text. (Source: 11thframe.com) # 1991 LPBT National Doubles (w/
Lisa Wagner Lisa Wagner (born May 19, 1961) is a retired professional ten-pin bowler who competed on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour from 1980 through 2001. She is the all-time leader in officially recognized PWBA titles with 32. Amo ...
) # 1994 Lady Ebonite Classic # 1997 Three Rivers Open # 1998 Greater Orlando Classic # 1998 Brunswick Women’s World Open # 1999 Greater Jacksonville Open # 1999 Visionary Bowling Products Classic # 2000 Bowl for Blindness Classic # 2000 Greater San Diego Open # 2000 Three Rivers Open # 2001 WIBC Queens # 2001 Albuquerque Open # 2001 Fort Worth Classic # 2001 Greater Memphis Open # 2001 Southern Virginia Open # 2001 Jacksonville Open # 2001 Brunswick Women’s World Open # 2002 Dallas Open # 2002 Burlington Open # 2003 Greater Cincinnati Open


PBA Women's Series titles

# 2007 Motor City Classic # 2008 Cheetah Championship


References


Sources


Carolyn Fan Website (some info outdated)
(archived)


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dorin-Ballard, Carolyn American ten-pin bowling players Linden High School (New Jersey) alumni Sportspeople from Linden, New Jersey 1964 births Living people Sportspeople from Keller, Texas Bowling broadcasters