Don Carter (bowler)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Donald James Carter (July 29, 1926 – January 5, 2012) was a right-handed American professional bowler. Born in
St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...
, he learned the game while working a childhood job as a
pinsetter In bowling, a pinsetter or pinspotter is an automated mechanical device that sets bowling pins back in their original positions, returns bowling balls to the front of the alley, and clears fallen pins on the pin deck. Prior to the machine's in ...
, and went on to become one of the legends of
ten-pin bowling Tenpin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler bowling form, rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned Tetractys, evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The goal is to knock down all ten Bowlin ...
and a founding member of the
Professional Bowlers Association The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) is the major sanctioning body for the sport of professional ten-pin bowling in the United States. Headquartered in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and currently owned by the Lucky Strike Entertainment Corpor ...
(PBA) in 1958. He was six-time bowler of the year, a 10-time All-American, and became known simply as "Mr. Bowling." Carter and fellow St. Louis native Dick Weber are widely regarded as professional bowling's first superstars. He was voted the Greatest Bowler of All-Time in a 1970 ''Bowling Magazine'' poll, and ranked #1 among 20th Century bowlers by ''Bowlers Journal'' in 1999. At the vanguard of
celebrity endorsement Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy which uses a celebrity's fame or social status to promote a product, brand or service, or to raise awareness about an issue. Marketers use celeb ...
, he capitalized on his fame during televised bowling's most popular period to become the first athlete of any kind to earn $1,000,000 in a single endorsement deal, for Ebonite International.


Bowling career

Prior to the PBA being formed, Carter was known as a dominant bowler in major tournaments of the 1950s, as well as in team play. In the nine BPAA All-Star tournaments (predecessor to the U.S. Open) between 1952 and 1960, Carter won four times in eight events (he withdrew one year due to injury) and never finished lower than fourth. He won five World Invitational events in a six-year span (1957 to 1962), finishing second the only year he did not win. He also won one ABC Masters title in 1961. Carter also won four tournaments during the 1950s in the ABC Open Championships Classic Division. As a team bowler, Carter helped the Pfeiffer Beer team of
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
, win the 1953 ABC Open Championships before he moved back to St. Louis. Carter was then part of the "Budweisers" Bowling Team that won the National Team Match Games title four times in five years (1956, 1957, 1959, 1960). On March 12, 1958, this team established an ABC league series record for a five-man team (3,858 pins) that stood for more than 35 years. Carter rolled games of 266, 253 and 235 in that session for a 754 series. Ray Bluth, Dick Weber, Tom Hennessey, and Pat Patterson were also on that 1958 team. Said teammate Bluth, "Don was the greatest bowler of his era (and) was the star of the Budweisers. He was our leadoff man. He wasn't too gung-ho about that role, but he kept getting strikes and so did the rest of us, so he stayed there." Unlike most bowlers who keep their arm straight on the backswing as they are about to release the ball, Carter kept his elbow bent, never straightening his arm. With the format for bowling (a single player at a time on a stationary lane) lending itself well to early two-camera live television setups, prominent players like Carter began to be seen on TV sets across the United States. He appeared regularly on bowling shows like ''Bowling Stars'', ''Championship Bowling'', '' Jackpot Bowling'' and '' Make That Spare''. With Carter's encouragement, lawyer/businessman Eddie Elias proposed a pro tour to a number of players at the 1958 ABC Open Championships in
Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. With a population of 148,620 and a Syracuse metropolitan area, metropolitan area of 662,057, it is the fifth-most populated city and 13 ...
. Carter was one of 33 bowlers who each donated $50 to get the PBA started, and Elias would later become Carter's business manager. Although the PBA was not formed until Carter was 32 years old, he still won seven PBA titles, including two majors: the inaugural PBA National Championship in
1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Janu ...
and the ABC Masters in
1961 Events January * January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union. * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...
. He also made the finals of the
1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...
PBA National Championship, but finished runner-up to Carmen Salvino. Carter won four titles and $49,000 in prize money in 1962 alone ($469,000 in 2022 dollars). That year, he also made 18 top-five finishes (still a PBA record), including seven straight top-five finishes (a feat matched only by Dick Weber and E. J. Tackett since), and he was named the Bowling Writers Association of America's Bowler of the Year. In 1964, he signed a $1,000,000 multi-year deal to endorse Ebonite bowling products, at the time the highest single deal of its kind. By that time, Carter was already grossing more than $100,000 a year ($957,000 in 2022 dollars) between bowling tournaments, exhibitions and other endorsements. Carter was the PBA's first president, and served four years overall in that capacity. Recurring knee problems forced him to retire from competitive bowling in 1972. Said Carter in a 1994 interview: "I didn't just want to go out there and show up. I wanted to win. If I couldn't win, I didn't want to compete. My knees made it so I couldn't practice and hardly could complete a tournament."


Pre-PBA and Non-PBA individual titles

* 1953 BPAA All-Star * 1954 BPAA All-Star * 1957 BPAA All-Star * 1957 World Invitational * 1958 BPAA All-Star * 1959 World Invitational * 1960 World Invitational * 1961 World Invitational * 1962 World Invitational


PBA Tour titles

Major titles in bold type. # 1960 Paramus Eastern PBA Open (
Paramus, New Jersey Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H, ''The New York Times'', February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for ...
)
# 1960 First Annual PBA National Championship (
Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...
)
# 1961 ABC Masters (
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
)
# 1962 Houston PBA Open (
Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
,
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
)
# 1962 Santa Fair PBA Open (
Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...
)
# 1962 Tucson PBA Open (
Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
)
# 1962 Rochester PBA Open (
Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...
)


Personal life

Carter enlisted in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
in 1944, and spent two years as a radarman in the South Pacific. He was a baseball player in high school, and played AAU baseball with the likes of
Yogi Berra Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (born Lorenzo Pietro Berra; May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of Manager (baseball), manager and Coach (baseball), coach. He played 19 seas ...
and
Joe Garagiola Joseph Henry Garagiola Sr. (February 12, 1926 – March 23, 2016) was an American professional baseball catcher, and later a radio and television personality with a varied career. He played nine seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the ...
. He signed a minor-league contract with the
Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, they became the Oakland ...
in the fall of 1946. After one minor league season, he hung up his baseball spikes and returned to St. Louis to take a job at Golden Eagle Lanes. Working as an alley man, bartender and janitor, he bowled as often as he could during his time off. In 1951, he was invited to bowl for the Pfeiffer Beer team in Detroit, where his bowling career reached high momentum. Carter married professional bowler LaVerne Haverly (née Thompson) in 1953. The two divorced in 1964. His second marriage, to Pat Hardwick in 1966, ended in a 1972 divorce. In 1973, Carter married professional bowler Paula Sperber, who had won the 1971 U.S. Women's Open and had an outstanding pro bowling career. Carter's first and third wives, Haverly and Sperber, are both in the WIBC (now USBC) Hall of Fame. Don remained married to Paula until his death in 2012. For a few seasons, the PBA held a mixed doubles tournament called the ''Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles Championship''. Beginning in 1978, Carter appeared in selected TV commercials for
Miller Lite Miller Lite is a 4.2% ABV reduced calorie light American lager beer produced by Molson Coors. It was introduced in 1973 in limited markets by the Miller Brewing Company (then owned by Philip Morris, Inc.) and began being distributed nationa ...
beer, which had begun using athletes and celebrities in its ad campaigns a few years prior. Carter died on January 5, 2012, from complications of both
emphysema Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema. Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...
and
pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
. He was 85. His first wife LaVerne would die only two months later.


Milestones and recognition

*Established a 234 league average in 1959, the highest that season in a sanctioned
American Bowling Congress The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) is a sports membership organization dedicated to ten-pin bowling in the United States of America, United States. It was formed in 2005 by a merger of the American Bowling Congress—the original codifier ...
league *Inducted into ABC Hall of Fame, 1970 *Inducted into PBA Hall of Fame, 1975 (inaugural member) *In 1958, he wrote a book entitled "10 Secrets of Bowling" with the help of illustrator Anthony Ravielli. *In 1975, he wrote another book entitled, "Bowling The Pro Way" in association with George Kenney and illustrated by Simon Pavkov.Don Carter stats
, doncarter.com; retrieved June 25, 2013.
Carter was known for a number of bowling "firsts": *First to record three All-Events totals of 1900 pins or higher at the ABC Open Championships (1951, 1952 and 1953) *First to convert the sweepstakes spare on the '' Make That Spare'' television show (1961), as well as the first to make the spare twice *First bowler to crack the jackpot for six consecutive strikes on the '' Jackpot Bowling'' television show *First to bowl an 800 series on television (809 at the 1956 National Bowling Championships) *First bowler to win every possible major tournament in his era (BPAA All-Star, World Invitational, PBA National Championship and ABC Masters) *First president of the PBA *First bowler to have a professional tournament named after him *First athlete to sign a $1 million endorsement contract, inking a multi-year deal with Ebonite International in 1964


References


External links


Official web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Don 1926 births 2012 deaths American ten-pin bowling players Sportspeople from St. Louis United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Navy sailors