Sean Rash Bowls 'Em Over - Professionally

Chances are good that right now, as you’re reading this, Sean Rash is not in town.

The 29-year-old lives in Montgomery, sure. But he spends less than half the year here. The rest of the time, Rash is traveling the world as a professional bowler, competing in matches in other states, and in other countries.

If you’re a bowling fan, you’ve heard of him. He owns five Professional Bowling Association Tour titles, including one major one – he won the 2007 United States Bowling Congress Masters competition, according to the PBA website. Earlier this month, he picked up his fifth, winning the Plamor Lanes Open in Muscatine, Iowa.

He’s finished third in the PBA World Championship the last two years, and had four top 10 finishes in the 2010-2011 season. He has 10 perfect 300 games to his name, according to the PBA.

Rash said he’s on the road between six and nine months out of every year. But when he’s home, he bowls at Parkside Lanes in Aurora – he’s on a bowling league there, and he practices a half-hour to an hour each day.

Rash originally got into bowling through a different league – one his parents belonged to in Anchorage, Alaska, where he grew up. He said he doesn’t remember his first game, but he recalls going bowling with his family on Saturday mornings, and learning to love the game.

Rash moved to the Lower 48 while attending Wichita State University. He was a two-time All-American for that school, and helped them win the 2003 Intercollegiate Team Championship. The next year, as a member of Team USA, he helped win the gold medal in the World Tenpin Team Cup in the Netherlands. (Rash was a member of Team USA in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2008.)

His wife Sara’s family lives in Montgomery, he said, which is how he found himself here. But he said he likes the town, and is planning to stay.

Rash said he doesn’t have a favorite city to bowl in, although he added he bowls well in Las Vegas. Each lane is different, he said, and bowlers can’t know the amount of oil on each one, which can change the direction and spin of a ball. Experience, he said, helps overcome this more than anything.

Rash is sponsored by the Brunswick Corporation, based in Lake Forest, and he gives them a lot of credit for believing in him and helping him in his pro career—“Without them, I’d be unable to do it,” he said. Rash joined the PBA in 2005, and he calls the organization “the place you want to be” if you want to compete against the best.

And Rash hopes to stick around as a pro bowler for a while. He pointed out that bowling careers can last much longer than those of other pro athletes – Tom Baker, at 57 years old, is still with the PBA, on their senior tour, he points out, and Walter Williams Jr., at 52, is “one of the greatest,” he said.

Eventually, he hopes to retire, and hopefully, he said, at a relatively young age. He makes a good living as a bowler – since 2005, he’s earned $538, 535 on the PBA tour, according to the association website.

For more on Sean Rash, check out his PBA page here, and his official Facebook fan page here.