March 17, 2003

Do the names Don Snyder, Jim Fitzgerald, Bob Zellner or Tom Williams ring a bell with you?  Probably not. But they once were all great bowling writers for daily newspapers stretching from California to New York.

The Bowling Writers Association of America recognizes that the bowling industry is suffering from a lack of sports writers like Snyder, Fitzgerald, Zellner and Williams who devoted their lives to reporting about the sport of bowling.  Thus four years ago the BWAA, at the urging of Chuck Pezzano, decided to give $1,000 scholarships each year to high school or college bowlers who had an interest in the journalism profession. This year two outstanding writers/bowlers were selected and awarded $1,000 scholarships by the BWAA. 

Marc D'Errico, the BWAA Media Scholarship winner last year and currently a junior at the University of Kansas, earned another BWAA scholarship this year.   He recently was awarded the prestigious 2002 Chuck Hall Star of Tomorrow award by the American Bowling Congress.  Marc was named the most valuable player on the University of Kansas' 2002 varsity team and achieved a 227 average last season. His high sanctioned series is 298-247-300--845. Marc turned in the high all-events totals at two collegiate tournaments last season. 

He made his mark in journalism back in his hometown area of Rochester, N.Y.  Tom Murphy, sports editor for the Messenger Post Newspapers in New York, writes:  "Marc wrote a weekly youth bowling column for our Greece Post newspaper for three years. The column was well received in the bowling community and we have been hard-pressed to replace him since he now bowls for Kansas."  Little wonder that Marc is our first repeat winner.

The second BWAA Scholarship goes to another outstanding bowler who also earned an outstanding honor last year.  Amanda Pezzano, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, was selected as the winner of Columbia 300's John Jowdy Scholarship last year because of her bowling achievements and her academic accomplishments.  In her high school bowling career she earned all-league, all-county and all-area honors for four years and all-state recognition for two years in New Jersey, which boasts more than 300 varsity high school bowling teams. Last season Amanda achieved averages of 193, 194 and 200 and rolled a high series of 774.

She also excelled as a high school softball pitcher by winning 20 and 21 games the past two seasons and earning all-area and all-state softball recognition. The straight A student was editor of her high school paper, editor of the Junior Bowling Tour's newsletter, took courses in creative writing and graduated No. 1 in her senior class.  Amanda has signed up for a creative writing course this semester at Penn and intends to take writing courses each year. We hope to be reading their byline bowling stories in newspapers in future years.

And we also hope that if you believe in what the BWAA is trying to accomplish with its scholarship program that you will send in your contributions. If interested in contributing to the BWAA Scholarship fund please send your checks to Steve James, BWAA Executive Director, 8501 N. Manor Lane, Fox Point, WI., 53217.