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LJ Idol Season 6 Week 17 The Caged Bird
Mar. 10th, 2010 10:57 amOn January 24, 2010 there was a first in professional sports. A woman won a professional sporting tournament against a field of the best men in the sport on their turf, by their rules, and no quarter was given for her to be a woman. Billy Jean King described her victory as "not only historic, it serves as a motivational and inspirational event for girls and women competing at all levels all around the world." The sport was bowling and the woman was Kelly Kulick. Kelly won the PBA tournament of champions against a field that included the top bowlers in the PBA today. She spent a week beating the boys one by one and advancing up the ladder to the finals. She was the 2nd seed going into the television show. She had to beat two men to get the prize and she did it. The first game was a squeaker but the second she handed Chris Barnes his head on a platter.
Kelly previous claim to fame was being the first woman to bowl her way into a tour exemption in the PBA in 2006. She went to the tour trials and bowled her way onto the tour. She really had no choice if she wanted to continue her dream of being a professional bowler because the PWBA had been disbanded.
She is also a friend of the family. Ariel met her at one of the PWBA events right before they shut it down. She gave Ariel some good advise about bowling and Ariel liked her a lot. Later we saw Kelly after she joined the boys on the PBA circuit and Peter asked if he could use Kelly in an issue of the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman since she was perfect for this idea that he had. She thought about it and agreed to it. You can see the Todd Nauck version of Kelly in FNS # 20. We got to know Kelly the person as well as Kelly the bowler over time. She came and helped Ariel's bowling team work their way to counties and beat their rivals who had beaten them up to that point. She was a sweet young lady that we came to call friend.
The funny thing is that Kelly was looking at that tournament she won as her last hurrah and she was going to move on to other things. She was getting very frustrated with trying to fulfill her dream. The woman's group was limping along as the bastard child of the men's league. She had joined the men and didn't find any satisfaction there. She was tired of being pigeonholed as that woman who just managed to squeak in because she had a good day of bowling. She was working just as hard if not harder than the guys to get where she was and was getting no further. She felt trapped with nowhere to go. And she was frustrated with the whole thing.
But she kept trying to break through and make her career as a professional bowler work for her. And on that cold January day, she did just that and was the first to win a game on the boys professional turf. Since then her life has changed a lot. She has been interviewed by the national media. This past Monday she met Barack Obama, the President of the United Stated because she was being honored to celebrate International Women's Day with the President along with a lot of other notable women. She has broken out of the cage that others had put her in and is soaring with the eagles. And we couldn't be prouder of her.
This was my entry in the LJ Idol contest this week. Kelly was wearing a shirt during the women's short tournament season with a graphic of her on the back that Todd did for her specifically for the shirt.
Kelly previous claim to fame was being the first woman to bowl her way into a tour exemption in the PBA in 2006. She went to the tour trials and bowled her way onto the tour. She really had no choice if she wanted to continue her dream of being a professional bowler because the PWBA had been disbanded.
She is also a friend of the family. Ariel met her at one of the PWBA events right before they shut it down. She gave Ariel some good advise about bowling and Ariel liked her a lot. Later we saw Kelly after she joined the boys on the PBA circuit and Peter asked if he could use Kelly in an issue of the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman since she was perfect for this idea that he had. She thought about it and agreed to it. You can see the Todd Nauck version of Kelly in FNS # 20. We got to know Kelly the person as well as Kelly the bowler over time. She came and helped Ariel's bowling team work their way to counties and beat their rivals who had beaten them up to that point. She was a sweet young lady that we came to call friend.
The funny thing is that Kelly was looking at that tournament she won as her last hurrah and she was going to move on to other things. She was getting very frustrated with trying to fulfill her dream. The woman's group was limping along as the bastard child of the men's league. She had joined the men and didn't find any satisfaction there. She was tired of being pigeonholed as that woman who just managed to squeak in because she had a good day of bowling. She was working just as hard if not harder than the guys to get where she was and was getting no further. She felt trapped with nowhere to go. And she was frustrated with the whole thing.
But she kept trying to break through and make her career as a professional bowler work for her. And on that cold January day, she did just that and was the first to win a game on the boys professional turf. Since then her life has changed a lot. She has been interviewed by the national media. This past Monday she met Barack Obama, the President of the United Stated because she was being honored to celebrate International Women's Day with the President along with a lot of other notable women. She has broken out of the cage that others had put her in and is soaring with the eagles. And we couldn't be prouder of her.
This was my entry in the LJ Idol contest this week. Kelly was wearing a shirt during the women's short tournament season with a graphic of her on the back that Todd did for her specifically for the shirt.
