CORNWELL: Bowling team deserves Husker support

I'm an outcast in my family.

It's not because I am one of the only people with brown eyes out of my 20-plus cousins or because everyone else is tall and I am listed as 5-foot-3 on my driver's license and in my dreams.

It's because I suck at bowling.

Really, really suck. The last time I went to a bowling alley, I pretended I was 12 years old so I could have bumpers put on my lane.

It doesn't quite sit well with the Cornwells, who consider rolling anything less than a 280 to be a complete and utter failure.

I told myself I suck because I have overextended arms and can't lift anything heavier than a watermelon to save my life. That's really all bowling is, I thought. Throwing a heavy ball and hoping it knocks down the pins.

But no matter how much I try to convince myself this is true, I know I'm wrong. There is so much more to bowling. Lane conditions. Physical skill. Mental stability.

And that's why Husker fans should care about their nationally-ranked bowling team. Not just because they were national champions last year, or because they have some of the best bowlers in the nation, or because they are so well known internationally that they currently have bowlers from Canada, the Netherlands and Indonesia.

They should care because there's a lot more to bowling than throwing a ball down a lane.

The Huskers have one more tournament before the NCAA Tournament, where they will try to prove once again that they are the best collegiate bowlers in the nation.

While the team hoped to have a season as consistently successful as last year's, what made its season this year more interesting for Husker fans was the fact that it wasn't consistent. The team started its season with a seventh place finish at the Ozark Invitational, then a fourth place finish at their home tournament, then a first place finish at the Capital City Collegiate Classic. Things were looking to be on track again after that tournament until their fifth place finish at their next tournament, the Mid-Winter Classic, which coach Bill Straub called a "complete failure."

It wasn't the type of performance expected for the team that didn't lose any players from the year before and gained two players, including Shalima Zalsha who came to Nebraska from Jakarta, Indonesia.

So the team went back to the fundamentals of the game, beyond just throwing the ball. They focused on the mental aspect of the game. When only a few pins lie between a first place finish and a "complete failure," the players had to know how to stay calm. They had to focus on their throws, too. If they don't throw the ball hard enough at one point, the ball could hit the first pin and create a split rather than a strike. Search YouTube for "Shalima Zalsha" or "Danielle van der Meer." They swing their bowling balls back almost over their head.