were traveling with my teammates and meeting other players from around the country.” The college experience was actually


enhanced when the Cal State-Fullerton women’s team disbanded after two years. Parkin simply joined the men’s squad, where she was a two-time first team All-American and Collegiate Bowler of the Year. “That was an awesome time,” she


recalls. “We’d travel to events and run into Sean Rash at Wichita State, Bill O’Neill at Saginaw Valley and other great bowlers. Bowling in that atmo- sphere helped me a lot.” Yet another challenge was thrown


Parkin’s way in 2003 when the women’s pro tour folded just six months before her college graduation. She joined the PBA, bowling in regional tournaments, and made an unsuccessful run at the exempt tour. “I decided to use my college degree


[in communications and public rela- tions] and went to work for a PR agency in Newport Beach. I worked on press releases and event organization. It was really interesting work.” Frank Bellinder, however, had other


ideas. “After six months I told her I’d make


her a deal,” Frank remembers. “I told her I’d pay her to work at the pro shop and she could bowl in whatever events she could find. I told her we’d give it a year. “She was way too good a bowler to be


working 10-hour days in an office.” Parkin bowled everywhere. She


entered all of the big-money events in 20 USBOWLER JUNE 2011


“This sport needs women’s bowling


to come back. Bowling has done so much for me. Bowling paid for my college in scholarships I won through junior bowl-


ing. I want all those little girls bowling out there to have something to aspire to, and bowlers to aspire to be like.”


Vegas. She traveled to Europe to bowl in the European tour. She even bowled in Asia. And for three years, she bowled “on


tour” in the U.S. “The Women’s Series lasted only


three years, and it was only four events each year, but to me it was a tour,” Parkin says of the mini-tour that coat- tailed the Pro Bowlers Tour from 2007- 2009. “It was tough. Only 16 spots and I qualified all three years. We were trav- eling, playing alongside the men, had our own paddock. It was a great experi- ence.” With a powerful game that belies


her petite frame (5-foot-4, 118 pounds), Parkin reached the title match in the very first series event, losing to Caro- lyn Dorin-Ballard in Taylor, Mich. She reached her second final in Vernon Hills, Ill., where she lost to Michelle Feldman. “Still, I felt like I was living my dream,” she says. Not that her dream is complete. Mis-


sy and husband Drew have taken over Precision Pro Shop, and she is preparing for the upcoming Women’s U.S Open at Cowboys Stadium. And she has high hopes for her own game and the sport. “I’ll bowl on whatever tour I can,”


she insists. “If it’s the men’s tour, so be it. “But this sport needs women’s bowl-


ing to come back. Bowling has done so much for me. Bowling paid for my college in scholarships I won through junior bowling. I want all those little girls bowling out there to have some- thing to aspire to, and bowlers to aspire to be like.”


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