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Up Front


All he had to do now was just keep the ball on the lane. But Lillard was about to demonstrate to the crowd and camera crew gathered behind lanes 29-30 at the El Paso Con- vention Center something he learned long ago: You don’t get into the Hall of Fame merely by doing only what you have to do. He watched his next shot


TOUCH FOR VIDEO


FAMILY LINEAGE: Lillard’s son, Billy Jr. (foreground), was among the first to greet a thrilled Lillard on the approach after he struck to break the all-time Open Championships pinfall record.


LILLARD’S THRILLER


AT THE 2015 USBC OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS, BILL LILLARD SCALED ONE OF COMPETITIVE BOWLING’S MOST EXALTED HEIGHTS WITH ALL THE GRANDNESS ONE WOULD EXPECT OF A HALL OF FAMER.


By the 6th frame of the singles event


at the 2015 USBC Open Championships in El Paso, his 68th appearance at the tournament, the 87-year-old USBC Hall of


Famer stood fewer than 20 pins away from eclipsing Joe Norris’s all-time USBC Open Championships pinfall record of 123,770. He left a 10-pin, then converted the spare.


sail slowly toward the pocket on lane 30. Then he heard the crowd erupt, and threw his arms in the air with the bemused ex- pression of a legend so stunned by his own lore that he was not entirely sure it was real. “Really, you’re telling me the


5-pin knocked down the 7?” he asked. That is exactly what had hap-


pened, yes, before his son, Billy Jr., who was bowling on the pair, and his wife, Dorothy, greeted him on the approach. But the gentle Texan’s re-


nowned modesty belies his equally renowned ability. When he bowled the Open Championships in 2000 at 70 years of age, he logged a regular all-events total of 2024, an aver- age of 225 for the tournament. In 1956, he won the coveted All-Star tournament as well as the doubles, team, team all- events, and regular all-events titles at the Open Championships. Who better than Lillard, then, to step up and throw what can be characterized quite genuinely as


GLORY DAYS: Lillard had his greatest year in 1956, when he won the coveted All-Star tour- nament as well as the doubles, team, team all-events, and regular all-events titles at the Open Championships.


the strike of a lifetime? Now hobbled by a bum hip and an


equally fragile knee, scores like that total in 2000 are long behind him. The human body is not built to withstand the blows of time, but the history Lillard made that day in El Paso is the kind that no amount of time can erode. The record now stands at 124,087, and likely will for many years to come.


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EVERYTHING BOWLING, ALL THE TIME


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