Up Front
MEET BOWLING’S LIFE COACH
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DR. DERRICK PLEDGER’S LIFE STORY IS THE STUFF OF A GOOD SCREENPLAY
BY GIANMARC MANZIONE I
f the hardest truths really are discovered in life’s darkest hours, Dr. Derrick Pledger has experienced an abundance of both. His father died from a heroin overdose when
Pledger was four years old. Eight years later, Pledg- er’s stepfather murdered his mother. When he was in the ninth grade, Pledger dropped out of school. He soon began scrapping together some kind of life on the streets of his native Harrisburg, Penn. He scored gigs at pool rooms polishing pool balls, wiping tables, and doing what he could to keep the regulars happy. Living with a grandmother who did not work, Pledger had no money for haircuts or school clothes, much less bowling, so he had to leave bowling behind. But his days keeping score for bowlers at a 10-lane house called Kaiser’s soon paid off more handsomely than any pool hall gig ever could. The men who remembered him as the kid who kept score at Kaiser’s saw him around town. One of them, a man named Edward “Shuggie” Proctor, took him bowling one day and told him to go back
to school. He also told him to get back out on the lanes. Proctor gave Pledger a reason
to believe in himself, and Pledger went on to do much more than just go back to school or dust off his bowling ball. He hit the Air Force, where he bowled his first 800 series at age 28, and went on to earn a variety of degrees, including, ultimately, a Ph.D. Today, he teaches economics at
Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, while running his own business, Advanced Concepts in Personal Development. Pledger learned many things from his shattered childhood and the life he somehow made of those ruins. He shared that wisdom with Bowlers Journal after we first became aware of him at Bowl Expo this year, where he gave a talk called “Striking Beyond the Lanes” at the invitation of International Bowling Pro Shop and Instructors Association executive director, Bill Supper. You will hear Pledger discuss much of that hard-earned wisdom on our podcast with this extraordinary individual, including the following lessons:
EVERYTHING BOWLING, ALL THE TIME
BONUS INTERVIEW
To hear more from Derrick Pledger, touch the play button above.
• Accept your limitations until they become strengths.
• In life, as in bowling, you have to learn to accept the bad times without
making excuses for them.
• Do not depend on the approval of others; they cannot throw the ball for
you. It’s up to you.
• Stress is self-induced; the only time you get stressed in your life is when you
betray yourself.
• Other people’s perceptions of you do not have to become your reality.
• You would be surprised by the magic we can create in our own lives just by
being accountable.
• Pressure busts a pipe if it’s not prepared correctly.
• There is no prosthetic for an amputated spirit.
. . . and much more. So take some time to
listen to Pledger tell the story of his harrow- ing but transcendent life, and how the sport of bowling helped make it all possible. It is a story you will not soon forget.
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