Carolyn Dorin-Ballard
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Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (born 1964, Linden, New Jersey) is one of the top female ten-pin bowlers in the World. She was a member of the PWBA (when it existed) and has bowled in PBA Tournaments as well. She is also the official spokesperson of High School Bowling USA and she endorses Dexter bowling equipment.
[edit] Family
Carolyn is married to PBA bowler, Del Ballard Jr., whom she met in College. The couple has a daughter, Alyssa. She is also the sister of top female bowler and former PWBA member, Cathy Dorin-Lizzi. Her brother-in-law (Cathy's husband), Jeff Lizzi, is also a member of the PBA.
[edit] Bowling career
Carolyn attended West Texas State University on a partial bowling scholarship. While there, She led the University to back to back national titles and was a 3 time All-American. She was the MVP of the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships in 1989. She graduated in 1989, with a B.A. in Communications.
In the existence of the PWBA Tour, Carolyn was one of its top bowlers. Carolyn has 20 Tour titles over a 14 year career (1990-2003). Carolyn won her first title in a doubles tournament in 1991 with her partner, Lisa Wagner, who was one of the top bowlers on the tour in the 1980s. With the support of her sister and husband, her career took off in 1994, when she began a string of 8 titles in 4 seasons beginning with her first singles title, the Lady Ebonite Classic. In that period she was the runner up in the Player of the Year voting all 4 seasons.
In 2001, she had her career year. She won 7 titles, posted an average of 214.73, was Player of the Year, and earned $135,045 in prize money. She received many honors this year including nomination for an ESPY award. She broke 8 tour records that season.
Her career totals were 20 titles, 2 Player of the year awards, 3 major titles (1997 and 2001 Brunswick World Open, 2001 WIBC Queens), 3 WIBC Titles (2000 All-Events Champion, 2001 Team Champion, 2004 Doubles Champion with Lynda Barnes), 7-time WIBC All American and 6 time Bowlers Journal All-American.
In 2006, she joined top female bowlers from around the world in the USBC Women's Challenge tournament. The event took place on a single lane, in the middle of a shopping mall in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event was particularly challenging, because all of the distractions of a mall (music, voices, people walking in the upper level) were present during the entire tournament. She made it to the semi-finals where she was defeated by Clara Guerrero. (Guerrero would go on to lose to Cara Honeychurch in the final.)
When the U.S. Women's Open returned from a three-year hiatus in 2007, Dorin-Ballard qualified 11th. She then made her way through match play to be one of the four players in the televised semifinals. Carolyn was also among the 2007 inductees to the USBC Hall of Fame.
