onefrombills
08-16-2009, 06:53 PM
As the son of a Harvard graduate and a bowler who, at just 16 years old, fell a single pin short of match play at the U.S. Open in 2008, Andrew Koff is not exactly your typical high school teenager. Few teens get to say they finished ahead of Brian Voss, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Sean Rash and Patrick Allen at the U.S. Open, and even fewer of them get to say that they are weighing their options between joining the famed Wichita State Bowling Team or going to Harvard University-precisely the circumstance in which Koff finds himself this summer. With a gold medal yesterday at the PABCON Youth Championships in Orlando, Fla., Koff continues to demonstrate that wherever he chooses to go, bowling will be a big part of his daily routine. Koff recently spoke with bowl.com about what lies ahead as he enters his senior year of high school, including a visit to Wichita State, and an ambition to continue bowling PBA tournaments in his senior year of high school and throughout college. Koff also discusses an email he received from Walter Ray Williams Jr. after Williams thrashed him for a regional title, and how he balances one of the most unrelenting practice schedules in bowling with his academic demands.
Your father graduated from Harvard and I am told that you wish to do the same and that that goal comes before bowling-what is weighing more heavily on your decision about what college to attend, academics or bowling?
AK: Well, if I were to bowl for a college-I am not 100% sure I want to yet-I would bowl for Wichita State. But you can only do a certain amount of PBA stuff if you bowl collegiately. So if I want to bowl a lot of the open events with the PBA, I'd go more for the academics side. You can only bowl about two PBA events per year. You can't do both in college, you have to do one or the other. So if I were to go more towards school I would miss out on college bowling. I am not sure which I am leaning towards, but I do well in school, so there are some schools I could go to.
So you have already visited with Wichita State?
AK: Yes. If I were to bowl for college that's who I would bowl for. I talked to the coaches about the program and they showed me around. I have been in touch with them for a long time, though, so I already know quite a bit about it.
One thing you seem to be certain about though is that you want to become an exempt player on the pro tour?
AK: Yeah hopefully in future I will be bowling with the PBA.
What was it like to finish in 25th place at the U.S. Open at just 16 years old?
AK: Well, I got to bowl next to Norm Duke, and I kind of lost a little focus on what I was doing-it shocked me that I was bowling so close to them. I started bowling well on my first day, and it was a really cool experience having so many people watching me bowl. I got to bowl with Chris Barnes, I bowled with Pete Weber. That was one of the first tournaments where I ever watched guys like that in person. I always watch on TV but that was the first time I watched in person-I made the first round cut-you bowl another eight or nine more games of qualifying. I missed match play by one pin.
Were you disappointed to miss match play by such a slim margin, or were you just happy to have done so well.
AK: I really wasn't disappointed at all because I finished so high. I was just really happy that I bowled so well at a tournament like that.
What kind of reaction did you get from other pros when they saw that a 16-year-old kid was keeping up with them at a major PBA tournament?
AK: They have all been really welcoming. I have learned a lot from them. I had done well previously-when I was 16 is when I started bowling regionals and tour events- not many, just a few majors. I learned so much from bowling those events-ball reactions, how to play the lanes, watching them make moves and read the lanes, watching how they make decisions and how they act when they are struggling, how they stay calm when they start off badly. I bowled Walter Ray in a regional event, and I bowled well but he killed me. I emailed him after that and asked him what he thought about my bowling how I could improve.
What was Walter Ray's response?
AK: He just gave me some ideas on how to play certain patterns, what type of balls he was throwing, what he thought would be better for me, how to attack the lanes against him. He also gave me some match play strategy.
It's not physical stuff, it is more mental stuff. They score so well, their scores are so high that if you bowl one 170 game you go from fourth to tenth. Then you bowl another one and you're out of it. When I bowled Brad Angelo at the Masters, He bowled a 765. The lanes were hard but he made it look like a house shot-he bowled 300 the first game and then 250. It was fun to watch him, I enjoyed watching him bowl it was cool to see how he played the lanes.
How have you been able to balance bowling and your academic ambitions, both of which must take up quite a bit of time?
AK: For me it is not the easiest thing, but it has helped me learn how to manage my time well. I bowl three hours a day, so I get home from school at 3:30 and go bowling, and then I am back home at 7:30 and from then I do 3 hours of homework. It is not the easiest thing-and I can't bowl if I have too much homework. It's just about learning how to manage my time better.
School is important to me and bowling is too, but to bowl those PBA guys you can't just bowl once a week.
What was it like to represent your country with Jr. Team USA?
AK: There couldn't be a better feeling, it was an honor. Coaches like Rod and Jeri are so smart, you learn so much from them. Sometimes the guys you talk to on tour talk about lane and how to play patterns, but it's always different advice depending on who you talk to-it is more towards their preference. With the Team USA coaches, they try to help a ton of different people-maybe some have a certain style or thing they like to fix-but they generally evaluate each person individually. They see it like they are watching everyone and it is hard to tell if they have preferences or not.
When you're practicing to compete against the greatest bowlers of the world, you're not just going to shoots strikes on a house shot, you're trying to improve your game-what methods do you employ in practice?
AK: When I got to practice the people at the center I am from treat me very well. They will put out the sport shots, which is really important. You can practice certain skills on house shots but you get away with a lot more. Bowling on harder stuff doesn't really give you that-it doesn't help you when you throw a bad shot. It keeps you honest. I practice a lot of angles, and if I am not striking and I know I should be playing that line then I can tell there is something I should work on. I am not practicing just to throw strikes, really. I might at the end as if I was at a tournament, I will do that once in a while, but mainly I will go practice certain skills, play different arrows and lines, and I will shoot a lot of spares. Scores shouldn't matter in practice is about trying to learn and evaluating yourself.
Your father graduated from Harvard and I am told that you wish to do the same and that that goal comes before bowling-what is weighing more heavily on your decision about what college to attend, academics or bowling?
AK: Well, if I were to bowl for a college-I am not 100% sure I want to yet-I would bowl for Wichita State. But you can only do a certain amount of PBA stuff if you bowl collegiately. So if I want to bowl a lot of the open events with the PBA, I'd go more for the academics side. You can only bowl about two PBA events per year. You can't do both in college, you have to do one or the other. So if I were to go more towards school I would miss out on college bowling. I am not sure which I am leaning towards, but I do well in school, so there are some schools I could go to.
So you have already visited with Wichita State?
AK: Yes. If I were to bowl for college that's who I would bowl for. I talked to the coaches about the program and they showed me around. I have been in touch with them for a long time, though, so I already know quite a bit about it.
One thing you seem to be certain about though is that you want to become an exempt player on the pro tour?
AK: Yeah hopefully in future I will be bowling with the PBA.
What was it like to finish in 25th place at the U.S. Open at just 16 years old?
AK: Well, I got to bowl next to Norm Duke, and I kind of lost a little focus on what I was doing-it shocked me that I was bowling so close to them. I started bowling well on my first day, and it was a really cool experience having so many people watching me bowl. I got to bowl with Chris Barnes, I bowled with Pete Weber. That was one of the first tournaments where I ever watched guys like that in person. I always watch on TV but that was the first time I watched in person-I made the first round cut-you bowl another eight or nine more games of qualifying. I missed match play by one pin.
Were you disappointed to miss match play by such a slim margin, or were you just happy to have done so well.
AK: I really wasn't disappointed at all because I finished so high. I was just really happy that I bowled so well at a tournament like that.
What kind of reaction did you get from other pros when they saw that a 16-year-old kid was keeping up with them at a major PBA tournament?
AK: They have all been really welcoming. I have learned a lot from them. I had done well previously-when I was 16 is when I started bowling regionals and tour events- not many, just a few majors. I learned so much from bowling those events-ball reactions, how to play the lanes, watching them make moves and read the lanes, watching how they make decisions and how they act when they are struggling, how they stay calm when they start off badly. I bowled Walter Ray in a regional event, and I bowled well but he killed me. I emailed him after that and asked him what he thought about my bowling how I could improve.
What was Walter Ray's response?
AK: He just gave me some ideas on how to play certain patterns, what type of balls he was throwing, what he thought would be better for me, how to attack the lanes against him. He also gave me some match play strategy.
It's not physical stuff, it is more mental stuff. They score so well, their scores are so high that if you bowl one 170 game you go from fourth to tenth. Then you bowl another one and you're out of it. When I bowled Brad Angelo at the Masters, He bowled a 765. The lanes were hard but he made it look like a house shot-he bowled 300 the first game and then 250. It was fun to watch him, I enjoyed watching him bowl it was cool to see how he played the lanes.
How have you been able to balance bowling and your academic ambitions, both of which must take up quite a bit of time?
AK: For me it is not the easiest thing, but it has helped me learn how to manage my time well. I bowl three hours a day, so I get home from school at 3:30 and go bowling, and then I am back home at 7:30 and from then I do 3 hours of homework. It is not the easiest thing-and I can't bowl if I have too much homework. It's just about learning how to manage my time better.
School is important to me and bowling is too, but to bowl those PBA guys you can't just bowl once a week.
What was it like to represent your country with Jr. Team USA?
AK: There couldn't be a better feeling, it was an honor. Coaches like Rod and Jeri are so smart, you learn so much from them. Sometimes the guys you talk to on tour talk about lane and how to play patterns, but it's always different advice depending on who you talk to-it is more towards their preference. With the Team USA coaches, they try to help a ton of different people-maybe some have a certain style or thing they like to fix-but they generally evaluate each person individually. They see it like they are watching everyone and it is hard to tell if they have preferences or not.
When you're practicing to compete against the greatest bowlers of the world, you're not just going to shoots strikes on a house shot, you're trying to improve your game-what methods do you employ in practice?
AK: When I got to practice the people at the center I am from treat me very well. They will put out the sport shots, which is really important. You can practice certain skills on house shots but you get away with a lot more. Bowling on harder stuff doesn't really give you that-it doesn't help you when you throw a bad shot. It keeps you honest. I practice a lot of angles, and if I am not striking and I know I should be playing that line then I can tell there is something I should work on. I am not practicing just to throw strikes, really. I might at the end as if I was at a tournament, I will do that once in a while, but mainly I will go practice certain skills, play different arrows and lines, and I will shoot a lot of spares. Scores shouldn't matter in practice is about trying to learn and evaluating yourself.