Call him Mr. 300

Scott Wilterdink of Grafton has racked up a host of memories serving on the Ozaukee County Bowling Association and competing in several leagues at alleys across the area.

But it’s the first of the 14 games in which he bowled a perfect 300 that sticks out.

It was 1998 in lanes one and two at Krueger’s in Menomonee Falls. Wilterdink wasn’t paying much attention to his bowling game. He had a bigger concern.

He often bet a little money on sports, and he took Indiana to beat Michigan by six or more points in men’s basketball that night. He planned to bet $50 online but accidentally added a zero. He had enough money in his account, and the next thing he knew he placed a $500 bet.

“I tried to pull it back,” he said. “That kind of took the fun out of it.”

Wilterdink kept checking the basketball game in between frames. The Hoosiers held an eight to 10-point lead throughout, but it got close late. The nervous bowler watched as a Hoosier hit a couple of free throws that helped Wilterdink win his bet.

“I just concentrated on the basketball game and not bowling, and all of a sudden I looked up and I had nine strikes in a row going into the 10th frame,” he said.

Wilterdink struck out and earned his first 300 game. He called his brother and friend to come get his car because a celebration was in order. After closing down the bar, Wilterdink walked 6.5 miles and got home at 4:30 a.m.

Working as a computer consultant at the time, Wilterdink set his alarm for 5:30 a.m.

“I was so drunk I didn’t hear the alarm go off and I woke up at 5:30 in the evening,” he said.

He missed eight calls from work and went in the next day to explain. The client the company was working for was fine with his missed day and congratulated him.

His boss was another story. The man, paranoid about other companies stealing good programmers, didn’t believe the story and thought Wilterdink was interviewing for a different job.

Wilterdink was told to go to the company’s office later that week to meet with his boss.

“He said ‘I know you’re interviewing for a job and don’t want you to lie to me, but I’m giving you a 50% raise,’” Wilterdink said.

That’s the story Wilterdink told during his induction speech when he and five others were selected for the Ozaukee County Bowling Association Hall of Fame this month. Wilterdink made the hall in both of its divisions, skilled and meritorious.

He remembers being told by OCBA President Tony Coffey on league night at Cedars III, a bowling alley in Cedarburg. He was among the first inductees since 2003.

Wilterdink developed an interest in bowling as a child growing up in Grafton, so his parents signed him up for a youth league. His younger brothers Randy and Greg bowled as well, with Randy scoring a 268 when he was 10, third-highest in the country at the time.

Scott didn’t get good until later.

“I liked it but I wasn’t very good. I was maybe an average bowler,” he said.

After graduating from Grafton High School in 1990, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, which had a bowling club where he could practice free for hours per day.

The club bowled in tournaments against other state schools and made an annual trip to St. Louis for a national tournament against top teams with scholarship bowlers.

Wilterdink learned from his teammates how to read lanes and what area of the lane to play his ball. “That’s where I really learned a lot and became a good bowler,” he said of college.

After college, Wilterdink lived in Menomonee Falls and later moved back to Grafton. Along with tournaments and leagues across the state, he bowled at Grafton Bowl before it closed and Krueger’s. He now bowls at Cedars III.

He got spares on a 7-10 split twice and has one 800 series to his credit, an 821 at Grafton Bowl in 2002. He bowled a 268-267-286.

Wilterdink said he often had two good games to start but couldn’t score enough in the third to reach 800. That night was different. He started with a spare and five strikes in the third game when a teammate, upset over missing a spare, smacked the scoring machine and the screen went blank.

If the scores were erased, bowlers would have to start the game over. The guy was worried he may have cost Wilterdink a chance at 800. This, Wilterdink said, was the old days where scores were on each machine, not kept on a master computer.

After 20 minutes, an employee found a loose wire and fixed it. The scores were still in the system and were recovered.

Wilterdink, back in his prime, didn’t get as stiff sitting around as he does today, and bowled strikes until his final ball for the 286 to clinch the 800 series.

While seemingly a simple game, there’s more to bowling than meets the eye, he said.

Alleys dress their lanes with oil to create their lane patterns. Places with no oil allow for friction, which makes the ball curve more, Wilterdink said, while large amounts of oil make the ball slide.

The trick, he said, is to find a lane’s area of friction to get the ball to enter the pocket with enough steam to knock out the pins.

People bowling in one area of a lane will soak up some of the oil, so Wilterdink said bowlers are constantly adjusting.

“You watch your ball and see how it reacts going down the lane,” he said.

Most leagues use a house pattern for oil, with more oil in the middle and none on the outside. That allows for a three to 5-inch area to roll the ball over and have a good chance at a strike.

Professionals, Wilterdink said, are given a one to two-inch area.

“You could put a dime on the lane anywhere and they could roll over it every shot,” he said. “That’s how good the pros are.”

Lanes used to be made of wood but are now synthetic, he said, and balls used to be plastic or urethane, which pushed oil down the lane, but are now made of resin that soaks up oil.

Because of the way his wrist is built, Wilterdink never used to curve the ball much until he had trouble inserting his thumb into his ball at a tournament in college. He used a 10-pound ball off the rack without using any of the finger holes.

From there, he developed his technique of not using the thumb hole, just his other two fingers, and his average went up by 20 pins to around 220.

Wilterdink used a Blue Hammer 16-pound ball from 1990 until two years ago, when he went to a 14-pound AMF ball called Smoke, given to him by his friend Jason Godersky, who couldn’t get it to do what he wanted.

Wilterdink missed out on a chance to be on “The Bowling Game” on WVTV channel 18 since the show ended soon after he graduated from college, but his mother Sue bowled in it and did well. She did not get the ring of baloney for the low score.

Now, Wilterdink bowls in a league on Mondays at Cedars III with his youngest brother Greg, who claims he is the best bowler in the family since he has an 846 series, and subs one other night per week in several leagues.

He is the OCBA manager and runs the annual county tournament, which he helped grow to 30 teams after it wasn’t held for a couple of years due to a lack of prize money.

Regardless of skill, bowling is a fun activity that has led Wilterdink to making new friends. Leagues, he said, have handicaps to even the playing field.

“If you can barely get a 100 or you can get a 300 game, it’s a fun sport to play. If you’re with your friends and a fun group of people, you’re going to have a good time,” he said.