| Norton,
a 19-year-old from Cypress, Calif., who attends California State
University-Fullerton, qualified by winning the men’s national amateur
championship during the Team USA trials last December in Reno, Nevada.
The college freshman is no stranger to international competition, having
won medals in the 2000 Lee Evans Tournament of the Americas and FIQ/WTBA
World and American Zone Youth Championships as a member of Junior
Olympic Team USA 1999. |
Scott Norton
all pics © USA Bowling/Team USA
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In
addition to being the 1999 Junior Olympic Gold national champion, Norton
is the 2000 American Bowling Congress Chuck Hall Star of Tomorrow and
the California Women’s Bowling Association Star of Tomorrow. He is
also a co-winner of the 2000 John Jowdy Columbia 300 scholarship award
and the 2000 Southern California Junior Bowler of the Year. Norton’s
personal bests include 10 perfect games and an 805 three-game series.
Norton has been bowling for 14 years. His mother and coach, Virginia
(Park) Norton, is a former professional bowler and a member of the WIBC
Hall of Fame.
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| Though
she is majoring in business management at Wichita State University in
Wichita, Kan., 19-year-old Kristal Scott hails from Painesville, Ohio.
She was a first-team Collegiate All-American Bowling Team pick last year
and deemed the Collegiate Rookie of the Year. A two-time member of
Junior Olympic Team USA, Scott competed in the FIQ/WTBA American Zone
Youth Championships last summer in Mexico, where she won a gold medal in
the team event and bronze in girls’ doubles.
Scott finished second in the U.S. national amateur championship
but assumed champion Kelly Kulick’s place in the Bowling World Cup
when Kulick announced she would turn professional. |
Kristal Scott
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Scott
has won state all-events titles in Ohio and Kansas and is the current
Ohio state amateur champion. Her personal bests include a 300 game and a
772 three-game series. Like Norton, Scott is a 14-year veteran of the
sport. She is coached by WSU bowling coaches Gordon Vadakin and Mark
Lewis, and former Team USA coach Jeri Edwards. Scott
is trying to become the first U.S. woman in 11 years to win the AMF
Bowling World Cup. The last, Linda Graham, won her title in Pattaya, a
short distance from the site of this year’s tournament. Although U.S.
bowlers have won 11 Bowling World Cup titles since the tournament’s
inception in 1965, they have been shut out since 1995, when Patrick
Healey Jr. won in Brazil.
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