Bowling: Egg Harbor Township sophomore Stephen Masi has found his place in high school athletics

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Sometimes, it’s easy for high-level high school athletes to take their abilities for granted. They have been athletic their entire lives, and being good at sports comes easily to them. They can’t imagine ever not being able to play the sports they love. Egg Harbor Township sophomore Stephen Masi can. Masi has been a sports enthusiast throughout his life, and as a youngster was into all kinds of sports, such as baseball and soccer. But the older a kid gets, the more the competition increases. And Masi has had a disadvantage from the start. Since birth, he’s had problems with his legs. His father, Steve, said young Stephen was never officially diagnosed with anything, but basically the muscles and tendons in his legs have been growing more slowly than the rest of his body. Masi has had to deal with stiff legs throughout his life. As a child, he wore braces at night while he slept to help keep his legs straight, and these days he wears a foot brace that helps keep his feet at a 90-degree angle to keep his Achilles tendons stretched while he sleeps. The condition affects the way he walks, and he has to do a lot more stretching and walking than most people to help loosen the muscles and tendons in his legs. “We noticed when he was very young, his body was kind of growing more rapidly than his muscles and tendons could keep up with,” Steve Masi said. “What’s happening is, he’s growing and getting taller and what it’s doing is, it’s putting a lot of pressure on his tendons and making him very tight. His gait got to the point where his legs don’t really string it out all the way. The outcome of that is some of the muscles in his legs get weaker because he is so tight. So what he’s working on is stretching and strengthening those leg muscles. It’s been kind of an ongoing issue since he was young.” As Masi grew, it became harder to remain a competitive athlete. Last year, as a freshman, he wanted to be on the boys soccer team, but quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the other players. Just a sophomore, Stephen Masi has worked his way into the starting lineup by averaging a score of nearly 200 per game. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) “I work out and always try to eat right. Growing up, I’ve always wanted to work out to help my leg condition,” Masi said. “Last year, I tried to participate for soccer and the first thing they had for training was steps. We had to go up bleachers as fast as we could, and I knew right away that I couldn’t do that. I would fall and get hurt. So I had to go do suicides, where you have to run every single 5-yard mark on the football field, and that was really tough for me. It was a little depressing, but I’m doing bowling now and it fits my needs.” Masi may have encountered obstacles as an athlete, but his competitive juices flow as strongly as ever, so he decided bowling would be the sport for him. He’s been playing it most of his life and he’s always wanted to be on a high school sports team. So it seemed like a natural fit. “I played a lot of sports when I was younger. I started off with soccer, then went to basketball, hockey. I played all kinds of sports. But ever since I started bowling, I just loved it so much. I don’t know why I loved it so much, it’s just something I got hooked on,” Masi said. “Bowling, for me, is really difficult because of my legs. Doctors don’t know what it is, but I have tight tendons and weak muscles, so I’m not as flexible as other people. It hasn’t really affected me. My parents have said that when I walk, I look stiff, and sometimes when I wake up I’m stiff but I will loosen up throughout the day and feel better.” Masi is a pretty easy going kid, and hasn’t dwelled on his limitations. He simply accepted that he was a little bit different and has adjusted his game accordingly. No big deal. Bowling, at its best, is a finesse sport, but Masi is anything but smooth when he delivers the ball down the lane. In fact, it looks as though he may fall over every time he releases the ball. But you can’t argue with the results. He averages close to 200 and is in the starting five as a sophomore. He said he doesn’t mind that his delivery is a little unorthodox. Whatever works. “I’ve been able to maneuver around it. I’ll take an extra step out to the side so the ball will go straight down the lane, and hopefully hit pocket. All the different sports have unique attributes that you need. In bowling, a lot of it is balance. I don’t feel weak, but I just can’t end in the form I’d like to be finishing in. I’ve watched videos of people bowling and tried to do what they do, but I’ve had to tweak things a little bit,” he said. “Sometimes, I will stumble over myself, but a lot of times I step far out to the side, and somehow it’s been working. I can’t explain it. You’ll see in videos that I’ll almost be pushing myself into the other lane. I’m not trying to do it on purpose, it just happens.” “I always thought he was going to fall, but as time goes on, that’s just his form. I wouldn’t say nobody could copy it, but it would be very hard to. But it works for him. It works very well,” said teammate Alex Swain, a senior. “It’s different. But it’s like the first time I saw a two-handed bowler. It’s different, but when you see it work out, you just go with it.” “He really has learned how to adapt and maintain his balance, especially with his style and the way he throws the ball,” his father said. Steve Masi said he and wife Diedra didn’t push Stephen into bowling, but perhaps there is a little bit of destiny at play here. Stephen’s grandfather, Frank, worked a bowling alley for years, although Stephen said his grandfather never really bowled. “The important thing to note is, we didn’t push him into anything,” Steve said. “We’re supportive of him and want him to be involved in stuff, and he’s done other sports. He’s done baseball and soccer, and is actually a very good wrestler. He’s done bowling all on his own and this was driven by his own interest.” Being on the Egg Harbor Township bowling team has opened up a whole new world for Masi. He’s more involved at school, and it’s given him confidence. He no longer gets nervous to make presentations in class, for instance, he said. Swain said he’s not surprised. He said it’s hard not to be in a good mood when you are around Masi. Masi has become an outstanding bowler despite having a condition that makes his legs constantly stiffen up. “He’s always positive. Even when he does bad, he knows what he’s doing wrong and he stays upbeat about it. When he’s out here, he keeps us pumped up. You can’t be upset when you are around him,” Swain said. “He puts in more work than most people. I normally just show up and bowl, that’s just what I do. But he puts in a lot of work. Especially from when he started the season to where he is now, you can see he has put in a lot of work. He’s improved a lot.” Local media spends a lot of time covering star athletes and championship teams, but there’s something to be said for kids who just want to be a part of a high school athletic program. Masi said he knows bowling won’t get the kind of attention that sports such as football, basketball, baseball and soccer get, but he’s OK with that. He has a great group of friends on the EHT bowling team, and he said he’s glad he can be a productive member of that squad. “It’s awesome that I can be part of a team and help them. It’s just a great feeling to be part of a team. I’ll see random people in school and say hi to them. I hate having to present in class, but now once I get up there it’s easy to do,”
Masi said. “I hear people say that bowling is not a sport, but what they don’t understand is that it’s actually a lot of muscle movement and you have to have coordination to hook the ball. For the longest time I was just throwing it straight — and even that is hard to do, to consistently throw it straight. It’s hard to be consistent. I don’t think people at the school really notice bowling that much, but it’s really fun and competitive. I knew I always wanted to do bowling at the high school.” “We’re part of a child-parent night and we’ve been doing that for years, and he’s part of another league, so he’s kind of all over the place and doing a lot of different things. He’s made a lot of different friends, even from other schools, because of this interest in bowling,” Steve said. Masi said he dreams of one day playing in a PBA event with his buddy, Tyler. But even if that never happens, he said he’s made some great friendships because of being on the EHT bowling team. “This year has been going really well,” Masi said. “Sometimes I will have a bad game, but that’s the great thing about having friends is you can switch out, you can take his spot and he can take yours.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]