After surgery, Patoray, Nuzzo back in groove

Comeback kids?

Well, comeback, but not kids.

Former top bowlers Greg Patoray and Joe Nuzzo are getting back in the groove following surgery that kept them off the alleys for an extended time.

Patoray had knee surgery and was off 21‚Ñ2 years, while Nuzzo had a torn rotator cuff repaired — in his bowling arm.

Patoray’s setback and hiatus from bowling gave him a new appreciation.

First of all, he missed the camaraderie.

“It was one night out with the guys I was bowling with before.”

Aside from bowling, Patoray is busy as a referee in basketball and football and as an umpire in baseball.

“I just started back in January,” Patoray said of his bowling in Armando’s Saab Classic at West Side one night a week.

Patoray, 57, a sporting goods salesman, had arthroscopic surgery in both knees, but not at the same time.

“It kept me off [the lanes] because I had a knee done per year,” said Patoray, whose first procedure in September several years ago and subsequent rehabilitation coincided with the beginning of the bowling season.

“They’d already started, so I just sat out a year. Then, the following year, I had the other knee done and had to sit out again.”

Patoray, a hall of famer of both the Curbstone Coaches and Youngstown Bowling Association, is a Chaney graduate.

He and Nuzzo were among the top bowlers in the city over the last 40 years.

“I wasn’t the best, because there were many,” Patoray said, “but, at my height, I bowled three nights a week and in as many tourneys as I could get in.”

Nuzzo, 55, had his surgery in July, 2009, but resumed bowling in January — in the Belchyk/Action Classic at Holiday.

“My timing is off and I’m a little rusty, but the shoulder feels fine. In fact, it never felt better.”

Both Patoray and Nuzzo have the perspective of two worlds: pre-technology and post-technology.

Both have adjusted to the generational changes of the equipment.

“The game changes every year,” Nuzzo said. “What makes you a good bowler today isn’t what made you a better bowler 20 years ago.”

The evolution of balls from rubber to plastic to urethane to resin to reactive is an on-going process.

Although the correct ball for the lane condition is critical, hand position at the release point is critical, said Nuzzo, who teaches math and accounting at Trumbull Business College and also at YSU and Butler Community College’s Lawrence Crossing campus.

“Things I learned years ago that helped me play the lanes still hold true. But today, you also have to have the right drilling and surface [on the ball] for the lane condition.

“If you have that, you can strike forever. If you don’t, it can be a struggle [in comparison to guys who have the right setup].”

Ball rotation is also important.

“You need the proper acceleration at release point to make the ball rotate and delay the power until the back-end of the lane,” said Nuzzo, a 1972 East High graduate and one of a select group of Warren Ritchey elementary school alumni.

“You want more rotation and delayed hook toward the back part of the lane. You want the ball to have all its power at that point so the carry becomes better and the ball reacts better. If you can repeat that shot, that’s good.”

Years ago, it was about hitting the target.

“Today, it’s more important to hit the breakpoint down the lane,” Nuzzo said. “You want all the action to happen at the back part of the lane, not the front part.

“You don’t want a curveball breaking too soon. That’s why I stopped playing baseball — because I couldn’t get the ball to break anymore. I couldn’t get snap anymore. With a bowling ball, you don’t want the ball to lose energy.”

Noteworthy

Vince Viglio, a member of the Fitch High bowling team, rolled 300-763 in Camelot Majors on March 13.

Boardman High’s Troy Wilson added 702.

In Belchyk/Action Plumbing Classic at Holiday, John Doughton and Joe Lovell had 300s, while Eric Dunn’s 806 and Adam Barta’s 805 were tops.

Ron Evans Jr. had 300 on March 15 in Austintown Suburban at Wedgewood, where Teri Haefke’s 775 led C-G Pro Shop/Ladies Trio on March 9.

At Wedgewood, the Komara Jewelers team of Barbara Malsch, Lesley Lewis, Lynn Mickey, Diane Schuller and Kristen Keeble won third quarter in Thursday Nite Ladies in which Jeannie Serrecchio (531), Betty Kana (524), Pat Rohrbaugh (522) and Tina Rohrbaugh (502) all had a 500 set as members of the Lucianno’s team.