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Rolling Through A Living Museum This Classic Center Was The First Bowling Experience For Dick Weber And Thousands Of Othersby Dick Denny WHEN BROTHERS WILFRED and Elmer Brehob opened their 12-lane Sport Bowl on the south side of Indianapolis on August 15, 1941, just 114 days before Pearl Harbor, Dick Weber was a skinny kid of 11 dreaming of being a major league baseball player. Weber, of course, never made it to the big leagues in baseball, but he certainly made it big in bowling. The Indianapolis native, who moved to St. Louis in 1955 and reached stardom with the Budweisers before helping the PBA become a viable part of the American sporting scene, has treasured memories of Sport Bowl, its founders, and their families. Of the Brehobs, Weber says, "They meant a lot to me. They were very kind to me and let me bowl whenever I wanted to. I got to set pins, and that money came in handy. I remember I would set up pins on all 12 lanes (before 20 lanes were added in 1956) and put four balls on the rack. I would shoot at the different pin setups. "I loved selling pins at Sport Bowl. I got three cents a game at first. When you got better, you'd get five cents a line. I also was a foul line judge and a porter, which paid 50 cents a night. That was big money then." Advertisement Charlie Brehob, a former BPAA president and a member of the Indianapolis Bowling Hall of Fame alone with his father, Wilfred, and uncle, Elmer (both of whom are deceased), has been the Sport Bowl proprietor for the past 30 years. Charlie's older brother, Bill, is the Sport Bowl landlord, but Charlie owns and runs the business. Inside the center, there's a picture of Weber that he signed, "To My Friends at Sport Bowl, Best of Bowling." Charlie looks at the photo of Dick Weber and says. "Sport Bowl is where he threw his first ball and had his first job." There was obvious pride in the 51-year-old Brehob's voice as he went through a nostalgic personal bowling journey. He spoke of his grandmother, Louise, the wife of Wilfred's father, Charles, letting Weber use her 13-pound, green-and-white, Brunswick Mineralite ball. That ball rested for a time in the International Bowling Museum & Hall of Fame in St. Louis. Weber now has the ball in his personal hall of fame at his home in Florissant, Mo. Asked how Sport Bowl came to be, Brehob says, "The German community on Indianapolis' far south side was going to build a center toward the inner city. My dad and Elmer were going to invest in it. They went to their dad, Charles, to get the money, but Charles said, "We'll just build it." The Brehobs built 12 lanes on four and a half acres at a cost of $75,468.80 for the land, building, lanes, and Brunswick equipment. "You couldn't build one lane today for $75,000," Brehob says. "My first memory of Sport Bowl was the construction in 1956, when they added 20 lanes. I remember bowling my first game at Sport Bowl: My score was 21, and I was seven years old. If I wasn't home, I was at Sport Bowl. We didn't do anything else. Whenever we went on vacation, we either went to the ABC Tournament, a WIBC tournament, or a BPAA convention. "Elmer and my dad worked together, played together, and gardened together. They had a partnership, and I'm sure they split everything down the middle. Elmer was pretty much the mechanic and what I'd describe as the public relations man. Dad was the bookkeeper and the business manager. My mom, Coletta, and my aunt, Katheryn (Elmer's wife), worked in the snack bar." Charlie began working at Sport Bowl at 15 as a pinchaser, but he had no intention of making bowling his profession when he enrolled at Ball State University in 1971. That was the same year his father retired. In 1974, the year Charlie completed his business management and marketing courses at Ball State, Elmer died. "Bill was running Sport Bowl at the time and he asked me to come and help," Charlie says. "I never left. I didn't even look for another job. I did everything. I worked the counter, the whole business." When Bill left Sport Bowl in 1990, Charlie took over management duties. Like most centers in the country, Sport Bowl's league numbers are down. Twenty-five years ago, Spoil Bowl had between 80 and 90 leagues. But in 2004, Sport Bowl had 40 leagues in the summer and winter combined. "We have more people coming in today than in 1980," Brehob says. "But we don't have the ones who are bowling in two or three leagues." The Growers Recreation League, which had 17 four-men teams in 2003-04, has been going continuously since Sport Bowl opened. None of the original members is still bowling, but Ray Jensen has been in the league for more than 50 years. "I went to Tech High School with Dick Weber, and we were in the same Boy Scouts troop," Jensen says. The 74-year-old is the boys' and girls" bowling coach for Perry Meridian, whose home center is Sport Bowl. "I set pins at Sport Bowl, too. My wife says Sport Bowl is my second home. I love high school bowling. That's my baby." |
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