Carolyn Dorin-Ballard is one of the top female ten-pin bowlers in the world. She is a member of the Professional Women's Bowling Association and has bowled in PBA Tournaments as well. She was an exempt competitor in the 2008–09 and 2009-10 PBA Women's Series seasons, which were sponsored by the United States Bowling Congress. Between the PWBA and the PBA Women's Series, she has won 22 professional titles. Carolyn was a 2007 inductee into the USBC Hall of Fame. Dorin-Ballard is a member of the Roto Grip Professional Staff, and also endorses, Turbo 2-N-1 Grips, USBC and Ballard's Bowling Solutions. On March 1, 2011, she was named the USBC's Director of Coaching.
Carolyn attended West Texas State University on a partial bowling scholarship. While there, she led the University to back to back national titles and was a three-time All-American. She was the MVP of the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships in 1989. She graduated in 1989 with a B.A. in Communications. She has been a member of Team USA for multiple seasons. In 2011, she was part of the team that went to the WTBA World Women's Championships in Hong Kong and took home gold for the United States in the team event for the first time since 1987.
Professional
During the original existence of the PWBA Tour, Carolyn was one of its top bowlers. Carolyn had 20 Tour titles over a 14-year career. She won her first title in a doubles tournament in 1991 with her partner, Lisa Wagner, who was one of the top bowlers on the tour in the 1980s. With the support of her sister and husband, her career took off in 1994, when she began a string of eight titles in four seasons, beginning with her first singles title, the Lady Ebonite Classic. In that period she was the runner up in the Player of the Year voting all four seasons. In 2001, she had her career year. She won seven titles, posted an average of 214.73, was Player of the Year, and earned $135,045 in prize money. She received many honors this year including nomination for an ESPY award. She broke eight tour records that season. Her career PWBA accomplishments include 20 PWBA titles, three major titles, and two Player of the Year awards. In WIBC competition, she won three WIBC Titles. She was a seven-time WIBC All American and six-time Bowlers Journal All-American. Before the PWBA disbanded, she had moved up to sixth on the all-time Tour earnings list. She won two PBA Women's Series titles. She also won the PBA Women's Series Showdown, a non-title event held in April, 2009. In 2006, she joined top female bowlers from around the world in the USBC Women's Challenge tournament. The event took place on a single lane, in the middle of a shopping mall in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event was particularly challenging, because all of the distractions of a mall were present during the entire tournament. She made it to the semi-finals where she was defeated by Clara Guerrero. The only major missing from Dorin-Ballard's resume is the U.S. Women's Open, although she has made the semi-finals five times with runner-up finishes in the 2003 and 2009 events. Carolyn is known as one of the best female bowlers of all time, and at the Kegel training center also has the title of being the most accurate player in history of the testing center, hitting the exact target over 30 times in a row at exactly the same speed. During the PBA Women's Series Showdown in 2009, CDB rolled 21 consecutive strikes over two games to earn the distinction of rolling the most consecutive strikes in the history of televised bowling. Currently a Roto Grip staffer, Carolyn is representing the brand with her recent bowling with Team USA and was on the roster for the PanAmerican games. Carolyn currently manages the NYC Kingpins PBA League team, while husband Del manages the Motown Muscle team.
