Marshall Holman


Marshall Holman is an American sports broadcaster and former professional bowler. He was known for his flamboyant success on the PBA Tour throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He is one of only 16 players in history to reach at least 20 career PBA Tour titles. Nike sponsored Holman.
Holman also served as a color analyst alongside Mike Durbin on several ESPN and ESPN2 bowling telecasts from 1996–2001. From 1998-99, he worked for CBS Sports and was teamed with Gary Seibel for telecasts when that network briefly showed PBA events.
Holman's first PBA title came at the Fresno Open on July 8,, when he was just 20 years old. His last PBA title was earned at the PBA Ebonite Classic. This came eight years after he had last won a title. In this event, he defeated Wayne Webb in what turned out to be a very emotional battle that came down to the final frames. The first bowler on the PBA Tour to surpass $1.5 million in earnings, Holman won 22 titles -- including four majors. He became the youngest winner in the Tournament of Champions, topping the field in the when he was just 21 years old. Holman would hold this distinction until, when 20-year old Jesper Svensson won that year's Tournament of Champions. In 1979, Holman became the youngest bowler to reach the 10-title plateau. That record would later be broken by Pete Weber in 1987.
Marshall was named PBA Player of the Year in, was a three-time winner of the George Young High Average award, and has earned nearly $1.7 million on tour.
Holman was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame in 1990 and into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. He is also a 2010 inductee to the USBC Hall of Fame in the Performance category. He was ranked 9th on the PBA's 2008 list of "50 Greatest Players of the Last 50 Years."
Earlier in his bowling career, as once mentioned in the American Bowlers Journal magazine in the 1980s, Holman had a girlfriend from the state of New Hampshire. He would occasionally try the sport of candlepin bowling, popular in his acquaintance's state of residence, while visiting there.
After several years out of the booth, Holman has returned to the broadcasting arena. He served as a color analyst at the 2007 USBC Queens tournament and was in the broadcast booth for ESPN's five-week coverage of the 2007 and 2008 U.S. Women's Open events. He later provided commentary, alongside play-by-play man Dave Ryan, for the 2009 U.S. Women's Open telecasts. Holman was also the analyst for the live broadcast of the 2015 Men's U.S. Open, which ran on CBS Sports Network that season.

Personal

Holman moved to Medford, Oregon at the age of 4. Holman's father, Phil Holman, was a disc jockey at a local radio station in Medford. He was nicknamed "Holman the Poleman", as he once did a radio show while pole sitting. Marshall was then dubbed a similar nickname "Holman the Bowlman" as well as "Medford Meteor"; fellow color analyst Nelson Burton, Jr. provided this information during a PBA Tour telecast on ABC on February 2, 1985.
For several years after retiring as a full-time PBA member, Holman continued to receive commissioner's exemptions to participate in the PBA's Medford Classic. Holman is currently the marketing director at Diamondback Wines.