By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Kylie Fox looks like a perfectly nice, normal 12-year-old, but the slim girl in the funky shirt has a secret.

The Erwin Middle School sixth-grader has a hidden talent that could lead to large things. Fox is a monster with a bowling ball in her hands.

Fox is one of the state’s top bowlers for her age group, and she may be one of the nation’s best. She’s going to get a chance to prove that in July when she heads to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the Junior Gold Championships.

“That’s the Olympics for youth bowlers,” said Sean Fox, who is Kylie’s proud father.

If Sean Fox’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s been involved in sports in the area a long time. A native of Florida, he came north to go to college at Catawba. He’s worked mostly in the fields of announcing, media relations and sports information. He’s had substantial stints at Pfeiffer and with the Charlotte 49ers, and he does PA and music work for the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers.

His best sport growing up was bowling, so he introduced his daughter (and his young son) to the game very early.

Kylie has proven to have some talent for the game and the work ethic to match.

“She wants to practice all the time,” Sean said. “After a tournament, she wants to practice some more.”

While more and more of Kylie’s young life revolves around strikes, spares and traveling to bowling tournaments, she does her best to stay well-rounded. She makes A’s in the classroom and she’s tried softball, basketball — she got the Coaches Award — and track and field for the first time.

In her track and field debut for the Erwin Eagles last month, she surprised herself and her family a little bit — second in the high jump and 300 hurdles, third in the mile and running the anchor leg for the third-place 4×400 team.

But it’s bowling where she has a chance to be really special, and it goes deeper  than just rolling nice scores for her age. She has shown an ability to roll those nice scores under pressure and in the biggest tournaments in which she’s competed.

She averages 165, which is substantial for a 12-year-old who can’t rely on power. She’s right-handed. Her right-to-left spin is almost gentle, but it usually creates contact with the pins at the optimum angle and sends them flying.

Kylie is a surgeon on the lanes. She turned in a 190-162-197 series — that’s a 183 average — recently, and while she isn’t doing it consistently yet, she’s been putting up the occasional 200-plus game.

Kylie’s “home court” is Woodleaf Lanes. She’s grown up competing in basic Saturday leagues, but she’s also a regular on tournaments such as the Beast of the East (she won recently in Spartanburg) and Tough Shots that hold high-powered tournaments for elite fields in the Carolinas and Virginia. The Tough Shots 12U tour is for boys and girls, and she can hold her own with the guys her age.

In March, Kylie competed with 10 accomplished girls in the regional tournament in High Point sponsored by Pepsi. Only the top two scores would advance to the state level, and she was 50 pins behind the second-place girl heading to the final game. She needed 178 to advance. She rolled 180 and made it to the state competition.

At the Pepsi State Championship in Raleigh, where competitors bowled six games, she made an exciting comeback and won the state title. She was in fifth place before she rolled a career-best 219 — under pressure — in the fourth game to surge into the lead.

While she is a state champion at a young age and has been invited to try out for the N.C. all-star team that will compete against other states, Kylie understands she can still get better. That’s why she keeps working at it. She’s shown she is capable of super games. The trick now is to be super more consistently.

The challenge that’s coming this summer will be her biggest so far. That’s a nine-day tournament in Green Bay that will include 117 of the best of the best young female bowlers.

“They’ve even got opening ceremonies, it really is big-time event,” Sean said. “We’ve started with some fund-raising efforts, and we’re excited about making the trip. We’re very proud of her. No one has ever given Kylie anything. She’s earned all of it.”