Contributed by Sue Harris
During our Youth City Championships I had the honor of meeting what I feel will be one of our future stars in bowling. His name is Devon Bilek and he is 5 years old. Devon is a youth bowler at Royal Lanes and has been involved with bowling since the age of 2 when he would watch his dad bowl and wanted to try it also. Devon started bowling with the bumpers but it didn’t take long before he was bowling without them. His current average is 100. During the youth tournament Devon bowled his highest game yet 155, before that it was a 148. Not bad for someone who’s only 5 years old.
Watching Devon bowl you can see that he truly loves the game. He waits patiently at the ball return for his turn. Then he takes the ball in two hands and off he goes. The ball he uses is his dad’s which weighs15 lbs which is why he uses a two handed delivery. He does have a second ball which weighs only 6 lbs he refers to this as his “spare ball”. 
This is a family sport for the Bileks. His father Dan is an avid bowler himself, and also comes from a bowling family. Dan is the third generation of bowlers, which makes Devon the 4th generation. Mom, Judy was not involved in bowling until she and Dan started dating. She quickly fell in love for not only Dan but for bowling also and has now been a bowler for 13 years.
According to both mom and dad, Devon lives and breathes bowling. He is also a big Wii game player. Of course his favorite game is bowling. He let me know that he has bowled 56 perfect games on Wii. By now I’m sure that number has increased by a bunch.
I’m sure we will be hearing a lot more about Devon Bilek in the future. His love for the game along with others is what will keep our sport strong. Best of luck to you Devon keep knocking those pins down.