Where Bowlers are Built

Meet the people and discover the passion behind a world renowned bowling center right here in Polk County.

Kegler may or may not, be a term you’re familiar with. I have to admit, it is one I just became aware of. Kegler is borrowed from the German verb kegeln, which means “to bowl,” and its first known use, according to Merriam-Webster, was in 1932. So, we can certainly say it has been around for some time, and so have its derivatives Kegel (bowling pin) and Kegling (bowling).

If you are a Polk County native, maybe the name Kegel is something you’ve seen driving US-27 through Lake Wales. As it is the home of the Kegel Training Center and has been since 2004– that’s over two decades. If you’re anything like me though, you still couldn’t tell me what the place is … or what goes on there. Nevertheless, that’s about to change!

John Janawicz

John is a Winter Haven local and pro bowler who works for the Kegel Training Center in Lake Wales. John has been with the company for 28 years, and while interviewing him, his passion and respect for the company and the game of bowling, flowed out of the very core of who he is. Kegel and Kegeling are very much a part of his identity. “I was two years old when I knew I wanted to bowl.” John continued, “I saw a PBA telecast on a Saturday afternoon and told my mom– in my best two-year-old vocabulary– that I wanted to bowl. Of course, she was concerned about my two-year-old body being able to throw a six-pound ball, so she started me on candlepin bowling.” Being from New Hampshire, they had both candlepin bowling and ten-pin, so his mother was able to support young John’s desire to play. If you’re not familiar with candlepin, the ball weighs between 2 and 3 pounds and has a diameter of 4.5 inches, which can easily fit in the palm of your hand. This was a much more viable option for such a young kegler–and little John got pretty good at the game. Eventually, he would give up candlepin and move on to bigger or better things.

Just five years later, John’s family made the move to Merritt Island, Florida. In 1980, 7-year-old John was a little broken-hearted because candlepin didn’t exist here. He chuckled as he recounted his father telling him, “They only have one kind of bowling here, so you’ve got to bowl with the big balls if you’re going to keep bowling.” Just like any great father would do, he taught his son to adapt to the game and not give up on something he loved. John took his advice, and fell more in love with the game of bowling that we Floridians know. He started junior leagues the next year, and by the time he was eighteen he was getting sponsors and traveling for tournaments and events throughout the U.S. John had always dreamed of becoming a pro bowler and going on tour, so how did that dream finally become a reality for him?

According to John, Kegel led him there. He told me about a time when Kegel threw these ten-game bowling tournaments every month for over a decade. John had success in these events and had really gotten to know the founder of the company, John Davis. Since The Kegel Company manufactured much of the world’s bowling machines and lane conditioners, they were also in charge of many of the major bowling events and had contracts with the major bowling tournament organizations around the world. From 1997-2003, Kegel oversaw the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) tour. “I had success bowling up to that point and was looking to get better, so I asked John Davis if he had any work for me. He suggested that I go to Reno and get more experience working for the ABC Nationals. Six months later, when I got home, he needed some help at the company and hired me to work; I’ve been with them ever since.”

Kegel became his place of employment in 1998, and working with them continued to strengthen his game. John shares, “Davis was the kind of guy that just wanted to help bowlers get better, and he made this the premier place to do that.” John Janawicz definitely hasn’t stopped improving. In fact, you can only see that it has become even more deeply ingrained in who he is. He quotes Kobe Bryant’s orange metaphor, “I like to squeeze an orange, and see all the juice come out,” as he shares his goal to be the best bowler and employee he can be and know he left it all on the lane.

On weekdays, you will find him giving technical support for bowling centers all over the world as they depend on Kegel to provide their centers with lane cleaners, lane oils, and lane conditioners to keep their facilities serving keglers all over the world. As he puts it, “We are like the greenskeepers of golf.” On weeknights you’ll find him hitting the ten private lanes in the Kegler Training Center to get in practice hours, study oil patterns, and strengthen his own game. Then on weekends (and any extra time) you can follow his pro bowling career. Because John held on to a dream for 48 years, made bowling a part of his life, and then his life’s work, at fifty he is finally living that dream. He now holds eleven PBA50 Tour titles and has held PBA50 Player of the Year awards for two consecutive years. If you ask him if he has any plans to retire, he will tell you, “As long as the company still wants me, I think I’ll try to stay as long as I possibly can.”

Verity Crawley

Verity Crawley is another Polk County local and pro bowler who knows the name Kegel very well. Verity was born in Bournemouth, England, and moved to Polk County in 2012 to attend Webber International University in Babson Park and train at the Training Center.

Growing up in the UK, Verity had taken up the sport at age 5. Bowling professionally was never really on her radar, but bowling for her country was something she always wanted to do. Every year there were trials held for the country’s junior and adult teams, and that really drove her to give bowling her best. Bowling for the UK was always a hope and aspiration for Verity, and fortunately she was able to reach that goal and bowl beyond it. She first competed for England’s junior team at age 12 and won silver. Then in 2012, her bowling skyrocketed when she won singles in the Youth Championship Games in Denmark with a perfect game! That’s 12 consecutive strikes, for a score of 300. In her words, “From there everything changed; doors were opened.”

One of those doors would be an opportunity to bowl for Webber. She recalls, “I was 18 when I came here to study. It was bowling that brought me here. That was the biggest thing drawing me. I was coming here to do collegiate bowling because we didn’t have anything like that in England, so this was my best opportunity to learn and grow.” While bowling for Webber, she won three national championship titles and many individual titles. Her experience confirms that the name Kegel is in fact very familiar after all, and even prestigiously known in bowling circles. Verity is very matter of fact when asked what brought her here, “The Kegler Training Center is known worldwide as being the best bowling training center in the world–that’s what brought me here, and it is pretty hard to leave here once you’re here.”

It wasn’t until being in the U.S. that she even realized professional bowling was an option she could take. In fact, the Professional Women’s Bowling Association that started in 1960 had stopped operating in 2003. However, in 2015, her senior year at Webber, the U.S. relaunched the tour, and the Women’s Professional Tour was back. Verity decided to take a shot as an amateur to test the waters and see if that was a route she might want to take. A year after graduating, and still working as a paralegal in Winter Haven, she joined the professional tour even though it didn’t seem like it could be a full-time reality. However, not being able to get her visa to continue working may have been the push she needed. She joined the tour and began traveling as a pro.

As the first British woman to become a professional bowler, she is inspiring others to make their mark in the bowling world too. Verity shares, “Bowling is for everybody, and it has such a vast opportunity of what you can do with it. Whether you are taking it to a professional level or just having fun with family and friends; you can do it when you’re 16 or 96, and that’s what makes bowling so special.” Verity has coached at the collegiate level and continues to do a lot of online coaching and mentoring to leave her legacy and pass her knowledge on to future bowlers all over the world. She even received the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America (BPAA) Dick Weber Ambassador Award in 2024, an award presented to global ambassadors who give their time and energy to promote the sport in positive ways on and off the lanes.

If you follow Webber International University now, you will find that it has one of the best collegiate bowling programs in the nation. Both their women’s and men’s teams train weekly at the Kegel Training Center and get to use all the advanced technology to strengthen their performances. John shared that some of the head coaches at the school started training in that very building when they were in their teens and are now pouring into the next generation of bowlers. In the years Verity attended (2012-2016), the program became one of three schools in the Intercollegiate Team Championships to win both the men’s and women’s titles in the same year. Verity has had firsthand experience with the high-quality work of the Training Center and Webber’s successful bowling program. Both have played a huge part in turning her collegiate bowling career into a professional one.

Both John and Verity share a passion for the game and the education behind it, and that’s where Kegel connects them. Verity points out that the company’s tagline is “Built for Bowling,” and that’s exactly what the training center is doing, building bowlers! John shares, “There’s a lot of great educators under this one roof–right here in the middle of Polk County, and we’ve been that leader in bowling for decades now!”

The Kegel Training Center was the first of its kind. The original facility opened in Sebring in 1997. Janawicz started with the company in 1998. He has loved being one of the trailblazers helping to spur on the aspirations of John Davis, who founded The Kegel Company in 1981 when he invented a lane cleaning tool, The Key ™, to help with lane maintenance. Mr. Davis, who passed away in 2013, had also lived his company’s tagline; he quite literally “Built for Bowling!” That first invention still hangs on the wall in the foyer of the training center. For thirty-two years, he continued to build and engineer to make the game of bowling as consistent and precise as possible. His last invention was the Kegel Lanemapper ™. This machine reads the topography of the lanes and gives centers a real look at whether the lanes are really flat, giving players a fair playing field. According to the company’s website, he wanted to make lanes play the same. If he could take out the inconsistencies of the game, then bowlers could be better and faster.

Verity and John share that for them, bowling is not just a game– it is learning and growing, and bowling has built them for the better. “This sport has grown me as a person and given me confidence to do things I wouldn’t otherwise do,” said Verity. She believes knowledge gives power and that education brings confidence to any area of life, and that’s what bowling has given to her. That is why she says she is still here soaking up the knowledge and resources in the building.

Both pro bowlers agree that the knowledge and education are unmatched, and after researching this company and its founder, I would have to agree. As a novice bowler who may or may not ask for lane bumpers, I never knew there was so much education and engineering that went into the sport. I have a newfound respect for the level of genius and calculation that elite bowlers, trainers, and coaches carry to the deck.

Now when you drive by this building in Lake Wales, or you hear the name Kegel, you can confidently say you know that name. You now have the knowledge, education, and hopefully confidence to share ALL that goes on there. Verity explained how much is actually built, right there by hand, for bowling centers around the world. John remarked, “We manufacture close to 90-95% of the worldwide market.”

If you want to go from novice to rookie of the year, or dream of a pro bowling career, the Training Center can take you there. Their website says, “We can make the sport more fun, more competitive, and more satisfying for bowlers of all ages and skill levels.” Go to kegeltrainingcenter.com to find out more information about coaching, lessons, pricing, and more.

If you’d like to take a closer look, you can even take a tour of the facility. They are free to the public, and there are also field trip opportunities available for schools, homeschoolers, and microschools. Walking into the facility on any given day, you will find mechanics building lane cleaners, electricians wiring them, coaches training on deck, bowlers practicing on oil patterns, mixers pouring lane conditioners, machines bottling, testers running tests, and workers packing and preparing products for shipping all over the world. This place may be built for one game, but there is definitely more than one thing going on here!

Photos: Kamryn Tutiven & Provided