April 10, 2017
Giselle Poss is a perfectionist playing an imperfect game. This curious marriage has produced some incredible highs along with moments of frustration and deep thought.
In baseball, you can make seven outs in 10 at bats and be a star. In bowling, sometimes the pin wobbles, then topples over for a strike and you win. And sometimes the pin wobbles but stays upright and you lose. Skill? Luck? Fate? Go figure.
Rest assured the Vanderbilt senior has been figuring since giving up gymnastics in the eighth grade to concentrate on knocking down 10 blocks of wood at a time. She’s lived happily ever after since – “the place where it’s easiest to be myself.”
The diminutive honors student known in bowling circles as “G” would be the last person chosen for a burly tug-of-war team but among the first picked to go into battle. A fiery competitor, she learned about competition at a young age.
“I have an older brother, Adam,” Giselle says, “and he is the most competitive person I’ve ever met. He’s 13 years older than me but even when we were doing board games he was out for blood. Being 5 with a brother 18, we weren’t just playing little games. He’d make up games – like who could clean their plate the fastest.”
G was 13 when she got into handicap tournaments, giving up anywhere from five to 10 years to the rest of the field. Undaunted and counseled by her father (Jim), she recognized she was well ahead of her peers and hunkered down for a lifetime of 10-pin adventure.
Her dad lined her up with former pro bowler Marty Miller in eighth grade and he’s been her coach away from campus ever since.
“Marty was all about work ethic,” G says with approval. “I worked with him every day after school; we’d pick one thing and I’d bowl six to 10 games a day working on it.”
The hard work paid dividends but came with a cost. “I knew that practicing would take a lot of my time, it sometimes made it hard to join up with friends after school or other sports. A lot of people only did their sport when the season was going on. I bowled year-round and worked harder in the off-season than during the playing season.
“It was hard for my friends to understand that,” she continues. “It was very clear I wanted to be the best and that’s why I saw Marty every day and why I entered every tournament I could.
“Even in the bowling world there is a disconnect between those that really want to excel and those just there because they are supposed to be,” she continues. “When I go into a bowling center I go because I want to practice, not hang out with people. That’s fine after practice but practice is for practicing, nothing else. That’s all I am thinking about.”
Poss brought her intensity and introverted personality to college and while she quickly got into the Commodore lineup, life was not all strikes and filled frames.
“I’ve always been a perfectionist and as a freshman I had big goals,” she admits. “When I didn’t attain them I questioned what I was doing wrong because I had always been successful. I was not being the student or the teammate I wanted to be.
“But having that ‘what do I have to do?’ mentality has helped me over the long haul,” she realizes. “Always striving to get better is one of my strengths. And Freshman G and Senior G are two different people.”
She acknowledges some disappointment when named an honorable mention All-American at the 2016 NCAA Awards Dinner. It didn’t meet her own expectations but it helped set her own fresh and constructive course.
“I’m a Type A personality and I would do everything in my power to figure out what I had to do to be better,” she says. “This year I said ‘Enough! It’s not working,’ and I took everything day by day. I still practice but not quite as much. I relied on my instincts and the foundation I’ve built. I used the experiences I’ve had over the past three years and haven’t been as hard on myself. I’ve had my ups and downs this year but overall it’s been a pretty good year.”
Yes it has.
Poss ranks in the Top 10 nationally in seven major categories including fifth in overall scoring average (20.65 per frame). She was the Most Valuable Bowler at this year’s Kutztown Invitational and after graduation is looking forward to continuing on the Puerto Rican National Team, of which she has been a member for two years.
Her collegiate days will come to an end at this week’s NCAA Championship in Baton Rouge but she will be long remembered for the passion that helped make Vanderbilt bowling special.
