Rick Reilly weighs in on Kelly Kulick’s TOC title

Rick Reilly of espn.com has a rather interesting take on Kelly Kulick's Tournament of Champions win. Where's the love for Kelly?



Kelly Kulick found out early that men hate being whipped by women. The first time she beat a boy bowling, he punched a wall and broke a knuckle.

But even she didn't expect the nation's reaction after she became the first woman to win a men's Professional Bowlers Association Tour title.

Zero. Nada. Zilch. She has to keep checking her phone to see if it died.

Hello? America? This is the equivalent of "Man Gives Birth!" It's never happened in any ball sport in American history. Kulick, 32, should own Page 1. Somebody should throw her a parade. Or at least a state dinner. Instead, she's gotten one free hair coloring. That's the highlight.

Danica Patrick beats men in an auto race and she's on TV more often than the Geico gecko. Why isn't Kelly sifting through huge endorsement deals?

Announcer: "FedEx and Kelly Kulick. When you really want to beat the U.S. male." Why isn't Barack Obama calling? Or at least Michelle!

"Beats me," says Kulick, of Union, N.J. "They hate bowling?"

In golf, people turn 1260 McTwists when Michelle Wie nearly makes a men's cut. In tennis, Billie Jean King's thumping of a 55-year-old man is hailed as the greatest thing for women since the sports bra.

Kelly Kulick? Who dat?

Listen! She beat 62 of the best male pros -- straight up -- in arguably the Tour's creamiest event, the Tournament of Champions. And she beat them like egg yolks. She beat Chris Barnes, the No. 1 bowler on the Tour, by 70 pins in the final! That's like beating Emeril by three hams!

So why is she getting no love? Why isn't she known across America as Queenpin? Why isn't she doing Letterman's Top Ten?

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