“In my mind, I put the hall of fame in a place that was so high that I thought I would never reach it,” Ruby said. “I never thought of myself as hall of fame material.”
The Greater Dayton United States Bowling Congress thought differently, an the 58-year-old will be inducted into the local hall of fame for superior performance alongside PBA professional Brian Kretzer.
“Brian is one of the greatest bowlers Dayton has ever had, so of course I’m excited to be going in with him,” Ruby said.
Ruby has compiled an impressive bowling resume himself during a career that spans more than three decades. He has posted 29 300 games and seven 800 series and earned several local and state championship titles. But it was his success in the collegiate ranks that was one of his bowling highlights. Ruby and the Sinclair Community College team won the Junior College National Championship in Buffalo, N.Y. in the early 1980s.
“We were staying at a hotel in Buffalo and when we walked into the lobby as a team, we got a standing ovation from the other bowlers,” Ruby said. “We were considerably older than a lot of them but it meant a lot to us.”
The Sinclair team’s win earned it an invitation to compete for the national championship for four-year schools. It placed third.
Linda Kelly is thrilled that her little brother will join her in the hall of fame.
“He and my dad would bowl all day on Saturdays, they were bowling maniacs,” Kelly said. “He has always been the one who rooted the rest of us on, always the moral support guy offering suggestions. So, it’s nice that he is the one getting recognized now.”
Ruby has slowed down a bit as he usually bowls two times a week, down from five days in his prime, but he still averages 215 in league play. He and Linda, Megan Kelly and Shannon Pluhowsky set the national record for high series on a four-person team (three women and one man) with a 2,942 in December 2010.
Accomplishments aside, Ruby remembers downplaying a possible hall-of-fame induction for years.
“A lot of my friends would ask me, ‘When will you be in the hall of fame?’ And I would tell them ‘I don’t see myself in that arena,” he said. “I guess they were right after all.”
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