Carmen Salvino (born November 23, 1933, in Chicago) is an active professional ten-pin bowler, inventor, author, ambassador, and a founding member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA). Known as "PBA's Original Showman", Salvino won 17 PBA Tour titles –- among them the 1962 PBA National Championship where he defeated fellow bowling legend Don Carter in the finals. He also won two PBA Senior Tour titles, including the 1984 Senior National Championship. The right-handed bowler was among the eight original inductees to the PBA Hall of Fame in 1975, and is also a member of the USBC Hall of Fame (inducted 1979), the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame (inducted 1985), the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame, and the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame.
Early life
Salvino was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 23, 1933 to Michael and Philomena (Theresa) Salvino (nee DeVito). He has two brothers, Joseph and Richard, and a sister, Phylis. lived on the city's west side until the age of 5. In order to make a better living during the Great Depression, Salvino's father moved the entire family to Dania, Florida where he worked as a vegetable farmer in a job created by President Roosevelt's New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. During his childhood years, Salvino learned his strong work ethic from helping his father manually plow vegetable fields for long, strenuous work days. Despite the hard work, his family was still very poor. For an entire year, he didn't own a pair of shoes, and for two straight years, he owned only one pair of overalls.
After living in Florida for 5 years, the family moved back to Chicago's west side and the young Salvino found work shining shoes on Madison Street. In 1945, at the age of 11, Salvino was introduced to bowling when he was walking down a street in his west-side neighborhood and noticed a bowling pin lying on the ground outside the Amalgamated Center located at 333 S. Ashland. The building was home to Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America labor union and it housed a private 6-lane bowling alley reserved for workers in the garment industry. Piquing his interest, Salvino walked inside the building and talked to a man who oversaw the bowling lanes. In a stroke of luck, he offered the young Salvino a job making three dollars a night as a pin-boy. He then began to practice. The first ball Salvino ever threw was a strike, and it was there, at the Amalgamated Center, that a legend was born.
Salvino attended Crane Tech High School on Chicago's west side. At the age of 16, Salvino was averaging 203 (a very high average for the time), and at 17, he joined his high school's first bowling team and averaged 211. According to Salvino, he was the first person to letter in the sport of bowling which at the time was governed by the then American Junior Bowling Congress. Also, while still in high school, he competed in a national tournament called the Dom DeVito Classic where he beat approximately 6,000 bowlers for the first place prize of $3,000. He then became the youngest bowler ever to compete in The Chicago Classic League, a renowned area competition, and earned the nickname "Chicago's Boy Wonder". In order to intimidate his opponents, Salvino would wear bib overalls with the statement, "I'm great and I'm gonna be the best bowler alive" written on the back. According to him, "The way to show 'em is to beat 'em, stomp on 'em and let 'em know how good I am. I was hated by the players and the public. After a while I didn't care. I was getting bigger and meaner all the time."
Salvino married his wife Virginia Morelli on May 17, 1956
Professional and PBA career
Before the PBA's founding in 1958, Salvino began his professional bowling career when in 1953 he won the National Match Game Doubles with his partner Joe Wilman. According to Salvino, “The National Doubles title really kicked off my career nationally, by the time I was 21, I had won the Chicago Match Game tournament, had an ABC Tournament team title and was Chicago Bowler of the Year, so I was getting a reputation as a pretty good bowler by that time.”
In 1954, Salvino won his first ABC (American Bowling Congress) title; a team event with the renowned squad Tri-Par Radio. Soon after the win, Salvino became a household name when he regularly appeared on televised bowling events, most notably the show Bowling Stars. It was on Bowling Stars that he scored 846, which at the time was the highest three-game series ever broadcast on television.