Marshall Holman

Marshall Holman (born September 29, 1954) is an American sports broadcaster and retired professional ten-pin bowler. He was known for his flamboyant, fiery demeanor and his success on the PBA Tour throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He is one of only 16 players in history to reach at least 20 career PBA Tour titles. Nike sponsored Holman.[1]

Holman has also served as a color analyst alongside Mike Durbin on several ESPN and ESPN2 bowling telecasts from 1996–2001. From 1998-99, he worked for CBS Sports and was teamed with Gary Seibel for telecasts when that network briefly showed PBA events.

Holman's first PBA title came at the Fresno Open on July 8, 1975, when he was just 20 years old. His last PBA title was earned at the 1996 PBA Ebonite Classic. This came eight years after he had last won a title. In this event, he defeated Wayne Webb in what turned out to be a very emotional battle that came down to the final frames. The first bowler on the PBA Tour to surpass $1.5 million in earnings, Holman won 22 titles (12th all-time) -- including four majors (two U.S. Opens and two Tournament of Champions titles). He became the youngest winner in the Tournament of Champions, topping the field in the 1976 event when he was just 21 years old.[2] Holman would hold this record all the way up until 2016, when Jesper Svensson won that year's Tournament of Champions as a 20-year-old.[3] In 1979, Holman became the youngest bowler (24) to reach ten career titles.[4] That record would later be broken by Pete Weber in 1987.

Marshall was named PBA Player of the Year in 1987, was a three-time winner of the George Young High Average award, and has earned nearly $1.7 million on tour.[5] Perhaps more impressive than his 22 titles, Holman made it to the final championship match 53 times (finishing runner-up 31 times) and had 63 more top-five finishes, for a total of 116 championship round appearances.[6]

Holman was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame in 1990 and into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. He is also a 2010 inductee to the USBC Hall of Fame in the Performance category.[7] He was ranked 9th on the PBA's 2008 list of "50 Greatest Players of the Last 50 Years."

Earlier in his bowling career, as once mentioned in the American Bowlers Journal magazine in the 1980s, Holman had a girlfriend from the state of New Hampshire. He would occasionally try the sport of candlepin bowling, popular in his acquaintance's state of residence, while visiting there.

After several years out of the booth, Holman has returned to the broadcasting arena. He served as a color analyst at the 2007 USBC Queens tournament and was in the broadcast booth (along with Nelson Burton, Jr.) for ESPN's five-week coverage of the 2007 and 2008 U.S. Women's Open events. He later provided commentary, alongside play-by-play man Dave Ryan, for the 2009 U.S. Women's Open telecasts. Holman was also the analyst for the live broadcast of the 2015 Men's U.S. Open, which ran on CBS Sports Network that season.

Holman indicated in a 2017 interview that he is retired from competitive bowling and does not anticipate taking part in any more PBA senior events.[8]