Dear President Obama,
Kolan McConiughey is still challenging you to meet him in an alley somewhere.
Remember last spring when you told Jay Leno your bowling game was "like the Special Olympics or something?"
Bring it on, McConiughey told you then.
"It would be a good experience," he says now.
McConiughey, one of the best Special Olympics bowlers in the nation, is competing for Team Michigan at the 2010 Special Olympics USA National Games in Lincoln this week. He bowled well on Wednesday in men's doubles, his first event. At one point, he had five strikes in a row.
He and his men's doubles partner ended up with the gold.
Hey, aren't you that bowler...?
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He's bowled seven perfect games in his life. Five 800 series, which is statistically harder to do.
He bowled against a pro, and won.
He even has his own trading card, thanks to you, Mr. President. One day, after he made national news after your appearance with Leno, someone from the Topps trading-card company phoned him.
Now, his card is part of a collection on obscure athletes who have achieved greatness. Maybe he'll give you one.
McConiughey lives in Ann Arbor. He's 36. He's worked at the same store for 18 years. He bags groceries, cleans bathrooms, retrieves carts. He has insurance benefits and a 401K. After work, he goes to the bowling alley. He bowls in three leagues.
Even when he's not bowling, he often moves his left arm like he is.
It's his genius, said his mom, Jan Pardy. He lives with her.
She's e-mailed the White House.
... We would be happy to come to Washington. ...
She knows you're busy, and she liked that you called Tim Shriver, CEO of Special Olympics International, to apologize after the "Tonight Show" appearance.
"It was just a brain burp," Pardy said as she watched her son warm up Wednesday at Sun Valley Lanes.
He's a fan. He's black and he likes that you're the first black president.
But he still thinks he could teach you how to bowl.
He's left-handed, like you.
Tuesday morning, he impressed the heck out of Shriver and former Husker football captain Vershan Jackson.
Want to squeeze it, he asked, sticking out his left arm.
"It felt like cast iron," Shriver said later. "He is an incredibly fine-tuned athlete."
McConiughey's left arm is bigger than Jackson's.
They gave him a nickname: The Big Left.
His mom e-mailed you the other day after she heard you were going to visit Michigan. She wondered if you could make time to meet Team Michigan bowlers, give them a president's sendoff to the games.
... This would be a great opportunity for the President to endorse the Special Olympics program and to recognize the greatness of these athletes ...
McConiughey's biological mom was young. She was Pardy's neighbor. Pardy started watching him when he was 18 months old. She became his guardian when he was 8.
She said a court-appointed psychiatrist told her he probably would have had to be institutionalized if he'd stayed with his birth mom.
"Now he's a very successful member of the community," she said.
He gets in trouble at work sometimes, she said. He needs reminders. But Busch's grocery store in Ann Arbor has always stuck with him. They gave him $400 to come to the national games.
Last year, after McConiughey challenged you to bowl, customers there told him he was a celebrity.
"They said they were proud of me," he said. "They said, ‘Obama is a chicken. A chicken.'"
Tuesday, someone asked him if he thought you were chicken. He smiled. His eyes shined.
"Uh-huh."
Then his Team Michigan bowling partner, Jared Rosebush, who has Down syndrome, spoke up.
"He's afraid of us -- he's smart!"
They bumped fists.
Then McConiughey threw down a new challenge to you, Mr. President. He said the real reason he thinks you didn't get back to him about bowling is because you'd rather play basketball.
He likes it, too.
"I've got some skills," he said. "I got game, too."
How about that?
Regards,
A fan of Kolan McConiughey
Reach Colleen Kenney at 402-473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.
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