Nolan Ryan Hughes was aptly named for a life in sports. Born in Buffalo, New York, Nolan developed an early passion for baseball and bowling. After his family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 2008, his sports obsession expanded into basketball, football, and beyond, while his talent for bowling began to manifest.
Nolan and his younger sister, Isabel, spent the majority of their teenage years in a bowling alley. He was a part of the nation’s largest youth bowling program at Buffaloe Lanes North and competed in the most prestigious youth tournaments across the Carolinas and the country. Bowling led him to Lincoln Memorial University, where he competed on the perenially ranked men’s bowling team and earned a BBA in Sport Management in the spring of 2021.
Now enrolled in the prestigious Newhouse School, Nolan hopes to cultivate the requisite skills, connections, and mindset to accomplish his goal of augmenting media coverage of bowling. He aims to increase the average sports fan’s awareness and respect level of the sport and help its historically accomplished athletes get the recognition they deserve. Along the way, he hopes to witness and cover as many of the greatest athletes, unforgettable games, and iconic moments sports have to offer.
The following article is Nolan’s retelling of how he arrived at Lincoln Memorial University and his first few years there. In the subsequent Twitter thread, Nolan describes how his collegiate bowling career came to a premature end in rather shocking fashion.