Sunday, October 31, 2004
Cincinnati's first family of bowling
Good Sports: Hoinkes have worked and played together on the lanes for decades
Some of the Hoinke children's earliest memories are of drinking Slush Puppies and watching Saturday morning cartoons at the bowling alley bar and their mother telling them to "Get your butt down there and bowl!"
And some of the fondest memories are from a week at Christmas when the bowling alley would shut down for repairs and they had reign of the place, free to crawl across lanes as they pleased.
That's the way it is when your family bears one of the most well-known names in Cincinnati bowling.
The Hoinke family, headed by Erv Hoinke Jr., are the owners and operators of Western Bowl, a 46-year-old business and home of the Hoinke Classic Bowling Tournament, started by Erv Hoinke Sr. to help support the World War II effort.
The Hoinke Classic is a 62-year-old tournament lasting from January to November that is considered to be the largest non-professional, privately owned bowling tournament in the world. The family also operates the upcoming Super Hoinke, a three-day scratch tournament during Thanksgiving week that guarantees a $50,000 first prize to the winner.
There was never any doubt that the four Hoinke children, now grown with children of their own, would become part of the family business. Why wouldn't they? There are enough positions for all - Russell is the tournament director of the Hoinke Classic, Jennifer (Klekamp) is treasurer, Tracy is vice president, Chris is secretary - and they get to do their childhood hobby for a living.
"The best part of this whole job is everybody that comes through that door is coming to have a good time," Tracy Hoinke said. "It makes you want to have fun also, because everybody else is in a good mood."
And they share it all together.
"It's in our contract. We're not allowed to leave," they joked.
The entire family lives within 5 miles of each other and the 11 grandchildren are all probably Elder- or Seton-bound. They all bowl. Jennifer bowled professionally, with two WIBC titles under her belt. And a couple times a year Erv Hoinke Jr. and his four children will compete as a team.
That closeness also means they all reminisce and laugh about the same stories that have come out of the bowling alley and the tournament over the years.
There was Rudy Kaskimakis, that crazy, loud New Yorker who looked like Popeye and flamboyantly won the crowd and the Super Hoinke in 1992. Or the bus driver who decided to bowl while he was waiting for his trip to finish and won the $4,000 jackpot. There was the 7/10 split guy, who challenged everyone that he could bowl the hardest split in bowling four times out of 100 - and made one on the first try. And there was the woman with the magic ball - that no matter which way she threw it, would knock the pins down - that won the Hoinke.
But perhaps the best part of it all is the people they meet. The Hoinkes estimate that more than 100,000 people travel through Western Bowl each year. There are the nearly 50 bowling leagues they host; the high schoolers from Elder, Seton, Western Hills and Oak Hills to whom they donate free bowling, shirts and balls; the middle school children they pick up on the bus in their after-school program; and then the 28,000 national entrants into the Hoinke Classic.
There are so many people that everywhere they go, they're asked if they're Erv Hoinke's children. One time in the Bahamas, Erv Hoinke Jr. was shooting craps with a stranger and mentioned he was a bowling proprietor. The man said, "Do you know Hoinke?" And Erv said, "I am Hoinke!"
Hoinke Jr., whose children made "Big Erv" bobbleheads in his likeness that sit in the trophy cases at Western Bowl, has been around bowling all his life, winning multiple awards for his service to the sport, but still he doesn't seem to tire of it. At 72, he heads to work every day to greet his children.
Why wouldn't he?
It's "the palace of bowling," he said.
And the Hoinkes are Cincinnati's royal bowling family.
Caleigh and Chelsea Hortman / Lebanon
Softball is the sport of choice for the Hortman family.
"That's what we do. Some families in Cincinnati are soccer families. We're a softball family," said father Dave Hortman, who is a coach at Kings High School. "Their mom played. I played, and when they were younger (6 years old), they started playing. They just had a natural ability, and they took it from there."
The Hortmans have traveled all over for softball tournaments, and the sisters have combined to play in 17 World Series. This summer, their softball teams won state tournaments.
Caleigh's Central Ohio Stingrays won the 18-under NSA "A" Ohio state championship and took third place in the NSA national tournament. Chelsea's 14-under Indiana Shockwaves were the ASA and NSA "A" Indiana state champions. They also placed second in the NSA "A" national tournament.
"The more I thought about it, I thought it's a pretty big thing to win state tournaments, and my girls won one in two states," Dave Hortman said.
The sisters are both center fielders and attend Kings schools.
Busch, a seventh-grader at Lakota Ridge Junior School, won a gold medal in the 2004 Junior Olympics Trampoline and Tumbling National Championships in Tampa, Fla., in July. With more than 1,600 athletes competing, Busch placed first in Trampoline, second in Double Mini-Trampoline and fourth in Tumbling. He is a member of the Queen City Trampoline and Tumbling team.
