Kamron Doyle On His Decision to Forgo Returning to Wichita State University and Join the PBA Tour

Recently, Kamron Doyle made his decision to forgo returning to Wichita State University in favor of joining the PBA Tour public. When he made the decision, he knew that he would likely be met with some criticism, however, what has followed has surpassed any expectations he had.

His decision has been met with criticism, hate, personal and professional attacks, and some of the most ignorant, disgusting comments I have personally ever read.

To this point, Kamron has stayed out of it and avoided his doubters and haters criticism, which I cannot commend him enough for, honestly. But I decided to reach out to him via text and ask him if he would be interested in sharing his side of the story with us and defending his decision a bit. And he gladly agreed.

First off, let me say this: Kamron has absolutely zero reason to defend his own, personal decision to go out on tour. It is, as I said, a personal one. But I felt like he needed to let his side of the story at least be heard.

The passages that follow come directly from Kamron, himself:

At the end of the day, this is a personal decision I made to improve my overall happiness. Nothing more, nothing less. College bowling wasn’t for me. It is that simple. Some people love it, and I can understand why. It is a unique and interesting experience; there truly is nothing else like it.

But, as I said, it was not for me.

I didn’t feel that I improved at all in my time at Wichita and bowling collegiately. I felt my overall performances were not up to my immensely high standards. And because of that, my happiness was decreasing rapidly.

I didn’t see eye-to-eye with the coaching staff on a lot of things. I felt like our conversations were counter-productive because of this. That doesn’t mean that I feel I was right or that they were wrong. It wasn’t a black and white situation. We just didn’t see bowling the same. And that made it difficult.

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not trying to cast or deflect any blame. It was just one of those cases where we weren’t on the same page. Sometimes that happens. This was one of those cases.

Another thing I struggled with was the lack of time given to each and every bowler. College bowling is growing rapidly. Therefore, college programs are growing rapidly, as well. And I feel like the coaches are under a great deal of pressure to ensure that they are there to help each and every kid. Unfortunately, though, there are significantly more kids than there are coaches, so the time allotted to each bowler is minimal at best.

Kids decide to go to college and bowl collegiately in hopes of getting better; they are not there to remain stagnant. Ever collegiate bowler’s hope is that they leave the program better than they were when they entered it. And like I said before, I didn’t necessarily feel like I was on track to accomplish that.

But this decision came down to more than just bowling, the bowling program, and my personal distaste for collegiate bowling. It was all about my happiness.
I was just not happy at Wichita State. I wasn’t happy being away from friends and family. I wasn’t happy with my bowling. I missed singles competition. I didn’t enjoy the atmosphere that college bowling offered. And I had to make a decision to better my mental health and my overall happiness; I couldn’t stand to be miserable any longer.

At the end of the day, happiness was the biggest factor in all of this. I didn’t mind the city, I didn’t mind the school, I don’t dislike college, I didn’t dislike my teammates. It had nothing to do with any of the things people seem to be speculating on. It simply came down to me being unhappy. And that wasn’t the way I wanted to live my life. Period.

I don’t consider myself some college dropout, that many of my critics seem to be labeling me. I still intend on getting my degree. I still intend on going to college. I’m just not going to bowl collegiately.

I want to take my talents to the next level. I want to bowl my best against the best. I want to compete at the highest level against the highest level of competition.

All of this factored into my decision to join the PBA Tour.