Bowling blind

Two men were assembling a handrail aligned with the left gutter of a bowling lane at Tropicana Lanes in Clayton. One wore dark sunglasses.

When that man went to bowl, he held the guardrail in his left hand as he strode toward the line holding a bowling ball in his right.

Robert Wright, 67, of University City, has done many remarkable things without seeing. He has skied downhill in Colorado. He has competed internationally as a track athlete. He has managed a convenience store. He has run sound and played bass guitar for gospel bands. Now he bowls competitively.

Wright was diagnosed with second-stage glaucoma at age 12. He had completed two years as an athlete at University City High School when his sight deteriorated so badly he transferred to the Missouri School for the Blind. By 19, he had lost his sight.

Though his mother, Frances Bailey, was a track coach at Vashon High School, Wright preferred contact sports when he could see. He resorted to running as he began to go blind.

“I didn’t think it was a sport, just running for no reason,” he said.

Dr. Jennifer Lauer, director of adult services at the St. Louis Society for the Blind and Visually Impaired, said one of the most common misconceptions is that losing vision means giving up meaningful activities.

“The biggest misconception is that things have to be given up — that you have to stop doing an activity,” Lauer said. “When, in reality, it’s sometimes learning to do it a different way or in a slightly modified way.”

Wright’s friend Paul Trujillo has watched him do that for four decades. The two met through an adaptive softball league in Denver. Trujillo, who also is blind, said Wright’s willingness to help others has remained constant.

“He likes to help people strive to get better,” Trujillo said. “If it’s something he’s good at, he’s willing to tell other people and show them how to be the best at whatever it is they’re doing.”

After graduating from the Missouri School for the Blind, Wright enrolled at the University of Missouri. A massive snowstorm in 1979 drove him from Mizzou after snowdrifts obliterated his familiar markers for finding his way from his dorm to class. When a stranger discovered him wandering lost in a snowy field, Wright decided he needed to go somewhere it didn’t snow.

He transferred to Texas Southern University in Houston.

After graduation, Wright went to Colorado, where he learned to ski alongside a sighted skier who called out obstacles ahead. Once, after picking up too much speed, he ran into a tree. The collision knocked off his hat, glasses and one glove.

While in Denver, Wright saw his uncle play gospel music and asked to work the soundboard. He produced a live tape that convinced the band he should become their sound man.

After competing internationally as a runner, Wright decided to take a chance on gospel music. He moved to Denver in 1986 and toured with the band for four years. He later ran a convenience store at the Denver Federal Center.

Wright and his wife, Janet, who also is blind, moved to University City in June 2025 after his younger brother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. They remained after his brother died in March.

These days, Wright stays busy teaching Sunday school online, helping people with computer problems, running a website and online radio station, writing a new version of the Bible for new believers — and bowling.

Before losing his sight, he had bowled only twice.

“I didn’t see bowling as a sport,” Wright said. “I saw it as something families did for recreation.”

Lauer said adaptations can include guide rails to help blind bowlers maintain a straight approach and sighted spotters who identify which pins remain standing.

Wright now competes in Pin Splitters, a league of blind and sighted bowlers that meets Tuesday evenings at Sunset Lanes in Marlborough. On a good night recently, he rolled games of 146, 147 and 139.

Trujillo was a few lanes away when Wright bowled his first 200 game.

“I heard him getting mark after mark, and I’m like, ‘He’s going to have a good game going here,’” Trujillo said. “He was excited when he did it. ‘I got my first 200.’ It was good to see.”

Marlon Lopez, who is partially sighted and met Wright in a Denver bowling league in 2022, said Wright competes less against other bowlers than against himself.

“He wants to beat his competitors, don’t get me wrong, but he’s mainly worried about improving himself,” Lopez said.

These days, Wright is battling what he calls his “nemesis,” a natural right-to-left hook that throws off his roll.

“I struggle with the beast that fights all athletes,” Wright said: “consistency.”