By DAVID TUMA
The Belton Journal
The annual City of Belton Bowling Tournament was held last Thursday.
It is a team building event where all departments across the city participate. The Belton Police Department team Strike Force won the tournament for the fifth straight year.
The tournament was held on Thursday at Spare Time Temple, with donations accepted to benefit The Central Texas United Way. Food & drink are available for purchase at your own expense.
The total pin count of first two games determined which team moved on to the next round and bracket play. Teams with custom t-shirts or jerseys were awarded 5 bonus pins to add to their total for the first two games.
After the first two games were bowled, teams were placed in brackets with most pins being #1 seed and moving down until bracket is full.
One year a city employee came as a wrestler, and a child a couple of lanes down thought he was a real wrestler. The employee gave him the mask he was wearing.
Aldo Aguilar planned to fire up his team by wearing a lucha libre mask, but he got a much different and better result. Sure, his team and other City employees appreciated the effort, but nobody was more impressed than the young boy in a nearby lane, who seemed to believe he was meeting a real-life professional wrestler.
When the boy promised to do his best in school, Aldo made the boy’s night by giving him the mask.
Later, just before the boy left with his family, he sought out Aldo to thank him and asked him to autograph the mask.
And that’s the story of how a young boy, a potential future lucha libre, went bowling one night and became a legend in the eyes of dozens of City of Belton employees, who watched a coworker give his first ever autograph.
“This is just one of those events where everybody can just relax. The Belton Police Department shows up their trophy each year in the front of the office. At this point the Police Department is like the New York Yankees of bowling. Teams have been practicing trying to oust them,” said City Public Information officer Paul Romer.
