PWBA bowler by day, nurse by night.
Omaha's Erin McCarthy is used to high-pressure situations. She led the PWBA's Twin Cities Open after 12 games of qualifying play Friday in Eagan, Minnesota, but she also helps fight the coronavirus at two Omaha hospitals.
“In general, normally all I do is work at the hospital and then travel for bowling,†McCarthy said. “In 2020 it brought kind of a different perspective of things. The pandemic kind of changed everything for everyone, not just for myself. There are a lot of aspects of nursing and bowling that go hand-in-hand for me, especially the mental aspect. It's kind of the same calm demeanor in both bowling and in nursing.
“You have to stay focused and can't get down on yourself, necessarily. I know with COVID it was pretty emotional for a lot of people.â€
McCarthy averaged a 233 over two six-game blocks Friday, recording a 2,801 pinfall total and a 98-pin lead heading into Saturday's action, where she eventually finished in fourth. That's coming off shortened practice time with her double duties, and nearly 12-hour shifts on the nursing floors.
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The former Husker bowler, who competed for NU from 2009-10 before transferring to Midland, works at Methodist Hospital's main campus in Omaha full-time and at Nebraska Medicine once a week.
“I'll be honest, in 2020 I didn't practice too much at all,†McCarthy said. “I think I maybe traveled to two events total and then it seemed like on my downtime where I would normally go practice here and there, it was almost as if I didn't want to.
“Work was so busy and I was picking up shifts because I had no reason not to with no tournaments to prepare for. I did sign with a different company, Motiv, in the fall of 2020, so that gave me a new sense of excitement.â€
Though an established bowler on the PWBA scene, McCarthy found a new perspective from the pandemic. The Elkhorn native won the 2018 Louisville Open in Kentucky and took home third-place finishes in the 2017 and 2018 U.S. Women's Open. McCarthy also was a member of Nebraska's 2009 NCAA championship team, along with an intercollegiate team runner-up and most valuable player award in 2012 with Midland.
“It just kind of taught me not to take things for granted, because bowling was just kind of gone,†McCarthy said. “It was taken without any warning, so to speak. Just finding the proper balance between the two has kind of made me the person I am today.â€
And though McCarthy seems like a superhero in the eyes of her peers in both the bowling alley and on the nursing floor, she portrays herself in a different light.
“For me personally it's hard to look at ourselves as superheroes,†McCarthy said. “In our eyes, we are just doing our job. That's what we signed up to do. We signed up to help people and to care for people and be empathetic, and sympathetic and everything that goes along with it.
“I think it was really hard just caring for really sick patients and seeing a lot of death and a lot of people not making it out of hospital settings.â€