Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Professional bowler Guppy Troup, who has won eight national tournaments, plays Saturday at Lee-Hi Lanes in Salem.

Guppy Troup has taken the fish theme as far as he can go, with fish necklaces, shirts, pants and even a fish bowling ball.

He calls it the "Gup Thrust." It's somewhere between hilarious and obscene, something Elvis Presley might have tried if he could send 10 pins flying into the pit like Guppy Troup does.

He's executed the move in sparkling arenas and smoky, small-town alleys. He did it on national TV in 1998, thrilling the kids in the stands who'd painted "G.U.P.P.Y." on their bare chests in support of their eccentric bowling hero.

And a little after 11 a.m. Saturday, in the middle of a run of six straight strikes in the SunTrust Senior PBA Open, he did it in Salem.

"There it is!" a couple of laughing Lee-Hi Lanes spectators said, as Guppy turned and flung his hips forward, fists clenched at his sides.

There it is. A professional bowler who's mastered the art of having fun.

Guppy Troup is 58 now. He takes arthritis pills. He's got a bum hamstring. He recently had rotator cuff surgery. But not a thing has changed about his wild personality, one that earned him legions of fans on the PBA Tour.

"You tell everybody if they want to come down and see some entertainment," Troup said earlier this week, "then come see how stupid I look at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning."

Actually, he looked fantastic. Shaved head. Gray lamb-chop sideburns. Red-tinted prescription glasses. Two fish earrings dangling from his left lobe, one for each of his sons. Gold necklaces he's dubbed his "Mr. T starter kit."

And the pants. Oh, the pants. Handmade by a fan in 1999, they feature a loud, tropical fish pattern and plenty of room to execute one Gup Thrust after another.

"He's a character," said Ed Quinn, tournament director of the SunTrust Senior Open and longtime bowler on the PBA Regional Tour. "You'll see him in plaid pants and a striped shirt, and his hair'll be mohawked and he'll be wearing gold chains. Everybody loves to bowl with him because he just cuts up all the time."

Guppy has been a pro bowler for 35 years. He's won eight national tournaments and 41 regional events on the PBA Tour, claiming titles in four different decades. This weekend in Salem, he was trying to win another.

But Guppy doesn't consider himself a pro bowler anymore. He's a "sports entertainer," he says.

"People want to see some reaction out of you when you do something," Guppy said. "A lot of these guys, they get up, they throw the ball and they go sit back down. I'd go nuts if I had to do that.

"I could have five or six in a row and be up in the audience talking to everybody. When I put my foot on the approach, that's where I concentrate."

Guppy's real name is John Douglas Troup. He adopted the fish moniker as an 11-year-old bowling on a youth team in South Carolina called the Guppies. He thought it'd be a cool nickname if he ever went pro.

Since then, he's taken that name as far as it will go. He's got fish necklaces, fish shirts and even a fish bowling ball. He wanted to name his sons Minnow and Tadpole but says his wife wouldn't let him.

Guppy can still punish the pins. The past decade, he's averaged between 210 and 214 on the regional tour, where lane conditions are always challenging. But he has no pretenses of trying to return to the young men's tour.

He'll simply stick with the memories.

"I am the reigning PBA national beer champion," Guppy said. "Nobody won the Miller, the Molson and Budweiser [tournaments], and they can't anymore because we don't have the Molson.

"Any liquid tournament there was, I won it. My first tournament I won was the Kessler Open. Beat Dick Weber. Later, I won the Quaker State. That's a little tough to drink from, that Quaker State, but it lubricates your body up good enough."

Guppy lives in Taylorsville, N.C., and works as a middle school custodian during the week. On the weekends, he competes against other 50-and-overs on the PBA Senior Regional Tour.

The money at this level isn't huge -- the first-place check awarded in Salem today will be in the $1,500 neighborhood, well below the five-figure prizes he claimed in the '70s and '80s -- but Guppy says this is the most fun he's had in his career.

"If you're a senior, all you want to do is come out and see the guys again and have a good time," he said. "And we do. Seniors are some of the best karaoke singers you've ever seen."

Guppy hopes to bowl until he's 80. And while it's been said there will never be another Guppy Troup, that might not be true.

A few weeks ago, Guppy entered a tournament with his 16-year-old son. In his sixth qualifying game, the younger Troup started with six straight strikes. After his seventh, the boy turned toward the crowd and made a strangely familiar gesture.

Call it the "Minnow Thrust."