I wasn’t intimidated.

Not when J.J. Childers slid on his bowling glove.

Not even when he opened his dual ball bag to show me that he had one ball that was for straight shots and another — that he just bought last week — specifically for curving shots.

At this point — the first five minutes — I had held my own against the 11-year-old that won the Washington State Pepsi Bowling Tournament a month ago.

And then the question came as I was putting on my bowling shoes.

“How much do you weigh?” asked the Eagle Creek Elementary student with a smile.

While I was trying to remember exactly what I weighed earlier that morning when I stepped on the scale, J.J.’s mom, Patti, mistook my hesitance for shyness.

“That’s kind of a personal question,” she said to her son.

But I answered 150 pounds and J.J. scurried off, only to return moments later with a green ball with a 15 on it.

“Try this,” he said, explaining that a ball’s weight is supposed to be a tenth of its bowler.

That’s when my confidence was shot. I picked it up, longing to tell him that I usually throw an eight, but instead I said, “Why don’t we try a little lighter?”

The look he shot me could best be described as confused with a tint of disappointment. You see, to J.J., his brother Noah, 10, their cousin Chandler Record, 12, the game is simple. Just stand here, take five steps, throw with a curve and knock down the pins.

That philosophy has earned J.J. a top score of 160 so far after bowling for just a couple of years, although he disputes that he scored a 200 on a nine-pin game in which he calculated what his score would have been with one more pin per frame.

Bowling is becoming a family sport, as the Childers’ and Chandler and his mom, Michele joined us. Over the course of two games, both J.J. and Noah became my official coaches, completely reconfiguring my approach and delivery to look more like I know what I’m doing — despite the result.

So, to shed light on the elephant in the room, who won? Nobody, because when you’re 11 years old, everybody wins — some just happen to win state titles.