Growing up in Flushing, Michigan, Smallwood's parents took him as a toddler to Colonial Lanes for their Sunday-night mixed league which led to his interest in bowling.
[2] Tom had been an excellent bowler in classic leagues in and around Saginaw, and supplemented his income by competing in local tournaments and a few open PBA events.
[2] Smallwood then found a job at a metal shop as his then-girlfriend (now wife) Jennifer would not marry a man without a regular paycheck.
At age 30, Tom had decided he was "done" with trying to be a full-time bowler, content to work during the week and bowl weekend tournaments that paid as little as $800 for first place.
[1] Smallwood practiced for free at State Lanes in Saginaw after job applications did not pan out, having been a regular league bowler there and being neighbors of the owners, Anne and Steve Doyle.
[2] Still looking for a regular job, Smallwood learned that the PBA Tour Trials would be held in the Detroit area in May, 2009, making travel a non-issue.
[2] He and Jen scraped together the $1500 entry fee and Tom finished third at the Trials (out of 97 bowlers), easily making the top eight who gained PBA exemptions for the 2009–10 season.
"I always felt I could compete out there [on the Tour], but I was also content with working and staying with my family," Smallwood said in an interview with USA Today just prior to the PBA World Championship finals.
[3] Ironically, he was offered a chance to go back to work at General Motors, when a representative from that company's job bank called him just days before the 2009 World Championship finals.
In his first full season on the PBA Tour, he made 15 cuts and eight match-play rounds in 18 events, while appearing in three televised finals.
To get to the final match on this day, he survived the longest sudden-death roll-off in PBA history after tying Josh Blanchard 232–232 in the semifinal.
Smallwood qualified as the #4 seed in the finals and, in the first match, beat Anthony Simonsen 278–225 to advance and bowl against third-seeded Dick Allen.
[20] On March 1, 2021, CBS Television announced it had ordered a pilot for a multi-camera sitcom based on the life of Tom Smallwood and his journey from laid-off auto worker to professional bowler.
The pilot for the family sitcom was produced by David Hollander and Saginaw, MI native Brian d'Arcy James, and written by Mark Gross (Man with a Plan).
A story of the ultimate second chance, Smallwood tells of a Detroit assembly-line worker who, with the consent of his loving wife (Katie Lowes), decides to turn an unexpected layoff into a dream-fulfilling new job as a pro bowler.