The age-old question of whether bowling is a sport, recreation or business may finally have been definitively answered June 27-July 1 at International Bowl Expo 2010 in Las Vegas. After years of arguing that it had to be one or the other, it was apparent to the thousands in attendance that bowling indeed is all of them together. And that seemed okay to the many experts there. So with all the talk about the sport, recreation and business of bowling
all being good, where does the industry go from here?
First, the good news: While I did not bowl a single 200 game my entire 17 weeks in the sport league I bowled before working with USBC Silver coach and five-time PBA titlist Bob Learn Jr., it took me just two games this time around.
In my first night of sport-league bowling since working with Bob, I shot a 213 in game two. After 17 straight weeks of failing to shoot 200 on sport shots, that 213 felt a bit like I had just struck oil while digging in my own front lawn. Now for the bad news: I still have a lot of work to do.
I've noticed that the newest buzzword among young people is "Seriously?" That means something like "Are you kidding me? Really?" I have to say that describes my feelings about something that came out of the bowling world recently and still has me perplexed. Nine "celebrities" attached in some way to bowling were nominated for the Bowling Proprietors Association of America (BPAA) Celebrity Hall of Fame. This year, voting was opened up to the general public, and pop singers Taylor Swift has been named as the newest inductee, class of 2011. Seriously?
Country music star Taylor Swift edged out pop singer Justin Bieber to become the 2010 inductee into the Celebrity Bowling Hall of Fame. Swift earned 613,324 of the nearly 1.3 million votes cast during the past month on gobowling.com. Bieber finished with 608,015 votes. "In many ways Taylor Swift perfectly represents the current face of bowling, especially as the sport enjoys unprecedented growth in popularity among youth, women and young adults," said BPAA Executive Director Steve Johnson
If you read my previous story on breaking free of the house condition mindset, you know me now as the hack who tried his luck on Sport Bowling patterns after 20 years in the delusional wilderness of house-shot leagues.
But it was not enough for me to confirm the pro shop banter I'd heard about how ignorant the typical house bowler tends to be of the chasm between "recreational" and "competitive" bowling. I wanted to know why. For answers, I turned to USBC Silver coach and five-time PBA titlist Bob Learn Jr.
National Bowling Week returns in 2010 with a familiar goal but an earlier date. For the third straight year, the goal is to set a world record for most games bowled in a 24-hour period. With a high of 741,821 games recorded in 2009, NBW organizers hoping to top one million games this year on Saturday, Aug. 7. This year's version, with a theme of "Bowling: More Fun Than Ever,"
begins July 31. 
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dick Evans, an award winning writer for both The Miami Herald and Daytona Beach News-Journal, died Sunday, July 4th, at the age of 78. Evans was the first daily newspaper reporter inducted into the Professional Bowlers Association's Hall of Fame in 1986 and also the American Bowling Congress' Hall of Fame in 1992. Evans, despite serving as a judge for 10 years when he was not eligible to enter stories, won a record 60 plus Bowling Magazine writing awards.
While Sarah Palin (r.) was the biggest name to appear at International Bowl Expo in Las Vegas, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate took a back seat to an announcement made minutes after finishing her keynote address Wednesday morning. Palin learned of the return of the U.S. Women's Open in 2011 presented by the brands of Ebonite International.
Happy Independence Day! I am back from the 2010 Bowl Expo and annual Bowling Writers Association of America (BWAA) Board and general membership meetings. For me, this trip is akin to country music fans going to Fanfare in Nashville annually. As the proverbial kid in the candy store, I hardly knew where to start. This year was exceptional as two of New Jersey's "favorite sons," Tom Martino (right, Majestic Lanes, Hopelawn) and Johnny Petraglia (left, multi-hall of famer, Jackson) received top honors.
Whether you agree with her political views or not, Sarah Palin knows how to tailor a speech to her audience. Wednesday morning at the International Bowl Expo in Las Vegas, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee (center) came well prepared to talk to a group of bowling center owners and industry leaders. "You are an audience full of fellow sports enthusiasts, that's how I view all of you," she said. "I grew up in a family of sportsmen.
The bowling industry's biggest annual gathering - International Bowl Expo 2010 - is on the horizon and the Bowling Examiner will be there to provide first-hand coverage. This year's event, which carries a theme of "The Best Is Yet to Come," will officially begin Monday at the Las Vegas Convention Center and Las Vegas Hilton and run through Thursday. The estimated 5,000 attendees will have plenty of chances to learn the
latest about the sport, recreation and industry. 
Since covering the first of more than 200 PBA tournaments starting in 1964, I firmly have believed the Professional Bowlers Association is the best thing ever to happen to the Bowling Proprietors Association of America. As the Saturday afternoon ratings for the ninety-minute live Saturday afternoon PBA tour stop on the ABC-TV network grew to an amazing 8.5 million viewers, so did membership in the ABC and WIBC plus the BPAA. The PBA helped fill bowling centers, especially on Sundays and at no cost to the BPAA.
A bowler can come to harbor many delusions over the course of 20 years in house shot leagues, but few compare to the delusion that I myself once entertained as a member of the same league as the great Bo Burton at Stuart Lanes in Stuart, Fla. in the 2004-2005 season. There, as I watched Bo rack up one 700 series after another and, on occasion, an 800 series, I almost believed that the discrepancy between the 214 average I myself recorded there and the 235 average that Burton maintained was merely a matter of 20 pins or so.
Jeff Bojé (r.) delivered the most inspirational speech I have ever heard at Bowl Expo when he was elected president of the BPAA during the 2004 convention in Las Vegas. Since Bojé's term as BPAA president was over and he had idle seconds in his life, he ran for USBC president and the board elected him to the position. His term ends Aug. 1 and he will preside over his final USBC convention April 27-May 1 in Reno, Nev.
When reading about USBC's recent quest to coach the two-handed style of bowling, I could not help but think back to some articles that were shared about the early days of the ABC and how the leaders of the time governed the game. In those very early times of governance, when the game was still being defined at a rapid pace, a new crop of hotshot bowlers came into vogue because some of the more ingenious players figured out how to make exotic bowling balls and use them to their advantage. Those early high tech balls were known then as 'dodo balls' and the players that used them were called 'dodo bowlers.'