Minutes after the USBC announced that it would not hold its 2011 Open Championships at the Walt Disney World complex in Florida, my trusty crystal ball came to life and started spitting out predictions. 1. The USBC will leave no stone unturned in an effort to move the 2011 Open to the Arlington, Texas, area. 2. The Florida economy is so bad that there is no guarantee that the proposed 100-lane center ....
Remember when even the professional bowlers only had a one-ball arsenal? Those days are gone forever and even the amateurs these days walk into the bowling center with inter-changeable sliding sole shoes and upwards of six balls. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan "the times they are a-changin'". What else is new in our bowling world? I can think of at least a half a dozen items…
Whenever I interview someone who has had an honor score or achieved some other form of bowling greatness, I always ask him or her for bowling goals. Usually the answer is "to keep bowling" or "an 800 series" or maybe "to get into a Hall of Fame." But someone once said to dream big, and that's exactly what Steve Pancoast, Hackettstown, did. "I wanted 50 by 50." Was he talking about adding on to his house? No. He wanted to post 50 games of 300 by the age of 50. It has happened, and Steve is not quite 49 yet.
Team USA's Lynda Barnes is widely considered one of the best bowlers in the world - male or female. So when she arrived to compete in the 2008 Columbia 300 Vienna Open, she was a little stunned to find out that even she would get eight pins a game handicap. Like all female participants in European Bowling Tour events, Barnes receives the customary eight-pin advantage each game, which adds up to 48 pins for each six-game qualifying block. After arriving in Vienna on Thursday, Barnes competed Friday in two squads attempting to overcome not only the lane conditions at Plus Bowling Center, but also jetlag.
For years, Jason Belmonte struggled with the burden of being a world-class bowler based in the distant country of Australia. When he got on the plane to travel to the 2008 Columbia 300 Vienna Open on Thursday, it took him just an hour and a half. Belmonte is adjusting to some big changes in his life. He recently moved to Nice, France, with his new wife, Kimberly. The result is the ability to quickly and easily bowl more tournaments in Europe, and he will now be able to compete more in the United States. Belmonte is one of nearly 300 bowlers from 28 countries competing this week at the 2008 Columbia 300 Vienna Open.
When Wolfgang Lohschmid and Helmut Amstätter (r-l) invested thousands of dollars into a new event called the Vienna Open in 2003, they were labeled as "crazy" by their friends in Austria. But their crazy, yet necessary, risk is finally starting to pay dividends. The Columbia 300 Vienna Open is now one of the biggest events on the European Bowling Tour, helping to raise Austria's profile as a bowling nation. This year's Vienna Open, which began Tuesday and concludes with Sunday's finals, is expected to draw 291 players from 28 countries to compete for a prize fund of more than 65,000 Euro, or about $90,000 in U.S. dollars.
Labor Day is a big holiday for tennis, football and bowling. Most Americans can't wait for the football season to kickoff right around Labor Day every year. Tennis players get charged up for U.S. Open with the final major tournament held each year during the Labor Day holiday and featuring saturation TV coverage for 13 days. But few people realize that with the arrival of Labor Day more than three million Americans head for bowling centers across the country for the start of the new league season. They still will be involved in league play long after the U.S. Open and football season are concluded.
Bowling's antiquated scoring rules hurting image of sport
Over the years, most sports have changed their rules or schedules to fit the changing times and technology. Major league baseball became popular through the World Series, in which the winner of the National League played the winner of the American League for the World Series title. And think about college and pro football. Before TV became so important, there were no such things as two-point conversions or sudden-death playoffs. And basketball had no three-point shots for many, many decades. So I see no reason why bowling shouldn't enter the 21st century rewrite its scoring manual.
Things I would like to see happen in the bowling industry next season: 1. The International Bowling Campus to be even more dazzling and energetic than the dreams of the visionaries who conceived it in the first place. 2. League bowlers to realize what a bargain USBC membership rates are when compared to tennis. The United States Tennis Association charges a $40 a year membership fee and all you get is ......
The astronomical price of gas is impacting virtually every walk or life and industry in America today. If you donut believe it, ask one of the exempt players on the PBA tour who drives to 20 bowling stops a year and may cover seven thousand miles. Or ask Fred Schreyer, Commissioner and CEO of the PBA. The PBA made a small profit last season, its first since three former Microsoft executives purchased the floundering organization in 2000. That minuscule profit margin could be erased just by the exploding price of diesel fuel that it will take to move the PBA's four 18-wheelers across the country during the 20-stop tour starting in October.
Modern coaching suggestions and technology confuse scientist who seeks patent on bionic bowlers
The word is filtering out that a bionic bowler is being created by a mad scientist who promises he can clone different parts of great bowlers. He has stolen PBA tapes and has been studying all the great bowlers in order to build the perfect bowler in time to enter him in the USBC Masters Tournament next year in Las Vegas. According to the best information, the mad scientist is planning to clone parts from today's stars and yesterday's greats. The information is sketchy at best, but my source says these are the bowlers being cloned:
Bowling finally made the 6 p.m. local news telecast in Orlando Monday night when the NBC affiliate announced that a 100-lane bowling center will be built at the Disney Sports Complex. If you don't live in Florida you probably don't know too much about the Disney Sports Complex but like everything else Disney does it is first class. And now they are going to add bowling. With a little luck in the form of bad weather for visitors to the regular Disney attractions, bowling could become the No. 1 year-round attraction at the sports complex.
Chasing Jeff Boje down for an interview is even more difficult than trying to catch up with Santa Claus on Christmas eve in order to ask Santa to deliver the present you almost forgot to buy for your spouse. But it can be done thanks to nation wide satellite tracking systems. I had only a couple questions to ask of Boje, who last month was reelected president of the United States Bowling Congress by the USBC Board of Directors. Being president of the USBC at this particular point in bowling's history is a difficult job, a job, a time consuming job and a thankless job where you are second guessed at every turn. Among the thankless jobs are talking to bowling writers.
Seven Inductees during USBC Hall of Fame Ceremonies in Kansas City entertain Delegates and Press
My old crystal ball has been going wild over the weekend urging me to give anyone 10-1 who odds wanted to bet that the Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum wouldn't be moving to Arlington, Texas, after today's meeting. The date of the Hall of Fame committee meeting in Arlington was announced as May 19 during the USBC Convention in Kansas City May 7-10. I fed all the information I knew and heard in Kansas City into my crystal ball and it came alive Sunday and announced .....
In this state the motto is "show me" before I will be a believer. The Clash of the Champions, the United States Bowling Congress Convention and a group of ladies showed them and no one who sat in on the happenings at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium went home a 'nonbeliever.' And in the process, hopefully bowling and bowlers showed the nation that bowling is a challenging and fun sport during two one-hour telecasts on the CBS network Saturday and Sunday.
The brochure says "Join the Action at the 2008 USBC Convention May 6-10 at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo." Then down in the right-hand corner is another message: "Be a part of the TV audience for Bowling's Clash of Champions." And that brings us to what may be the greatest show on earth when it comes to versatile bowling talent. The eight men and eight women TV contestants all are winners of USBC events in the past year from junior to senior to pros to amateurs."
The bowling membership organizations have faced some critical decisions at conventions between the time the ABC was founded in 1895 and the WIBC in 1916. In my book, the delegates decision to remove the word "WHITE" only from the membership eligibility rule in 1950 was the most traumatic and historic from bowling's popularity across America. Now comes the USBC Convention in Kansas City May 7-10, two months after the USBC Board of Directors voted to move the national bowling headquarters from Milwaukee to Arlington, Texas.
In his recent column "Youth Rule Needed", award-winning bowling writer Dick Evans asked the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) do a study to see if two-handed style is dangerous for young junior bowlers. Kegel's John Davis thinks this could be an interesting project. Australia's Jason Belmonte, one of the founders of the two-handed style refuses to take sides, while the parent of a two-handed youth bowler in Latvia defends the style and brings up interesting points for bowling parents worldwide to consider.
The playing environment of bowling today may be as complex, unpredictable and chaotic as any time in the history of the game. We're not talking about the weekly league or club game where the participants just want to have fun. We're talking about professionally maintained and controlled tournament environments where bowling sports people compete. This is the second in a series of articles that will try to shed some light on many of the variables in the current game of bowling.
USBC should do a study to see if two-handed style is dangerous for young junior bowlers
I thought I was a minority of one in believing that the USBC should do a study to investigate the impact of the two-handed delivery on the development of young bowlers until reading Bob Rea's column in the April issue of TenPin Alley and Colorado Bowler News. I originally began to think there might be a similarity between the two-handed bowling danger for youngsters and the curve ball ruling in Little League baseball.
Minutes after the USBC announced that it would not hold its 2011 Open Championships at the Walt Disney World complex in Florida, my trusty crystal ball came to life and started spitting out predictions.
Remember when even the professional bowlers only had a one-ball arsenal? Those days are gone forever and even the amateurs these days walk into the bowling center with inter-changeable sliding sole shoes and upwards of six balls. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan "the times they are a-changin'". What else is new in our bowling world? I can think of at least a half a dozen items…
Whenever I interview someone who has had an honor score or achieved some other form of bowling greatness, I always ask him or her for bowling goals. Usually the answer is "to keep bowling" or "an 800 series" or maybe "to get into a Hall of Fame." But someone once said to dream big, and that's exactly what Steve Pancoast, Hackettstown, did. "I wanted 50 by 50." Was he talking about adding on to his house? No. He wanted to post 50 games of 300 by the age of 50. It has happened, and Steve is not quite 49 yet. 
Team USA's Lynda Barnes is widely considered one of the best bowlers in the world - male or female. So when she arrived to compete in the 2008 Columbia 300 Vienna Open, she was a little stunned to find out that even she would get eight pins a game handicap. Like all female participants in European Bowling Tour events, Barnes receives the customary eight-pin advantage each game, which adds up to 48 pins for each six-game qualifying block. After arriving in Vienna on Thursday, Barnes competed Friday in two squads attempting to overcome not only the lane conditions at Plus Bowling Center, but also jetlag.
For years, Jason Belmonte struggled with the burden of being a world-class bowler based in the distant country of Australia. When he got on the plane to travel to the 2008 Columbia 300 Vienna Open on Thursday, it took him just an hour and a half. Belmonte is adjusting to some big changes in his life. He recently moved to Nice, France, with his new wife, Kimberly. The result is the ability to quickly and easily bowl more tournaments in Europe, and he will now be able to compete more in the United States. Belmonte is one of nearly 300 bowlers from 28 countries competing this week at the 2008 Columbia 300 Vienna Open. 
When Wolfgang Lohschmid and Helmut Amstätter (r-l) invested thousands of dollars into a new event called the Vienna Open in 2003, they were labeled as "crazy" by their friends in Austria. But their crazy, yet necessary, risk is finally starting to pay dividends. The Columbia 300 Vienna Open is now one of the biggest events on the European Bowling Tour, helping to raise Austria's profile as a bowling nation. This year's Vienna Open, which began Tuesday and concludes with Sunday's finals, is expected to draw 291 players from 28 countries to compete for a prize fund of more than 65,000 Euro, or about $90,000 in U.S. dollars.
The astronomical price of gas is impacting virtually every walk or life and industry in America today. If you donut believe it, ask one of the exempt players on the PBA tour who drives to 20 bowling stops a year and may cover seven thousand miles. Or ask Fred Schreyer, Commissioner and CEO of the PBA. The PBA made a small profit last season, its first since three former Microsoft executives purchased the floundering organization in 2000. That minuscule profit margin could be erased just by the exploding price of diesel fuel that it will take to move the PBA's four 18-wheelers across the country during the 20-stop tour starting in October.
The playing environment of bowling today may be as complex, unpredictable and chaotic as any time in the history of the game. We're not talking about the weekly league or club game where the participants just want to have fun. We're talking about professionally maintained and controlled tournament environments where bowling sports people compete. This is the second in a series of articles that will try to shed some light on many of the variables in the current game of bowling. 