PBA's 50th Anniversary By Dick Evans

The Professional Bowlers Associations needs somebody like the late Marilyn Monroe to sing happy birthday to the 50-year-old organization in order for the PBA to receive world-wide publicity like President Kennedy did many years ago.

That's right friends, the upstart bowling organization that Akron attorney Eddie Elias conceived in 1958 is 50 years old but no one seems to be impressed or even interested.

There has been no big Golden Anniversary celebration announced to the best of my knowledge.

What a shame.

Eddie Elias, who died 10 years ago, catapulted the PBA into international prominence and probably did more for the prestige of the sport of bowling than any man or woman in history.

And the apple of his eye and heart was the Firestone Tournament of Champions, which Elias inaugurated in 1965 and with his unique touch of class turned into one of the showcase sporting events in the country.

It was the final event on the winter tour and since only champions were invited it was a very exclusive club of old and new champions each year. More important, the citizens of Akron and Firestone officials made the players, sponsors and even the press feel like they were part of the biggest sporting event in the world.

The Miami Herald once took an unscientific survey of which famous sporting event readers liked to watch on TV the most and believe it or not the Firestone Tournament of Championship finished second in the voting behind the Super Bowl. That poll included other sporting events like the Masters, Kentucky Derby, World Series, NBA Championship, etc.

In 1969 I covered my first of 26 consecutive Tournament of Champions before the PBA started moving the event around the country.

The 42nd PBA Tournament of Champions was held Jan. 23-27 (2007) in Las Vegas at the beautiful new Red Rock Hotel/Casino/Bowling Center.

I covered the event and can say without any doubt that the Red Rock Lanes, the latest in a growing line of exquisite Las Vegas hotel-connected bowling centers, was much more luxurious than the antiquated Riviera Lanes, where the bulk of the old Tournament of Champions was contested.

Still, I missed the bowling excitement Akron generated, the great press room that never has been duplicated and the presence of Eddie Elias – a true sports icon with his original TV sponsorships concept.

So before the 2008 Masters I decided to contact Peggy Elias, Eddie's wife, to pick her brain about how her husband felt about the Tournament of Champions.

This is what she had to say from her home in Akron:

"Eddie looked forward to the Firestone Tournament of Champions because it was the culmination and climax of all prior tournaments that season. Only the 'best of the best' got to come to the Firestone. It was the 'Super Bowl' of Bowling," Peggy Elias said of her husband who also represented major entertainment and sports figures.

"This Firestone championship brought in sixty to eighty press reporters from all over the world who gave the PBA great coverage. This was the tournament that brought the Bowling World together. Sponsors, and potential sponsors, convened.

"The PBA received tremendous coverage from the local newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal. Almost every facet of the Bowling World came and were welcomed, not only at the tournament, but at a special dinner for the men (often at the exclusive Firestone Country Club) and a lovely dinner for the wives. Everyone was greeted with respect and appreciation for coming.

"Proof that the 'Firestone Tournament of Champions' always will be a great part of the PBA history is because anytime bowlers or people get together who had attended one of the Firestone Tournaments, they talk about how great it was for the PBA and what it meant to bowling."


In this age when the PBA is often snubbed by the media and given terrible TV time slots by ESPN, its hard to imagine the respect that the bowling tour commanded for about a quarter of a century starting in about 1970.

ABC-TV was getting astronomical 8.5 ratings for its traditional 3:30 p.m. Saturday time slot and the Associated Press and United Press International were filing two stories daily that were being used in almost every daily newspapers across the country.

Overall, bowling in general has improved greatly over the past 50 years, but nothing comes close to the old Firestone Tournament of Champions and its saturation newspaper and TV coverage.

And no one in bowling has come close to being as a dynamic force in the business and television world as the late Eddie Elias.

Ironically, he was not a bowler...just an extraordinary man who loved bowling and his PBA members.


Email address: Evans121@aol.com.