Bowling Quote of the Day--4/30/10

"I used to only bowl in Sport leagues. Just by competing and seeing these types of patterns on a weekly basis, it helps. In my opinion, it helps with making better shots, making adjustments, reading lane transitions and ball selection. Sport Bowling has definitely contributed to my success as a bowler."
--Derek Eoff, former Team USA member who currently has the Open Singles lead in the Storm Bowlers Journal Championships

It amazes me how some bowlers are serious enough to travel hundreds if not thousands of miles and spend a small fortune to bowl in major tournaments such as the USBC Open and the Bowlers Journal Championships, yet, they not only are NOT serious enough to bowl sport leagues when they're offered in their house or area, but will definitely NOT bowl in them.

Just how do they expect to be competitive in big tournaments held on sport conditions unless they bowl a lot on these conditions before they bowl these tournaments?

Bowling Bytes--4/30/10

~ Will anyone ever surpass Walter Ray's career accomplishments? -- "It was once hard to believe that anyone would equal or overcome the late Earl Anthony's 43 National titles when his greatness was being witnessed. Hank Aaron's home run record once seemed insurmountable until Barry Bonds eclipsed it. Richard Petty's 200 career victories in NASCAR has stood for the better part of two decades now, and no one is even CLOSE to passing that milestone. I'm sure there are some other astounding records out there I'm leaving out. Having to account for some of the differences in the current version of the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour from years past, I am hard pressed to come up with any bowler who has a clear cut shot at taking down Walter Ray Williams Jr. and his 47 victories, or his career earnings record, for that matter..."

~ Bowling Manufacturers Set to Do Battle in GEICO PBA Team Shootout -- "Four of bowling’s leading ball manufacturing companies are going to do battle when Six Flags Great Adventure hosts the GEICO PBA Team Shootout in Jackson, N.J., June 11-12. ESPN will air the 15-segment series beginning June 27. For the fourth summer in a row, stars of the Professional Bowlers Association will don shorts and sunglasses, and bowl outdoors on specially-constructed lanes at Six Flags Great Adventure in a made-for-television team competition. The 2010 twist to the Baker team battle will feature Brunswick, Ebonite International, Storm Products and 900 Global – rival bowling ball manufacturers who have selected their own teams...The 2010 GEICO Team Shootout will use the Baker team format for all matches. In Baker team competition, five players bowl two frames each to complete a game. The Shootout will call for each team to face each of the other three teams twice in “home and away” matches. The “home team” in each match will select the lane conditioning pattern and finishing lane. The head-to-head matches will produce 12 half-hour shows.The standings after the round-robin matches will determine stepladder positions for the final three half-hour shows. The “championship round” will begin with the No. 4 team vs. No. 3. The winner will bowl the No. 2 seed. The championship will feature the semifinal match winner against the No. 1 seed. All matches will be contested on June 11 and 12, with June 13 as a “rain date.” The first two shows will air back-to-back on ESPN on Sunday, June 27, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern. The next four shows will air consecutively over a span of two hours on Saturday, July 3, at 1 p.m., followed by four more shows airing Sunday, July 4, also at 1 p.m. The series will wrap up with a five-show, two-and-a-half-hour finale on Sunday, July 11, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Eastern..."

~ Egypt's Mennat Soltan stuns favorites to win women's title in 12th Sinai Open -- "Mennat Soltan (pictured left) from Egypt was the surprise winner of the women's division in the 12th Sinai International Open Bowling Tournament while Shaker Al-Hassan cruised to the men's title from the top seeded position Thursday at the International Bowling Center in Cairo, Egypt. Soltan, who earned the No. 2 seed for the women's stepladder finals after averaging 223.63 in round robin, topped No. 4 seed, Cassie Staudinger, Australia, in a high-scoring semifinal, 258-236, and then flew past No. 1 seed, Zandra Aziela, Malaysia, in the title match, 278-212. Aziela's team mate, Shalin Zulkifli, seeded third, lost the opening match against Staudinger, 213-203. Soltan received $4,500 for the first-ever victory of an Egyptian woman in an international bowling tournament. Aziela pocketed $3,200 for second place. Staudinger got $2,200 for third and Zulkifli garnered $1,500 for fourth..."

~ World Championship winner, Tom Smallwood, joins Brunswick Pro Staff -- "Brunswick Bowling announced today that Tom Smallwood (pictured), rookie-bowler and 2009 Professional Bowlers Association World Championship winner, has joined its Pro Staff. Smallwood, who has three career PBA 300 games, finished the season tenth in points on the PBA Tour. As the fifth earner for the 2009-2010 season, he's earned more than $100,000. Thanks to his win at the PBA World Championship, Smallwood earned a two-year exemption on the tour and a chance to bowl in the PBA Tournament of Champions in January. Smallwood's story has been all over the news media from USA Today to Sports Illustrated to the Los Angeles Times. After a job loss prompted him to enter the PBA Tour Trials in Detroit, he finished third and earned a full-year exemption to bowl..."

~ Former Team USA member takes Open Singles lead at Bowlers Journal Championships -- "Former Team USA member Derek Eoff of Arlington, Texas, may be quiet and reserved in demeanor off the lanes, but while competing, his performance often speaks volumes, and he has evolved into the type of bowler people stop to watch. This week, the 29-year-old right-hander turned heads at the Storm Bowlers Journal Championships, presented by USBC, where he fired games of 258, 289 and 268 for an 815 series and added a 202 for a 1,017 four-game total, which moved him into the top spot in Open Singles. David Ewald of Macomb, Mich., previously held the lead with 992..."

~ The many benefits of league bowling -- "For those of you out there who have never bowled in an organized bowling league, you may have won-dered what it would be like to do so. You may have questions about what a league really is and how you would benefit from the experience if you joined one. The simple answer is that league bowling is a group of people getting together to bowl on a competitive basis. League bowlers consist of people of all age groups, all walks of life, and all levels of athletic skills..."

~ Harry Lippe (1952)

~ Assess Your Bowlers Learning Styles -- "How do you or your bowlers learn best? Are they an auditory, visual, kinesthetic, or a multimodal learner? As a coach, you have a responsibility to learn about your individual players' learning styles and needs to communicate most effectively. Use the following free learning styles assessment to help you be a better coach and to meet the needs of individual players. This will enable you to express and explain ideas more clearly to your athletes..."

~ Traditional vs. functional training methods: Which does the elite athlete choose? (Training Room: Mark Gerule & Paul Butcher--Bowling This Month, May 2010, pgs. 38-41) -- "Regardless of what level bowler you are, it is important to understand what fitness and conditioning program is best for you. By adhering to certain fundamental principles you can increase the possibility that your workout program will produce your desired gains. How will you know which conditioning regimen is best for you?...traditional training and functional training are the two main types of training methods seen in athletic centers today. The authors believe that both methods should be used by bowlers to get transfer of performance from the gym to the lanes. The percentage of traditional versus functional training performed is individually specific and is based on areas of deficiency..."

~ The case for limited layouts: There can be simplicity in choosing your arsenal (Smart Moves: Rob Mautner--Bowling This Month, May 2010, pgs. 48-51) -- "The Five Variables...Coverstock...Core Configuration, RG and Differential...Limiting Pin Positions...What to do with a tired bowling ball...How to choose pin positions....Once you have learned to limit the layouts of your bowling balls, ball selection becomes simply a matter of numbers for the ball purchases and lane changes dictated by transitioning oil."

Bowling Video of the Day--2010 USBC Queens Finals

Bowling Bytes--4/29/10

~ Kulick takes 2010 USBC Queens title -- "Kelly Kulick proved she could beat the men earlier this year and Wednesday she came out on top against a field of the top women bowlers in the world, earning her second United States Bowling Congress Queens title. The Union, N.J., native climbed the five-player stepladder, winning four consecutive matches, and defeating top seed Tennelle Milligan of Arlington, Texas, 232-188, to win the Queens at the El Paso Convention and Performing Arts Center..."

~ "Mt. St. Marshall": The man behind the volcano that was -- "The car fire that firefighters squelched outside the Hilton Inn Lounge in Akron, Ohio, just up the block from Riviera Lanes where the next day a 21-year-old Marshall Holman would win the first of his two Firestone Tournament of Champions titles, raised no one from their seats that night. “They had stayed in their seats while the fire department extinguished a pretty good car fire in the hotel driveway,” writer Doug Bradford observed of the bowling royalty mingling in the lounge. The figures crowding the lounge after a final round of match play that Friday night were characters that defined an irreplaceable era of professional bowling — Billy Hardwick in his “rainbow trousers,” Dick Weber with his “ice cream suit” and the peroxide-brightened hair that prompted Tour pals to dub him “The Blond Fonz,” Earl Anthony chatting with the Ebonite execs whose contract offer would soften his resistance to “PBA School” in a few years. If any of them thought back to that driveway fire after Holman sealed his historic win at the 1976 Firestone Tournament of Champions and considered it a sign of things to come, they would quickly find that they were on to something — something the PBA Tour had never seen before. The fire Holman brought to the lanes the following afternoon would do more than raise people out of their seats; it would raise hell..."

~ Minnesota team back on top at USBC Open Championships -- "After an uncharacteristically poor spare-shooting performance left them just shy of the Regular Team lead at the 2010 USBC Open Championships, the members of Linds Lakers 1 of Minneapolis easily could've lost their focus on the tournament lanes. Instead, the group turned to 124 years of Open Championships experience and averaged more than 226 during doubles and singles to take over the top spot in Team All-Events with a 10,187 total, the eighth-highest in tournament history. Red Carpet Lanes of Greenfield, Wis., previously held the lead with 10,131..."

~ Hall of Famer Nancy Chapman dies at age 80 -- "Nancy Chapman, a member of the United States Bowling Congress Hall of Fame, passed away Wednesday, April 28, at the age of 80. The Oneida, Wis., native was inducted into the Women's International Bowling Congress (now USBC) Hall of Fame for meritorious service in 2002..."

~ USBC Convention opens in Reno, Nev. -- "The 2010 United States Bowling Congress Convention and Annual Meeting takes place this week with a theme of "Moving Forward Together." This year's convention will feature workshops that will cover such topics as growing membership, coaching and future initiatives. At the USBC Annual Meeting, delegates will vote on 24 proposed amendments related to bylaws, league rules and tournament rules. Additionally, delegates will elect four members to the USBC Board of Directors..."

~ It's down to four women in 12th Sinai International Open -- "Zandra Aziela, Malaysia, Mennat Soltan, Egypt, Shalin Zulkifli, Malaysia, and Cassie Staudinger, Australia, will battle it out for the women's title in the 12th Sinai International Open Bowling Tournament Thursday at International Bowling Center in Cairo, Egypt..."

~ Michigan Bowlers: Take Your Last Puffs -- "Saturday, May 1, 2010 is the beginning of a smokeless Michigan. At least in public establishments. As a resident of and bowler in Michigan, this will be one of the best days of my life. Cigarette smoke has always bothered me, and I will not be sad to remove cigarettes from the classic bowling smell: cigarettes, oil, fried food, stale beer. Instead, I'll return home from the bowling alley with a new and improved bowling smell: the same as before, but without the most offensive of the aromas..."

~ Tommy Jones: The Interview, Pt. 2 -- "Yesterday Tommy Jones discussed last season's struggles and why he will return to the Professional Bowlers Association spotlight in 2009-'10. Today, Jones goes farther back to the days when he spent Saturdays dreaming of the glory that his idols Marshall Holman and Mark Roth owned when he was growing up, explains how he developed his high-rev style, why the mantra "straight is great" continues to hold true in the era of the "rev rate," and much more..."

~ A How-To For Adjusting Ball Speed: The Importance of Ball Speed Change and a Research-Based Method to Change It-- "Many bowlers arrive at the Kegel Training Center with a strong desire to increase their rev rate. These individuals perceive higher revolutions as a panacea or the ultimate solution for improving their game. Yet, in reality, the ability to manipulate axis of rotation and ball speed would result in being able to alter their ball motion significantly more..."

~ Analyzing the lane graphs of the Hoosier Classic: What the data reveals about how the lanes will play (Coaching the Youth Bowler: Dug Barker--Bowling This Month, May 2010, pgs. 21-25) -- "...One of the items every team discusses before competition begins is the lane graph and charts as they apply to the team. This is the subject of this article. I am going to provide an overview of lane graphs and charts from the perspective of a collegiate coach..."