Why Tommy Jones or Norm Duke and Not Walter Ray Williams Jr.?

I complained sometime back about Walter Ray Williams Jr. being dropped by Track bowling equipment after only one mediocre season following his record-setting seventh Player of the Year season. Track later informed me that Williams wasn't so much flat out dropped as he and Track were unable to come to terms on a new contract.

In other words, Walter required more than Track was willing to offer. I expressed doubt that he asked for more than he received the previous season, but I opined that he still deserved to receive as much as he did before on the strength of his amazingly long and successful career.

Someone recently posted a very thoughtful comment about this that I'd like to repost here, because I think it may go far in explaining why Walter Ray is not as popular with ball manufacturers as other, far less successful players have been:

I've always wondered about this, I mean WRW Jr. has had a bunch of ball sponsors over the years. I personally feel that he's G.O.A.T., but I suspect it's his winning style that may have cost him a bit in this area. Bear with me...

If a bowler is winning, and dominant, it doesn't much matter *how* they get it done, they're going to get offers from sponsors. In business though, it's not so much what you've done, but "what you've done lately".

Now, I've seen WRW hook the lane, but his general approach is "straighter is greater" and he tends to play down and in without a lot of hook. Watching him bowl, it looks like he could win with any manufacturer's ball, and he probably could.

I think the ball companies are more likely to want to sponsor bowlers with more ball motion. People at home see Sean Rash, Wes Malott, Jason Belmonte, Pete Weber, Tommy Jones, Jason Couch, Chris Barnes, Bill O'Neal, Michael Fagan and a bunch of the other guys roll various equipment and think "if I get that same ball I can make it roll like he does!" Meanwhile, Walter Ray's rev rate is probably a lot closer to a typical house bowler (about identical to mine, I think!)

I don't know, I could be way off-base but I think this is one reason WRW Jr goes from sponsor to sponsor. One below-par (for HIM!) season and he's just not the marketing draw some of the other guys are, despite the fact that his style, while not as flashy as a high-rev player, helped him become the greatest-of-all-time (or among the top three, at the very least!)

Me, I'm hoping he wins multiple titles next year, all with different brands of bowling balls, whichever is working the best that week... that would be great.

As I said, I think there may be a lot of truth to this comment. Ball manufacturers know that what appeals to a broad segment of their market is not tremendous accuracy and consistency but overwhelming POWER. They want to see balls rev like a buzzsaw, hook like crazy, and explode the pins like an atom bomb.

Walter Ray's relatively straight, low rev ball doesn't do any of that. Yes, it generates one of the highest carry percentages on tour, and he's almost superhumanly accurate and consistent with it, but that's not good enough. The ball needs to roll and strike in a flashy way. Then power-obsessed bowlers looking to buy their next ball can see a Jason Belmonte or Tommy Jones blast the pins with a manufacturer's equipment and consciously or subconsciously say to themselves: "If I get one of those balls, maybe it'll work like that for me too."

However, as I indicted in my reply to the reply above, I doubt that this is the full explanation of why Walter Ray has difficulty staying with a ball company. After all, Norm Duke, as indisputably great as he is, doesn't throw any more ball than Walter Ray and he's won far fewer titles, but, if I'm not mistaken, he's been with Storm for many years. Why is that?

I surmise that there's something about Norm's personality compared to Walter's that has a lot to do with it. Walter seems like a fairly shy, reclusive, and cerebral guy, and that just doesn't attract fans the way a more outgoing and outwardly passionate Norm Duke does.

I guess it doesn't do any good to complain about human nature and what people find and don't find attractive insofar as bowling releases and personalities are concerned. But I still think it's too darn bad that the most successful bowler by far in the history of the PBA Tour can't keep a ball sponsor or receive the respect from fans and the industry that he clearly deserves.

Update on Track and Walter Ray Williams Jr.

Yesterday, I posted an entry to my blog that criticized Track for not renewing Walter Ray Williams Jr's contract with the company. I had just learned about it here, and I was angry that the most accomplished player in PBA history was, in my opinion, being treated so shabbily. I also posted some rather scathing comments to Track's Facebook wall.

I expected Track to delete my comments as soon as they discovered them. But, to their considerable credit, not only did they leave my comments up, but they even replied to them this morning. This is what they graciously wrote:

It is true that Walter is no longer on the Track staff. We will miss him as a part of our team. With out going into details, he was offered a Track contract but he declined and decided to move on. We respect his decision and wish him the best of luck. And congrats on a great win.

I still don't know all the details. I don't know what kind of deal Track offered Walter to re-sign with them. I can't imagine that Walter asked for more than he received last season, given his struggles last season, but I also can't blame him if he asked for the same amount that he received previously, given his remarkable lifetime accomplishments.

Like I said, I don't know all the details. But what I do know is that I should have waited until I at least gave Track a chance to respond to my inquiries before I criticized them on this blog. Had I waited until I received the reply I did this morning, it would have tempered what I had to say about them.

I still think that Walter Ray Williams is the Rodney Dangerfield of bowling. He don't get no respect. Or, at least, he's not accorded the respect he deserves for all that he's accomplished on the lanes and for, so far as I know, his exemplary conduct off the lanes.

I hope he continues to bowl well on the senior tour and comes out like gangbusters next fall and has another great season on the regular tour. And I hope that some ball company signs him after offering him what he truly deserves.

Click here to read an interesting story on Track's website that announced the signing of Walter Ray prior to last season. One thing that stood out in the story was that Walter's previous ball company, 900 Global, "did not offer to renew my contract at the end of the season." Now this, mind you, was after Walter Ray had just won Player of the Year for a record-setting seventh time on the regular PBA Tour. But, not knowing more about this, I won't make the same mistake I did yesterday and jump to conclusions about what happened here.

Why Did Track Not Re-Sign Walter Ray, and What Does This Say About Them, the Bowling Industry, and Bowling Fans?

I just read an article--Fairytale will continue for Walter Ray, no matter what--online that has me fuming. Now maybe I'm jumping the gun on writing this. Maybe I should take a few deep breaths, recite my mantram, and give my raging emotions a chance to settle and myself more time to check my facts before I fly off half-cocked.

Nah. "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore." Well, I will restrain myself from saying all that I want to say, but I won't hold back from saying anything at all about this travesty.

The article I read said Walter Ray Williams Jr.--yes, the guy who has won more national PBA titles, earned more PBA prize money, garnered more PBA Tour Player of the Year awards, bowled more times on television, and on and on and on than any other bowler alive or dead, and who recently bowled great for Team USA in the PABCON Championships, just won a national PBA Senior title after placing high in the other senior tournaments this season, and whose game seems to be coming back into its own after stumbling for a mere few months in the wake of hernia surgery and a major grip change to his bowling equipment--was dropped from the staff of Track bowling equipment when his contract came up for renewal, and no other company has picked him up.

I've been saying here for a long time that Walter Ray Williams Jr. has NEVER gotten the respect he fully deserves. Not from the fans and not from the bowling industry. He is arguably the greatest bowler in the history of the PBA. He is arguably the greatest bowler who ever lived. At age 50, he won PBA Player of the Year and led every major PBA statistical category in the 2009-2010 season. Then he went out and won his first PBA Senior tournament. And then, because he struggled during the few brief months of an abbreviated PBA season in 2010-2011, he was discarded like a bag of garbage?

Maybe I don't know all the facts. Maybe there's more to Track not re-signing him than I realize. But if it's simply a matter of them dropping this superstar of the bowling firmament because of one sub-par bowling season, then shame on them, shame on the other companies for not a one of them grabbing him up, and shame on the bowling industry in general for not giving this incredible athlete his due.

I posted about this on Track's Facebook wall. As of now, my comments are still up there, and a couple of people have replied to my outrage. One guy wrote: "Yes he is a legend but it is a business and in an economy where exposure means sales sometimes there has to be cuts made."

He's right. Bowling IS a business where "exposure" DOES "mean sales." But I believe that if bowling is the kind of business that caters to fans so fickle that the great Walter Ray Williams' endorsement of a line of bowling balls means nothing to them because he had one off season, and bowling is the kind of business where its powers-that-be are ready to "cut" their greatest star from endorsing their products after one comparatively bad season, despite the reasons for that sub-par performance and signs that he would rebound from it, then I have ample reason to be all the more dubious of bowling's integrity and its future.