Observations and Irritations

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Observations and Irritations
September 2004

Where oh Where have the bowlers all gone??

Ah, Fall the time of promise of a bright new season. The time when you look ahead and see that you have approximately 90 chances to achieve perfection if you only join one league and bowl in no tournaments, which would not be too shocking seeing the amount of support give local and state tournaments in the state. This bodes the question why do so many good bowlers NOT participate in tournaments when they come to town?

I think the reasons can be broken down into a few categories but for the sake of time and the 12 loans I am working on this morning I will condense it into three: Don't Know, Don't want to, and our old favorite can't compete against Sandbagging.

Seeing as I am left handed and everyone says that I am backwards and wrong handed I will start in reverse order.

I have written in countless articles about sandbagging and how it is cheating and blah, blah, blah, and I know you get tired of hearing about it, but now I want to point out the negative effect it has on participation and ultimately the prize funds. I have been told on numerous occasions you can't stop sandbagging, and I strongly disagree but to do it you have to take a stand. You can stop it if you are the tournament director by re-rating the people you know are doing it deliberately. I have asked many bowlers that I consider good bowlers or exceptional bowlers why the do not bowl in tournaments, and I have been told "you can't compete with the sandbaggers". If that is your only reason, then you should bowl in more tournaments or at least show up more. Ultimately, you are competing at a disadvantage, but it is not always the sandbagger who wins. I have watched on many occasions as people I know that are 20 pins or better than their average bowlers run away with a tournament laugh all the way to the bank. Where was the tournament director? Why weren't they re-rated? The answer the directors did not want to lose the entry, but by allowing this to continue the tournaments develop the reputation for being a "sandbagger tournament" and thus lose participation from honest bowlers. The person you let bowl because you because you were scared of losing his/her entry and hurting his/her feelings is hurting your reputation and your participation in this tournament and any future tournaments you might hold. Take a stand let it be known sandbagging will NOT be tolerated and all averages are subject to re-rate. I want to distinguish something here that I feel is important and worth noting. I am not saying that all low averages for good players is deliberate, there are circumstances that cause people's average to be lower, but you should not be rewarded for bowling poorly due to those circumstances. If you bowl in a difficult center where the lanes are old and everyone there struggles, recognize that and know that you are going to face being re-rated. If you were injured for part if the season and struggled recognize that and know that you are going to face re-rating. Don't get mad about it, no one is going to re-rate you 40 or 50 pins that is unreasonable, but if you come in the door with a reputation for bowling in a lot of scratch only tournaments or a cavalier attitude of no one is going to re-rate me, you deserve to be re-rated. A tournament director can make or break his own tournament by letting it be known that "sandbagging" will not be tolerated, and I promise you, this will increase participation in your tournaments from some scratch bowlers but mostly from the true low average bowlers. After all when it comes down to it they are the ones who are hurt the most. As you know most of the scratch bowlers in Birmingham don't bowl in many tournaments anyway. Which brings me to my next reason, "They just don't want to."

I love this reason, because it makes absolutely no sense to me. On many occasions I have looked out over the lanes at a Magic City Tournament or a Stan's Classic Tournament "wondered, where are the bowlers?" I use these 2 examples because they run the most tournaments locally other than Vlad Harvey and he is getting most of the next paragraph.
You go out every week three nights in some cases and bowl average 200 or in some cases 220 or better but yet you never bowl in tournaments? Why do you bowl so much? Is it the fellowship? Is it the cold beer or getting away from your spouse? Why will you not bowl in local and regional tournaments? The response I get, "I just didn't want to". HUH? Ok, now I know some tournaments cost a lot of money i.e. The High Roller or even the Southern Match Game and I am not saying a word about anyone who can't afford or saving to buy a house, etc. No, I am talking about the people who go out every night in league pay their money to bowl and then get in the brackets anywhere from 5-10 a night. Why will you support your local tournaments? It's 3-4 hours out of the house for $65.00 and you could win $1,000. Now I know some people are very serious and they bowl in some tournament almost every weekend and they bowl here when they can, people like Chuck Maher, if there is a tournament nearby that pays well, odds are you are going to see Chuck there instead of here. I don't think I have ever heard him say he just didn't want to. "They don't want to" I personally just don't understand, the only thing I can think of these people have the mentality of its just something I do for fun or its just a game. Right that's why you practice 20 games a week. Feel free to voice your complaints or responses to my email dchammer@charter.net. The final reason I hear is one that has some merit is "I don't know when or where the tournaments are." At the end of this column I will introduce you to a new monthly segment of my column: "Tournaments for the Month".

This summer I discovered a nice little sweeper on Monday night at Holiday that I strongly encourage all local bowlers to check out. It is run by Val Harvey and Calvin Kindall Jr. It is 4 games, there are optional side events but it only cost $35.00 and first place normally paid at least $290.00. Why did it pay so little you may ask? Was Val keeping a large portion of money for himself? No, not at all the first place was so small because he usually only had a bout 16 entries. Now that's not good, but what's worse is that 3 of the bowlers there almost every night were from Rodney Graves from Huntsville, Robert Atkins of Montgomery and forgive me, Jeff Johnson Sr. I know you told me but I forgot what area in you live but it was at least an hour's drive. Where were the Birmingham bowlers? A lot of people did not know about the tournament. It's a pity because it was well run, quick payout and no one could complain about sandbagging because it was scratch. This is just one tournament where participation is low and it should not be. I am going to do my part to keep you informed. First off monthly I will provide a link in my article to a website that gives details about tournaments in the southeast (http://bowling300.com/tournamentse.htm). Second, I will tell you about the local tournaments that are occurring in the month of the article. Last, I will be glad to help you in anyway promote your tournament if you have a link send it to me.

In conclusion, let's support our local tournaments by participating, and showing our appreciation for the men and women who take the time and money to put the tournaments together. The competition and the opportunity to win a nice little check at the end of the day should be enough incentive for you to want to participate, not to mention the fun and fellowship.

Today is the final day of voting and I will be getting with Mr. Pirani to get the final tabulations, and I will have a "Special Edition" sometime next week, but I felt this was an article that needed to be written, and hopefully will open some eyes and help build participation for future tournaments.

Until next time…Support the tournaments we do have, they might not always be around.

Tournaments this Month:

http://bowling300.com/tournamentse.htm

Hammertime(Handicap) September 11 Plamor Huntsville Contact Ron or Bobby 256-539-2785

The Step Ladder (Old Magic City Format Handicap and Scratch) September 25-26 Vestavia Bowl
Contact Val Harvey (205) 854-9909

Don is a Birmingham bowler. If you have any story suggestions, please submit to Don at dchammer@charter.net

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