Guest Author - Gary King

I have a hard time understanding why Professional Bowlers even bother to put up web sites. I also find it hard to understand why people like Fred Borden and other coaches even bother to make videos which are SUPPOSED to help people to learn to bowl better.

The reason I have a hard time understanding that is because I have an even harder time trying to obtain any of these videos. And to try to obtain any video put out by any professional bowler, coach, or whatever, to review or evaluate is an even harder task. So why do they put them out. I have been bowling quite a while myself and consider myself a pretty good bowler, and I taught myself how to bowl. I taught myself how to bowl because it either cost too much to buy ANY videos made by and about these people, or I absolutely could not find them.

I have visited some of the site of professional bowlers and coaches and after trying to get them to respond and to focus some attention on my requests, I finally gave up. It is absolutely not worth it and it. Many, if not, most of them are apathetic to what bowlers really want and need. If you are lucky enough to get a message back from them, it probably was sent by someone who works with them or for them and not from that person themselves.

Professional bowlers, men and women, are apathetic to the real concerns and needs of bowlers, in my opinion. I am a YABA Coach in Iowa City, Iowa and thanks to a friend of mine, who is NOT apathetic and who is really concerned for the YABA program and bowlers, I was able to get my hands on a couple of videos on bowling instruction and help. One of them was or is supposedly for women and it is really good. It covers fundamentals and mechanics that are great for both men and women and I feel it will really help me in my instruction for YABA bowlers, and also in my own bowling game. The other is also a good video and will help also. But I will not mention what they are and who the bowlers are who are featured on the videos, because my attempts to find out where I could obtain these videos and who created them were not successful.

I feel a professional bowler SHOULD possess the mentality and intelligence to be a good role model for bowlers in this nation, rather than becoming self-centered and putting themselves on a level where the average bowler could not reach them. So whatever happened to common sense, integrity, and the ability to know the difference between right and wrong in the professional bowler ranks. No wonder the PWBA broke up and maybe that is why USBC came into being. ABC and WIBC need to make some drastic changes in order for bowling to survive.

You can walk into many bowling centers when men's leagues are on and probably see cards with naked women on them being played as they do their betting thing. And you can talk until you are blue in the face about bowling needing to clean up their act. You will probably see mixed leagues with all male teams becoming more and more common because USBC simply cannot get its act together on the rules. In my opinion, all-male teams bowl in mixed leagues because they are not capable of winning in men's leagues. They absolutely are not good enough to beat the men, so they join mixed leagues where all-male teams are allowed (and there are a lot of those leagues) so they can have a better chance to win the league.

I used to love to watch the PBA and PWBA in action. But that was before I became a Bowling Host and started to find out just how some of them treat some of their fans and some who want to learn to become better bowlers. It gets even worse if you are someone like me -- a Bowling Host -- and we actually want to try to obtain a video or book or something on bowling. Then it becomes a journey in frustration and makes one realize that the DREAM WORLD of professional bowling is on a different level than what we are on. And think what it would be like if someone actually wanted an autograph. They would probably get an autographed picture made by a machine of someone who looked the pro.

In closing this little piece about apathy, I want to comment on something Walter Ray Williams said on one web site about cleaning his ball. He said he never cleans his bowling ball! I ask that anyone who read that statement or listens to a pro tell you that, to IGNORE it because cleaning your equipment is one of the best things you can do. I feel I might never have had my 300 games if I had not kept my equipment clean.

Good luck on your bowling and do your own thing. It is getting hard to learn from people who seem to be traveling down a road which is getting harder and harder to find.