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Author Topic: How strict do you want the USBC to be?  (Read 2310 times)

DanH78

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How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« on: January 01, 2005, 04:36:29 PM »
We officially have a new governing body, and hopefully some new ideas to go along with it.  Back in the day, if someone shot an honor score, the ABC would come out and inspect the lanes, yada yada yada, and either approve the score, or if the lane conditions, or the ball, were deemed illegal, deny the award.  

Well, bowlers were shooting "honor" scores on lanes that were ridiculously illegal, being denied, and instead of complaining to the management of the bowling center for putting out an illegal shot, they complained to the ABC stating that it wasn't their fault that conditions were illegal and they should get the award anyways.  The bowlers basically said if they couldn't get awards, then they wouldn't pay to be sanctioned.  So the ABC said if this is what our members want, we will no longer deny honor scores based on lane conditions.

The best example I can think of is Glenn Alison.  Personally, I think this was the best decision the ABC ever made.  Yes, he is a greatly talented bowler, who threw 36 terrific shots, BUT he shot the score on illegal lane conditions.  Yet, I hear the same people complaining about how easy lane conditions are, saying that Mr. Alison should have gotten credit for the score.

So what do YOU want?  If you shoot an honor score and it got denied due to illegal conditions, who would you complain to?

(I know the post is a little long, thanks for reading)
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nd300

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2005, 12:50:31 AM »
I think what is needed is to have the rules enforced. If your league has a rule then it's up to the league officers to enforce it. If no local rule exists,then follow the Rule Book------NO EXCEPTIONS FOR FRIENDS,BUDDIES,RELATIVES,ETC.
 If the local assn. officers won't support this,then they need to step aside and let people get into these offices who will do the job they're being asked to do by accepting the office.
 For example,one secretary let a young man bowl an entire season wothout paying one red cent to do so. When it came time at the end of the year to hand out the prize money is when we were told this,so instead of getting a nice chunk of change back for finishing 2nd in the league we each got back 10$ per man!!!!!!! Talk about pissed!!!!!!!! A complaint was filed with the local asociation,and was tabled at the Assn meeting and never brought up to be heard again!!!!! That same secretary was elected to the local Hall Of Fame for---get this---exemplary service!!!!!!!!!!!
 

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nd300

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2005, 01:15:00 AM »
Amen HiJack..................
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Chris

Bill Thomas

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2005, 09:28:52 AM »
The problem with the explosion of honor scores is not illegal conditions nor the enforcement of the current lane dressing specifications.  The problem is that ABC yielded to bowler and proprietor pressure and established specifications that legalized lane blocking.  Combine that with virtually no specifications to control the "hook-in-a-box" balls and you have a sport that has been turned into a farce.  The only hope is that USBC will develop the cajones to bring integrity back into the sport.  But I wouldn't bet on that happening since the new leader of USBC, Roger Dalkin, admitted in the last edition of Bowlers Journal that he knew the System of Bowling 3 unit rule was not good but supported it anyway.

pin-chaser

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2005, 05:13:18 PM »
Having been in my prime during the time of honor scores being denied and having more denied than I have sanctioned, I will tell you I want there to be validation for scores. There is NO recognition of the difference between a 300 shot on a THS or on a non oiled condition and yet the skills required to achieve them are far different.

I was not present that night when Glen Allison shot his 900... but talking with those that were there and bowling, I understand the lanes were not all that easy and he had a couple brooklyns. Allie Brant had the record for many years 887... using a two finger balll (thumb and ring drilled conventional) on laquer conditions. The night the budwiesers shot 3858 again there was not this technology as today.. but none the less those that I talked (from the team) said it was easy... on laquer. And now, a bowler shoots 900 and gets credit for it while pre-bowling without anyone watching.

The bottom line is that if you are lucky enough to shot something you should be recoginzed for it. But there should be a limit to the amount of "help" you should get. And for the centers that break those limits they should be fined by ABC and if they are hibitual they should be banned from sanction.

If bowling is going to survive, new gorverning body or not, some level of integrity must be implemented. It would not be to terribly difficult to have more clearly defined and regulated rules. The money they are saving (1.5Million) by joining organizations could do more than line the pockets of those that are at the top. But I suspect it will be status quo as the leaders at the top are the same ones that were at the top of each respective seperate organization anyway. New blood with new agendas are required to make change.
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Tex

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2005, 07:09:27 PM »
The USBC will make no difference in the way rules are enforced, period. The enforcement of most rules did and still will fall on the local associations and most will not change at all. Due to some of the crazy junk that USBC decided to require to combine local associations, many may not combine now.

To the question of what I wish would happen. I would start with a wish that the rules we have now were enforced as written. First point, the local association does not call to let the center know when they will be there to inspect. This is the policy in our area and others from those I have talked with over the years. I would like to go further and have the lane conditions rules stiffened at least a little, maybe a reasonable ratio. I would also like to see associations allowed to be joined together under more reasonable guidelines. The reason it took as long to create the USBC as it did was the lack of rules control by the delegates (associations), we just missed a lopehole that let the national decide what would be required to combine. (When I talk about combining I am talking Men,Women and Youth.) As far as balls, things were tightened a little a couple years ago and ball companies just found other ways of creating what bowlers want.

What I think will happen is nothing in the near future. In fact during the learning process of being under one roof, maybe less than normal. Might in the shortrun be one step forward and two steps back. I know last year the convention was all about USBC, this year will be all about what USBC means, so two years of potential progress have been lost. If you figure the last couple years have been all about selling USBC to have it fail, then pass, then, well you get the idea. We may have lost 4 or 5 years with no meaningful progress.

9andaWiggle

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2005, 10:53:23 AM »
quote:
I have been bowling on dead walls for 20 years, and never started shooting boat loads of award scores until they reactive resin balls hit the market.


I think they need to set a cap on ball tech., and set new guidelines that will make the pins harder to knock down in the future (through heavier weights and/orlowering the center of gravity on the pin).  Again, this is something that would have to be phased in over a few years, but I think it would be a good beginning to minimize the advances in ball tech.
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Edited on 1/3/2005 11:53 AM
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Urethane Game

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2005, 11:38:14 AM »
I agree with Bob.  There have always been easy scoring houses but hitting the pocket, like today, was no guarantee you would strike.  Reactive equipment will still hit even if you miss-hit, drop it, or bounce it off of your butt on the backswing.

There was actually a Sports Illustrated article about Glenn Allison's feat and subsequent rejection.  His son mentioned in the article that the score was denied not because of build up in the middle but too much oil out.  While it was a violation, there was no advantage gained by the condition.

I would encourage all of the younger players to bowl a set or two with a white dot and see how difficult it is to get a plastic ball to hit on 36 consecutive shots.

As for the new USBC, I hope they will build on the Sport Bowling concept and perhaps offer another level of competitive standards between Sport Bowling and the China.
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janderson

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2005, 05:10:21 PM »
I would like the USBC to take the changeover opportunity to rewrite or remove some of the reactive rules (such as the one regarding foreign substances on shoes) to be more definitive/proactive.

The whole "it's only illegal if someone complains about it" smacks too much of rule by a tyrannical minority.

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MichiganBowling

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2005, 10:15:13 AM »
While I agree with everyone here, there is only one problem with all of these new rules on ball specs and lane oiling procedures that we want to happen.  When the number of sanctioned league bowlers drop the 2nd year nearly in half, the bowling centers will stop sanctioning their leagues and USBC will soon become a tiny organization.  Bowlers will either quit in droves or centers will pull their sanctions.  It really is that simple.

This is why I like the sport bowling sanction that is available, and why I think they need another sanction somewhere in between.  Let's call it a "competitive sanction" or something to that extent.  Limit the oil pattern to 4-1, or even 5-1 would be better than the 20-1 ratios we see now.  Let's slowly but surely implement the ball limitations in both sport bowling and competitive bowling.  This way, those that want bumper bowling can still be sanctioned and USBC won't lose their precious memberships and centers will not lose their bowlers.

On top of all of that, we need to have no jackpots available and hardly any money to win in the regular sanctioning, let's call that bumper sanctioning.  hahaha.  All of the sponsors should be in the higher two tiers of sanctioning.  This gets people to WANT to bowl on the tougher conditions and WANT to get better!!!  Isn't this what sports are all about?
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DanH78

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2005, 10:45:40 AM »
Brian, that's the point I was trying to get across.  The governing body tries to enforce rules, and the members quit, the governing body gives in and eases up on some enforcement, and the members quit.  

So what do we do?

Half the bowlers complain about lane conditions being too easy, and bowling balls being too powerful, the other half complain about the conditions being too hard and equipment not being powerful enough.  

So what do we do?

Bowlers complain that the governing body isn't doing a good job but they won't attend local or national meetings to get involved and help to facilitate change.(waiting for response of "The local guys are a good ol boys club who don't want any new members")
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MichiganBowling

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #11 on: January 04, 2005, 10:58:33 AM »
Ya Dan, it's a pretty sad state.  I think we just need more leaders to get more people to step out of the box.
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Brian
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Pinbuster

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #12 on: January 04, 2005, 11:13:27 AM »
The sad part is that only 10%, at most, think the game is too easy and scores are too high.

The others either want to be deluded into thinking they are better than they are and/or are ignorant of how lane conditions make scoring easier and/or their games are un-affected by lane conditions.

Conditions need to be stiffened for all sanctioned play (other than sport leagues which can remain at current levels). But because of the onerous reporting in sport conditions few houses are willing to do this for even one or two leagues let alone all the leagues.

If you leave it up to the proprietors to comply they will cheat to boost scores. They done it in the past and I see no reason for them not to in the future.

In fact even with the current liberal conditions allowed I would wager half the houses in our area do not apply a 3 unit minimum.

I wish I knew an answer to the dilemma but I’m afraid we are stuck with what we’ve got.  

In answer to the original post, the USBC should enforce the rules as written. And hopefully once settled in they will consider stiffening the rules on lane conditioning and ball performance.

Reality Check

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #13 on: January 07, 2005, 06:18:03 AM »
I think the idea of catagorizing lane conditions is a good one, and should be applied across the board worldwide. Perhaps they could even create some standard patterns in each level, much like the PBA has done, so that proprietors don't have to stick to just one type of lane condition, and can vary the conditions for different leagues or tournaments without moving outside of "Gold" level. Leagues and tournaments can then be advertised as being "Gold Level - Pattern A" or the like. This might also help to convince some bowlers to try out a tournament or two more, if they can see that the tournament they are going to play is on the same pattern as their league.
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Tex

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Re: How strict do you want the USBC to be?
« Reply #14 on: January 07, 2005, 09:33:57 PM »
Add my name to the list for the GOld, SIlver and Bronze levels. Excellent idea. To make it work though we need to make it easier on the centers to support the leagues and maybe some incentive for them to have at least one league of each level. Not sure how to create the incentive, but maybe reduced sanctioning costs or something. I also think the thought of the set patterns similar to PBA, but fitting the level would be fantastic.

One idea I put forth to ABC several years ago to consider was simply changing the base of the pins. Remember the Gold pins. The base had a tighter radius on the edges, thus harder to topple over. The balance was also a little lower to assist this area. This would be one area that over just a couple years every center would naturally comply with. No pin lasts forever and all replacement pins would be made by the new rules. They would still be light enough for a 6 pound ball to knock over, but you would have to hit them to get them more often. Who knows,might help with some of the strange carry you get sometimes that works against you instead of for you.