Hello to all,

So, I''ve been doing some contemplating as of late as to what I''m planning to be doing in my future, as most young people my age probably are.  As a quick aside I am 20 soon to be 21.  I started bowling at the age of 10, bowled my center''s junior program until I was 18, shooting my first 3 when I was 16.  Throughout my junior career, not only did I become a decent bowler, I also had a blast, made lots of new friends, and grew substantially as a person.  During my years as a youth bowler I became familiar with the general manager, who offered me a job when I was 16.  At first I was trained to simply clean up around the center, and shortly after that expanded to pinchasing, and servicing customers at the snack bar.  Being my first job I was ecstatic to make my own money and above all to receive free open bowling, which I''ll admit I abused at times  

When I was 17 I took the USBC level I certification class (which I paid for with my own money).  Shortly after completion of the class I was offered an opprotunity to co-coach a 4-6 child learn to bowl class that was being run through the local park district.  At first, it was a little overwhelming, but in the following years each subsequent class began to run smoother than the last, and I began to enjoy them more and more.  Over this several year period I probably worked with about 25-30 kids, but I wasn''t really making a conscious effort to draw kids into possibly bowling in our junior program.

In the past couple of years however, I''ve become more conscious of how the center has been struggling with a very grim finacial situation, but as we all know most centers used to be in much better financial shape.  From my perspective, and again this is only my opinion, the center got to where it is today  because of a neglect twords the building and retention of a fun and meaningful junior program.
When I was a ten year old there were approximately 200 kids in the program.  As of today there are around 60 kids.  For a large center with dwindling leagues it is very hard to meet the large overhead that comes with the constant upkeep of such a large building (40 lanes).

So back to the topic of coaching...

Since the more I coached the kids, the more enjoyed it, I decided to volunteer my time with the Saturady Morning junior program.  Luckily we have several other adults who volunteer their time every week as well to coach and help out.  I think it''s great that these people are helping and volunteering their time but when I started volunteering a few months back I noticed that the other coaches really weren''t as engaged as I would have liked (not that I have any authority, or want to tell people what to do), it just seemed like they had a hard time connecting with the younger kids, and half the time weren''t actively engaging in coaching the kids in between shots/frames.  

As I began to work with the kids, I soon realized that I enjoyed coaching and interacting with them even
more than I would have previously thought.  I soon realized that coaching and interacting with these kids was a blast, and it felt great to be a person they could not only look up to, but joke along with and have fun with as well.  

About a month ago a 12 year old boy was bowling with his father on a Sunday afternoon.  I introduced myself to them while they were bowling, and gave them a brief rundown of our junior program, and the many benefits of league bowling.  2 weeks ago I learned that this child had signed up for the Saturday Junior program, and he had a blast bowling his first day of league this past Saturday.

Back in January, shortly after I began volunteering with our saturday juniors, I felt inclined to try to form my own bumper league to help attract as many young kids (12 and under) to the great sport of bowling.  I worked up flyers that were then approved by management before being heavily distributed throughout the center and through mailers we send out to all the attendees of our birthday parties.  The league began this past monday.  Before the league first met I had receive 8 sign ups, which was minimum number I was hoping for, seeing as how you could do 4 teams of 2, across two pairs, so they could bowl different teams and it would constitute as a league.  

Well, I was hoping for 8, but I what I got was something better.  Much to my surprise I had a total of 16 kids show up with their parents for the first week.  It took a little while to get things up and running (as most first weeks of league usually do), but after we got teams made up it ran very smoothly and the kids all seemed to be having a lot of fun.  After briefly addressing lane safety, one of the first things I had my bowlers do was to come up with teams names.  The kids were ages 4 - 10, 10 boys, 6 girls.  The team names were as follows:

bowling boys, rockstars, showoffs, sharks, c&p, the bowling dogs, leaping leopards, and cinderalla''s horse.  

(just thought I''d share because kids always come up with the funniest and sometimes bizzare team names : D )

As far as the break down for the league goes, it''s 100% handicap, 2 kids to a team, 2 games, $6 a week, for 10 weeks.  At first $6 may not seem like a lot, but I had figured I had 16 kids bowling for 10 weeks, that''s $60 a child x 16 is over $900.  That was pretty cool when I thought about it, seeing as how it was money the center wouldn''t have seen had it not been for me taking the time to get it off the ground and ran.  

Anyways, I really enjoyed the first week, and I think what I liked the most was the ability, to essentially run the whole show.  To actively engage the kids we will be doing a different challenge each week to win items like free games or a free bowling t-shirt.  Some of these activities I have planned include, a red headpin week, a highest pins over average week, and a bowling trivia contest.  This following week I have also decided that I am going to be keeping the parents as involved as possible by giving them a weekly newsletter with little tidbits about the benefits of bowling, and the various scholarship opprotunities the usbc offers.

Hopefully the kids will enjoy the league and the over arching goal will be to attract as many kids into the usbc sanctioned saturday program as possible.

So now I''ll draw back to what I was kind of getting at in the beginning of my post.  As far as my "future" or present is concerned, I''m still a part time hourly employee at the center, and I''ve also been going to school full time at a local community college.  Although I am halfway to an associates degree, I dread going to school.  It''s not that I''m a dull student, it''s simply that I''ve been questioning for a very long time what I plan on doing to make a decent living in my future.  There in lies the problem.  It goes without saying that positions in a bowling center, even managment positions, tend to pay very poorly, sometimes it''s barely a liveable wage, however I''ve contemplated what I could see myself doing years down the line, and the only reoccuring images in my head are being a coach/promoter and day trading on the side.  

Now, neither of these are stable or decent paying professions.  Although I lack a lot of real world experience I know that you would be hard pressed to make a living, let alone just get by with this job title.  Many would call me foolish and overly optomistic to think that I will ever be able to muster any future as a bowling coach, and for the most part I would agree with them.  But there''s always this little part of me that wants to go full out to really help build junior bowling and hopefully help our center financially in the process.  

So yeah, I''m a lost soul who''s in dear need of some guidance by some level-headed adults who know that to make any sort of money you will need to finish school, and enter a profession that will pay the bills, but I guess as a young person it''s just in my blood to dream big, and completely ignore logic and reason.  

Meh.
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Edited on 2/26/2010 10:13 AM