Three of my teammates got behind more than two weeks on there fees. The league treasure told them that the could bowl and told them that they had until April 30 to catch everything up. They caught up and we won this quarter and made the roll offs by 2 points.

A team filed a protest, saying we should forfeit all points earned by our team while the players were more than two weeks down.  The league president has sided with them, took our points and says he is calling a meeting for a vote on whether our team will be given credit for the points won by the two guys on the team who were current.

I understand that the local rule is that if you are more than two weeks behind, you are not allowed to bowl and you forfeit your point. However, the treasure has always been given leeway on letting people pay and get caught up.

There is no written rule about the team losing the points of the bowlers that are current so they are trying to make one up to keep us out of the rolloff. What would you do, short of kickin the treasure to sleep? 

Is there a USBC Rule that will help us out on this?

I see your point and you appear to be correct .. Thanks!

By way of update, after being told by the treasure that he told all teams that were behind that they could have to April 30 to get caught up, and that he actually sent out a memo saying that, the league voted 12-10 not to count our points of April 19.  The treasure acknowledged that we were not the only team that had been behind, but that the other teams points were counted.

We pointed out that there were mitigating circumstances, i.e. that we had been misled by a league officer, and that other teams points had been counted during the course of the year. We also pointed out that the protest was untimely. We bowled April 19. The protest was not made until April 30. USBC Rules require that a protest during the last two weeks be made within 72 hours of the infraction. Clearly, this protest was untimely.

The President told the members that he had contacte someone at th USBC and they told him that they would  overturn any decision taking away our points based on the foregoing reasons. He actually encouraged them to vote to let the points stand as awarded to us. That way, they would not have to re-bowl after the USBC ruled. They still voted against us so we filed a protest.

Needless to say, a lot of the people in the league do not like our team. We have 2 scratch bowlers, a female that avgs 204 and a guy that averages 206. One of the scratch bowlers is one of the best in the state, the second guy placed third in all events this year. All are capable of 700 plus series. 

Now there are a few lessons learned in this topic.

Make an effort to pay your money each week. That's the agreement you made when you signed up for the league.

If there are rules about losing points due to not paying, then abide by them. Don't go around trying to get someone to bend the rules for you.

If you do find that one person (whatever league officer it is) willing to bend the rules then make sure all league officers know of it (Next step, it probably goes to the board for a vote). This makes sure that everyone is notified.

Remember, this is YOUR ISSUE, not the bowling center, not the league, and especially not the league officers.

If everyone would following the rules upfront, then none of this garbage would happen at the end of the season.