When I was growing up in my small home town, bowling was the entertainment within the center of town outside of a couple of pizza places. There were no clubs, there were no movie theaters, and I wasn't old enough at ages 6 through 12 to play any organized sports, so bowling became the sport I was drawn to. Outside of the fact that my mother and father each bowled in 3 leagues during the week, so I would be down at the lanes 6 nights a week. My parents couldn't afford to buy an arsenal of bowling balls for me- so I learned on white dots and yellow dots for 12 years. My average steadily climbed to mid 180's as a result. My father put a premimum on spare shooting and I was not a bowler who normally put more than a double or triple together in a game, but covered 90% of my spares.

College increased my desire to learn more as I got the chance to bowl in all kinds of houses on all kinds of different lane conditions across Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina and Ohio to name a few of the states. Sometimes I would bowl well, other times I would stink up the place, but every experience remains in my playbook and you never know when that will come back in another league or tournament situation.

What I see today bowling with my daughter is more of an instant gratification situation. She bowls a 110 game (she's 10 and it's her first year bowling) and gets upset because someone else bowled a higher game (not factoring in the number of years that person has been bowling). She gets upset when I throw 250 games, not taking into account the fact that I've been bowling for 29 years. She figures she should be bowling better because she wants to see higher scores, without putting in the practice to learn about the game, lane conditions, her bowling style, etc.

Bowling is a lifelong commitment for us- and until another generation treats bowling as this same lifelong journey that we treat the sport as, we will see less people bowling leagues and more recreation bowling...

Matt