Okay, now that I vented...
Love the question Rantings! Now on to my answer...
I do believe we need new leadership in our sport, but not in the way that the others are proposing. We have several models already in place of what works, and also models of what doesn't work. In the words of a good friend of mine, success can be duplicated. So can failure. Take all the bean counters, kick their arses out of that office with the lakeside view and put them in a bowling center for 3 months. Let them observe the every day goings on of a successfull bowling center. Tell them to ask questions. Then send that bean counter back to his employer (maybe AMF) and have him tell the big whigs what he saw!
Again, this isn't like learning how to do brain surgery or how to do calculus without a pen or piece of paper. This is basic stuff.
What we need is teachers. Teachers and people who can get over their egos and actually learn something that they don't already know!!! The BPAA is a pretty cool orginzation that has already started with this idea, from what I can tell. Strike Ten and other bowling promotional tools are great too. But none of it works IF...that's the key word, if if if if if if if. You can run all sorts of promotions, go out and work the public into a bowling frenzy all day, but IF you don't know how to treat people, how to keep your machines running, how to use your new phoenix oil machine, and how to clean up after a Friday night open bowling party when people spill beer, food and everything else on the floor that you can think of, then none of it amounts to a whole helluva lot!
Too many bowling centers are too laid back, and just give very poor service. I live in Michigan (THE bowling state) and would say about 80% of centers are guilty of this outside of the Detroit area. And inside metro Detroit, still too many centers are also guilty of that.
In the next 25 years, who is going to be around? ME!!! That's who. Are you???
We have the knowledge right at our fingertips (no pun intended). All we have to do is look out and see what is possible, and then duplicate it. This idea that a centralized, even corporatized body is going to save our sport from sinking any deeper really scares me. Please think about what you are saying. Let us use our own facilities (brains) to further our cause. And sharing our ideas in awesome forums like this is how we learn from one another.
Ok, I'm tired now. Maybe I'm getting a little sappy, but I've definitely lost my train of thought. Great thread Rantings.
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Brian
MichiganBowling.com
http://www.MichiganBowling.comFamous Last Words of a Pot Bowler--"Ok, but this is my last game!"
