If you are going to become truly great at anything in your life, the thing you will do the most is fail.
The USBC Queens is a tournament where you better show up with the understanding that failure is part of the deal. It is a tournament where you watch someone on a nearby pair win a match with a 550 series while you lose with a 720, where you crush the field in qualifying only to be sent to the contender's bracket after the opening round of match play.
USBC Hall of Famer Dana Miller-Mackie won the first leg of the Senior Women’s Triple Crown Series Thursday at The Orleans in Las Vegas, Nev., defeating fellow Hall of Famer Robin Romeo, 216-200 for the 2012 National Golden Ladies Classic title. This is Miller-Mackie’s second National Golden Ladies Classic title and the win earned her a top prize of $2,000. In the Super Senior Division of the event, Janine Ditch edged out Connie Palmer with a total pinfall of 2,855 over Palmer’s 2,795.
Alternative country music star Steve Earle does a popular tune called "I Ain't Ever Satisfied," and when you look at the career of USBC Hall of Famer Anne Marie Duggan and the things she has had to say about it over the years, you almost start to wonder if Earle had her in mind when he wrote it. Reporters who expected to find a gleeful Anne Marie after she bowled the first 300 game of her career at the 1983 LPBT Houston Classic, found instead a disgruntled bowler who could think only of the one Brooklyn strike she threw that game.
OnCenter Complex in Syracuse, N.Y., United States (April 22-27, 2011)
You might think the 15 weeks Diandra Asbaty had to prepare for the 2011 PBA Tournament of Champions after giving birth to her first child would be too little time. Then you look for her name in the tournament’s final standings and it hits you: This is no ordinary mother. Asbaty, a World Bowling Writers Hall of Famer and 13-time Team USA member, finished as the highest-cashing woman in the field, 16 places above defending champion Kelly Kulick and higher even than some of the top men in bowling today—Wes Malott, Patrick Allen, Rhino Page, Pete Weber.
OnCenter Complex in Syracuse, N.Y., United States (April 22-27, 2011)
Anyone who watched as it happened will not soon forget it. When Missy Parkin of Fullerton, Calif. took the approach in the 10th frame of her match against the sport's hottest hand in Kelly Kulick at the 2010 USBC Queens, she stood merely a mark and five pins away from moving one step closer to the women's title she has chased for years. "I don't think anybody wants it worse than she does," says her best friend and fellow pro Scott Norton. "She's been knocking on the door for years.
Physical education teacher's dream of revitalizing the lanes for his students comes true
Staff and students at Lakeview Elementary School always knew that history lurked in the building's basement. They just hadn't seen it for themselves. That "mystique" belongs to the bowling alley constructed inside the Mahopac, N.Y. school building's basement in 1937, when a group of locals scrounged up $50 each to fund the building of four lanes there. But for the past half-century, that history languished under the custodial debris of the storage closet that replaced it.
First, the good news: While I did not bowl a single 200 game my entire 17 weeks in the sport league I bowled before working with USBC Silver coach and five-time PBA titlist Bob Learn Jr., it took me just two games this time around.
In my first night of sport-league bowling since working with Bob, I shot a 213 in game two. After 17 straight weeks of failing to shoot 200 on sport shots, that 213 felt a bit like I had just struck oil while digging in my own front lawn. Now for the bad news: I still have a lot of work to do.
If you read my previous story on breaking free of the house condition mindset, you know me now as the hack who tried his luck on Sport Bowling patterns after 20 years in the delusional wilderness of house-shot leagues.
But it was not enough for me to confirm the pro shop banter I'd heard about how ignorant the typical house bowler tends to be of the chasm between "recreational" and "competitive" bowling. I wanted to know why. For answers, I turned to USBC Silver coach and five-time PBA titlist Bob Learn Jr.
A bowler can come to harbor many delusions over the course of 20 years in house shot leagues, but few compare to the delusion that I myself once entertained as a member of the same league as the great Bo Burton at Stuart Lanes in Stuart, Fla. in the 2004-2005 season. There, as I watched Bo rack up one 700 series after another and, on occasion, an 800 series, I almost believed that the discrepancy between the 214 average I myself recorded there and the 235 average that Burton maintained was merely a matter of 20 pins or so.
If you are going to become truly great at anything in your life, the thing you will do the most is fail.
The USBC Queens is a tournament where you better show up with the understanding that failure is part of the deal. It is a tournament where you watch someone on a nearby pair win a match with a 550 series while you lose with a 720, where you crush the field in qualifying only to be sent to the contender's bracket after the opening round of match play.
USBC Hall of Famer Dana Miller-Mackie won the first leg of the Senior Women’s Triple Crown Series Thursday at The Orleans in Las Vegas, Nev., defeating fellow Hall of Famer Robin Romeo, 216-200 for the 2012 National Golden Ladies Classic title. This is Miller-Mackie’s second National Golden Ladies Classic title and the win earned her a top prize of $2,000. In the Super Senior Division of the event, Janine Ditch edged out Connie Palmer with a total pinfall of 2,855 over Palmer’s 2,795.
Alternative country music star Steve Earle does a popular tune called "I Ain't Ever Satisfied," and when you look at the career of USBC Hall of Famer Anne Marie Duggan and the things she has had to say about it over the years, you almost start to wonder if Earle had her in mind when he wrote it. Reporters who expected to find a gleeful Anne Marie after she bowled the first 300 game of her career at the 1983 LPBT Houston Classic, found instead a disgruntled bowler who could think only of the one Brooklyn strike she threw that game.
You might think the 15 weeks Diandra Asbaty had to prepare for the 2011 PBA Tournament of Champions after giving birth to her first child would be too little time. Then you look for her name in the tournament’s final standings and it hits you: This is no ordinary mother. Asbaty, a World Bowling Writers Hall of Famer and 13-time Team USA member, finished as the highest-cashing woman in the field, 16 places above defending champion Kelly Kulick and higher even than some of the top men in bowling today—Wes Malott, Patrick Allen, Rhino Page, Pete Weber.
Anyone who watched as it happened will not soon forget it. When Missy Parkin of Fullerton, Calif. took the approach in the 10th frame of her match against the sport's hottest hand in Kelly Kulick at the 2010 USBC Queens, she stood merely a mark and five pins away from moving one step closer to the women's title she has chased for years. "I don't think anybody wants it worse than she does," says her best friend and fellow pro Scott Norton. "She's been knocking on the door for years.
Staff and students at Lakeview Elementary School always knew that history lurked in the building's basement. They just hadn't seen it for themselves. That "mystique" belongs to the bowling alley constructed inside the Mahopac, N.Y. school building's basement in 1937, when a group of locals scrounged up $50 each to fund the building of four lanes there. But for the past half-century, that history languished under the custodial debris of the storage closet that replaced it.
First, the good news: While I did not bowl a single 200 game my entire 17 weeks in the sport league I bowled before working with USBC Silver coach and five-time PBA titlist Bob Learn Jr., it took me just two games this time around.
In my first night of sport-league bowling since working with Bob, I shot a 213 in game two. After 17 straight weeks of failing to shoot 200 on sport shots, that 213 felt a bit like I had just struck oil while digging in my own front lawn. Now for the bad news: I still have a lot of work to do.
If you read my previous story on breaking free of the house condition mindset, you know me now as the hack who tried his luck on Sport Bowling patterns after 20 years in the delusional wilderness of house-shot leagues.
But it was not enough for me to confirm the pro shop banter I'd heard about how ignorant the typical house bowler tends to be of the chasm between "recreational" and "competitive" bowling. I wanted to know why. For answers, I turned to USBC Silver coach and five-time PBA titlist Bob Learn Jr.
A bowler can come to harbor many delusions over the course of 20 years in house shot leagues, but few compare to the delusion that I myself once entertained as a member of the same league as the great Bo Burton at Stuart Lanes in Stuart, Fla. in the 2004-2005 season. There, as I watched Bo rack up one 700 series after another and, on occasion, an 800 series, I almost believed that the discrepancy between the 214 average I myself recorded there and the 235 average that Burton maintained was merely a matter of 20 pins or so.
