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Monday, November 3, 2008
Score More?Two blogs ago I wrote briefly of my experience bowling the Ventura County Masters Tournament...where I averaged
240 for nine games and didn't qualify for the top eight in a field of just 45. To say that the emails I received from
bowling purists contained a lot of outrage would be like saying people were sad when JFK and MLK were assassinated. A bit
of an understatement. But, surprisingly, it didn't bother me too much.
You see, my way of thinking on the matter
is that scores are purely relative. That is, I believe that over time, no matter what the scoring pace, the cream will rise
to the top. So to me it doesn't really matter if it takes a 260 average or a 190 average to win a tournament. A win is
a win is a win. But it is very apparent that a lot of people do care and I find it very fascinating to think about why (which
is probably why my wife and I don't talk about bowling much).
The first year I worked for the PBA, a good young
bowler named Nick Hoagland also came to work for the PBA. About eight of us from the office decided to join a summer league
that first year. I had just come off of bowling a winter league with Chris Peters, which was the first league I had bowled
in about four years. I was shocked to find how easily I was able to average 230 in that league (especially after not having
bowled in so long and not ever practicing once throughout the entire league season) and my mind was forced to recalibrate
exactly what a good league average actually was in this new world of explosive reactive resin bowling balls. Going into that
summer league, I thought a 230 average would be decent. Nick, however, proved that even my new way of thinking wasn't
even close to what was possible for an excellent bowler on league conditions.
After averaging just under 260 for
the summer (I averaged 230+) Nick blew away my perceptions of what was possible and forced me to raise the bar in my mind
for what a good league average had become. Later that year, Bryon Smith also shattered this perception, as we decided to run
a pro-am promotion where Bryon would travel around to a few local bowling centers in the Seattle area on league nights to
entice people to bowl the Pro-Am for the Seattle PBA stop. He averaged more than 260 for his twelve games over four visits,
bowling on a different pair every game while chatting up the PBA with the league bowlers.
Now, almost eight years
later, I guess my mind still hasn't caught up with the fact that it is possible to average 260 for an extended period
of time. I am amazed that people can do this on a regular basis and that I still consistently fall short. I think that is
the problem for a lot of us bowling purists out there. It is difficult for us to accept that 260 is out there for us to get
at times. Probably, that is why a lot of us have been frustrated by bowling and have decided to quit or to greatly scale back
our participation. We don't believe we can average 260 so therefore we don't think we have a chance so therefore we
decide not to participate.
Lately, I've been working hard to build up the self-belief that it is possible for
me to average 260 for a limited period of time in tournaments or league play. My philosophy is that if you can dream it and
you believe in your ability to accomplish it, you can do it. If you fall short, then you assess what you need to do to get
there and you put in the hard work to improve (which usually is more like fun since its something you like to do so much).
If that's not enough, you keep going until you either accomplish your goal, you keep trying in order to pursue your goal
or you reach your limits to the point where the pursuit is no longer enjoyable (which is a glorious thing because you've
found out exactly how good you are which then dissolves any regrets you might have had about how good you could have been).
Part of this (the part you need to follow in order to remain sane) is accepting the reality of what the current situation
is and adjusting your plans accordingly.
And that reality is that at certain times, on certain conditions, it is
possible to average 260 for a period of time... even for an entire league season (by Jeff Carter) or an entire tournament
(by countless good local bowlers). You can either choose to accept this and continue to pursue this goal as what you need
to do to be the best under those conditions or fall into any number of degrees of non-acceptance (complaining, quitting, encouraging
others to quit, etc.) There are now a growing number of other options out there for competitive bowlers to play on more difficult
conditions (most specifically, the fast-spreading PBA Experience leagues and tournaments), so, for the benefit of the sport,
I say let's stop allowing ourselves to spread negative feelings about the scoring environment to others, be thankful that
there are still any tournaments to bowl at all and help encourage others to participate so that competitive bowling will grow.
Or as former PBA CEO Steve Miller used to say (at least ten times a day) to myself, Mr. Hoagland and our fellow PBA employees,
"It is what it is."
And for those of you who were hoping to read something a little more fun this week,
be sure to check out my new feature ("Jason's TV Recap") over on PBA.com.
See you next week!
Jason Thomas,
jason@jasonthomasbowling.com
1:42 pm est
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LIVIN' THE DREAM:
How
to get what you want, find true meaning and save the world by bowling!
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Q:
What is the book about?
A: The book is about how the valuable
lessons I learned through my lifelong involvement in bowling saved my life and transformed me from an unhappy cynic into a
blissfully happy optimist.
Q: What made you decide to write it?
A: I had been out of the bowling industry for about two years and I had hit a very low point in my attitude about
life. Through the help of a family member, I was able to rediscover the important lessons about success, spirituality and
connecting with others. I was so excited about this transformation that I decided to write a book that attempts to detail
the metamorphosis while outlining the important lessons I remembered.
Q: How is this
book different from other self-help books?
A: The book is different in a number
of ways. First, I am a very unlikely person to have written a self-help book. If you had known me before I'd written the book,
you'd know precisely what I mean. But that fact alone reveals how strongly I felt about writing it, because I knew that if
I could change for the better, then I felt anyone could do it and that there was a good chance that I could help a lot of
people by describing the process and arranging the pieces in a way that could be easily understood.
The
other key point of difference is the way the book is arranged. The story is structured into three parts, The Method, Some
Cool Tricks and For the Hard-Core Cynics, each of which contain the important lessons I wanted to share. Every chapter is
also broken up with a narrative of my personal story, told for the purpose of detailing my amazing attitude transformation.
It begins with the extremely low point when others felt the need to reach out to help me to remember the important things
in life and goes on to detail the many people that helped me to learn the most important life lessons, including: my childhood
friend Robert Smith, my father (a former President of Disneyland International), PBA Chairman Chris Peters and former PBA
CEO Steve Miller.
Q: Is the book as funny as your blogs?
A: Yes! But there is also a serious side too.
Q: How is your book different from
something like The Secret?
A: My book is similar to The Secret
in that it proposes a method for success, but it is different in a number of ways. First, it is a bit more practical when
it comes to outlining the method for achieving success. The Secret comes very close to describing a similar method
for success in its "Ask, Believe, Receive" mantra. In my book, the first two of these elements ("Ask"
and "Believe") are integral (although I call them "Dream" and "Self-Belief"), but I believe
there has to be some proactive work done to achieve the goal. I call it hard work (which turns a lot of people off, of course)
but to use the model of The Secret, you would simply replace the word "Receive" with "Retrieve."
The best part of all this (and the good news for the folks who don't want to have to work hard) is that once you decide on
what you want and then you begin to believe you can get it, the work is no longer hard, but becomes a fun activity that fills
your days with joy and purpose.
Second, my book spends a significant amount of time discussing
how to deal with your success once you've attained it (and that conducting yourself in this manner before
you reach your goals will actually help you get there even faster). Probably the best way to describe my
book is that it's a cross between The Secret and the late Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture.
But I also quote a number of more research-driven books like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Sam Harris' The
End of Faith and Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate to help me make my point.
Q: Do you have to be a bowler to like this book?
A: Absolutely
not! Bowling obviously plays a major role (although it really serves more as the setting rather than as the primary focal
point) because of my involvement with the sport my whole life. But the lessons bowling taught me are lessons I could have
learned if I had chosen to be a golfer or a doctor or a writer (oops, I guess that one's a bad example now). My hope is that
the book will find its way into the hands of people who don't bowl and that these people will come away with a new appreciation
for bowlers and the sport of bowling.
Q: What is your goal with the book?
A: That is a simple one. To help as many people as possible to experience the gift of embracing an optimistic way
of life and to help them reap its many rewards. 
