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Monday, February 23, 2009
BOWLING, BOWLING AND MORE BOWLINGYou wanted bowling, so here’s some bowling. On Sunday, February 22, the PBA conducted its first plastic
ball-only throwback tournament. As many of you know, I write a weekly TV recap for the PBA (click here to read this week’s). So how appropriate that on the same day, the junior bowling club (the prestigious Junior Amateur
Tour aka JAT) in which I grew up competing back when plastic was still a viable strike ball option would hold its annual alumni
tournament? Despite the work/play scheduling conflict, I just had to attend (plus, with DVR, I could always do the recap later,
right? Where were these things back when I was in school?!)
For those of you not familiar with the JAT, it is located
out here on the West Coast (Southern California to be exact) and it is one of the top junior bowling clubs in the nation.
The club has produced some of the greatest bowlers in PBA history, including, but not limited to: Barry Asher, Mark Baker,
Randy Pedersen, George Branham III and Robert Smith. It’s tournament director, a fellow bowler from my generation named
David Yamauchi, has continued to keep the tradition of the club alive for over a decade following the retirement of the club’s
founder, Mickey Colletti. The club still gets a few dozen bowlers to come out for every event (although the turnout is a bit
lower than it was during my days back in the late ‘80’s/early ‘90’s) and, judging from what I saw
today, is still churning out some serious talent (see for yourself at the club’s youtube page here).
The format of the tournament was five games qualifying, followed by five games of round robin match play (with
bonus pins) and then a top-five stepladder rolloff. As I did last year, I was expecting to bowl my five games, shoot the breeze
with some of my fellow bowlers, and drive back home to change diapers and watch the Oscars. After three games, my plan was
working. In game one I stopped practicing after about five minutes, only to find that the lanes had changed about 10 boards
during the five remaining minutes of practice. I shot 178. I followed that up with a 204 and a 220 and was plus 2 with two
games to go. Safely behind the projected cut line.
The last two games, I just wanted to win a sidepot so I could
go home with something in my pocket and maybe stop on the way for some Burger King. My 258 in game four just missed winning
the loot and then, in game five, which featured a SUPER SIDEPOT, I left a solid 7-pin in the 11th (like the one Chris Barnes
left a few weeks back on TV) for 247, which also was just short. As I was cheerfully talking to my old JAT friends after the
block, I was informed that I had (gasp!) qualified for the match play finals in 10th place! I thought, “Oh great, I
get to destroy my thumb and the rest of my body and watch guys who actually bowl more than three games a week stomp on my
guts for five more games. Sweet!”
So, with no time to grab a bite to eat (in the old days, I remember a break
at least long enough for my buddy Robert Smith to gobble down 13 Taco Bell tacos before making the pins run for the border
during the afternoon set…and yes, 13) I put my shoes on and started my penance. After a ho-hum 213 that I luckily won,
I drew local 6-gamer monster Steve Guerrieri (who was coming off a win the day before in a huge 10-gamer at Cal Bowl) and
expected my beating to begin. Instead, I carried every imaginable weak-pocket hit for a 279 and held off his 245. I then grinded
my way through a 206-180 win, then won with another 215 before finding out that, somehow, I was in 1st place heading into
the position round match. WTH?! How did this happen?! My poor thumb was saying, “Please just lead the tournament so
you only have to bowl one more game! I don’t think I can take much more of this torture!” I shot 245 in the position
round and won that game, which made me the top qualifier for the stepladder finals, otherwise known as that silly thing that
was made for TV but tournaments still insist on doing it for non-televised events to punish the guy who already won the tournament
once and now has to win it again in a crapshoot of a one-game match. OK, sorry, now I’m starting to sound like Walter
Ray. But he does have a point.
The waiting game began as I watched my fellow competitors (some very good players
were in attendance, including perennial Team USA’er David Haynes, PBA West Region stalwarts Jon Brandon, Mason Sherman
and Zack Jellsey and many others) duel it out for the right to face me (to bowl most tournament leaders its usually a privilege,
but when its me, its really more of a right). As the semifinal match drew to a close, I decided to throw a couple warm-up
shots…mostly to make sure that the second dose of Advil had kicked in. Bad mistake. The second shot tore open a chunk
of skin on the lower inside of my thumb about the size of my eyeball (click here for a picture….not for the faint of heart).
Blister aside, there will be no excuses in this column, however,
for if Tiger Woods can win golf’s U.S. Open with a BROKEN FREAKIN’ LEG, then I should surely have been able to
win a JAT Alumni Tournament with an iddy biddy blister on my thumb. My opponent in this gladiator throw down was none other
than Jon Diso, who happens to be the very last person I ever bowled against in juniors before moving on to the adult ranks
at the age of 17. Judging by the look in his eye, he was no doubt looking for revenge for that prior defeat at my hands. Either
that or he may have spilled his three-dollar soda during the semifinal match, I’m not sure which.
We both
bowled pretty well in the title match, considering our age-challenged-ness. I started with a three-bagger, followed by a spare,
then two more strikes and another spare. Jon started with a double, spare, five-bagger, then left a nasty 4-9 split in the
8th. I got up and threw a double in the 8th and 9th to ensure that Jon couldn’t shut me out in the 10th. Jon threw a
great shot in the 9th and another in the 10th, but left a 4-pin on the latter. He converted and struck for a very respectable
225. I just needed a mark to win. Since I’d tripped a four pin on that lane the previous shot, I decided to move one
board left and try to keep it tight (I was playing just left of 6th arrow with a Blue Pulse…remember that relic?...so
needless to say, they were hooking a touch). I thought I’d thrown a decent shot but it pushed a little too much and
left a 2-5. I decided to hook it at the spare and moved seven right with my feet, keeping my target in the same place. I threw
it exactly where I was looking but the ball checked up a little early and cruelly took the 2-pin clean off the 5 like a dog
taking meat off a chicken bone. 223. Loo-hoo-ser-herrr. Congratulations Mr. Diso. You are now the official JAT Alumni Champion
and you now have your long-awaited vengeance, my friend.
But, if I had won, and had they given me the opportunity
to deliver a victory speech, here is what I would have said:
“I just want to thank the JAT for making me
the person I am today. JAT is where I first learned the most important life lessons: the importance of having a dream, of
building confidence through competition, and of the value of hard work to achieve success in something you love. I am very
proud of the fact that I am a part of the JAT’s history and tradition and the juniors of today should be proud of that
as well. Just to be in the club, you have reached a level of excellence of which you should be proud, and your reaching it
should inspire you to be able to reach that level of success in anything it is that you choose to do in your life. And it
is very important for each of us who have been a part of that tradition to always continue to give back so that future generations
of juniors will have the same opportunities to compete and build friendships that we’ve had.”
Yeah.
That’s what I would have said if I’d won. And if the bowling center wouldn’t have hustled us off the lanes
so they could squeeze in a few more birthday parties and open play lines before Sunday was up. That’s what I would have
said. Hopefully I can keep my word and make it a point to visit the JAT a little more often than just the once a year that
I have lately. Hopefully some of my friends will join me too, because it would be a great shame to lose something that has
meant so much to me and countless other junior bowlers over its four-decade history.
See you next week!
Contact me at: jason@jasonthomasbowling.com
Click here to check out a new interview with Jason Thomas about his book “Livin' The Dream: How to Get What You Want, Find
True Meaning and Save the World by Bowling!” To purchase a copy of the book, click here.
Click here to read “Jason’s TV Recap - Uncensored” on PBA.com.
To check out the latest episode of The Bowling
Show click here.
2:58 am 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. 
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