"Bowling Blind"

Bowl Long Island

Ebonite Monday Open

Well apparently, I've got a lot to learn...

This is not meant to be formal or sarcastic because when it comes to bowling in general, the line between sarcasm and formality is blurred greatly only because I have always tried to live by the mantra to not take yourself too seriously. The ability to laugh at yourself is greatly appreciated among friends, family, and your enemies. If you can laugh at yourself the list of enemies is much much shorter unless they are totally unresponsive to anything. Last night was the case that you can laugh at yourself and you have an unresponsive opponent and the adage comes out that someone was looking for trouble.

For some oversight, lets get into what happened last night at the 'Patch. The Ebonite Monday Open league at BLI is a split season (two 18 week sessions) with each half having a winner as well as an End Of Season overall champion to the team that had accrued the most points at season's end. This was week 15 and the league is getting into "money time" where position round matches are coming one after another for the last few weeks of the half to determine who the first half champion is. My team going into last night's play was in 4th place and with a great late season charge can actually win the thing. My teammates are Billy Shannon and Mike Boble, who were very good players in high school for Commack in the early part of the decade and won two Suffolk County titles in high school. That would make them familiar with winning along with myself who won two state championships in high school, two conference championships in college and 3 all-event wins in college for William Paterson. Do we have Walter Ray's resume...? Hell, no. Have we had our share of team success? Yes we have, just not as a collective unit. Andohbytheway...we are a 3 man team in a 4 person league. Yes, in an open league where there is no cap on team averages in a highly competitive league, we have been bowling with a vacant bowler at the top averaging a consistent, yet uninspiring 160 and despite all of that we have still found our way to the top 4 of the league.

After sneaking out the first game by 14 pins, we won the second game by 57 pins giving us a 71 pin lead in total wood heading into the last match. Another win against a team over us in the standings would be huge in that the march actually winning the league would now be a 3 team race. With that being said, every pin is important in head to head match play for points each week. I had an uninspiring 204 the first game while my opponent, fellow left hander Mike Angelus shot 249. I snuck out a one pin win in game two over Mike A. but was still down roughly 50 in count to win my series point. The last game was really never in question as Mike B. and I came out striking. Mike A. was staying close with me with strikes...and then the 7th frame came into play. Billy caught a light mixer after his match play opponent opened and he gave it a slap out. Unlike Billy to do it but a nice break after his opponent gave him an opening. Mike B. then struck and then Mike A. finally gave me an opening to get back into the series point by leaving the 3-7-9. I was working off the first six and this shot was going to give me the chance to get back in it. I made my shot and took a half step to the left and gave a little "Yeah!" call out when all ten went back to the pit. And that is when the trouble started...

Peter Doyle, our opposition's leadoff bowler just shook his head and said audibly enough, "Boy...you guys got an awful lot to learn about winning." When Billy heard it, he wanted to know what Pete meant by that. Pete was talking about Billy's slap out and my little cheer (had he looked hard enough, that hit got me to a point where had I shot 300, I would have won my series point and that hit was the shot that got me back to even against Angelus) and said we had the match won, we had it wrapped up and there was no need to give off the celebrations. Boble and Billy wanted to keep up the conversation, but I told them to quit it and that it was a dead issue. However, Pete and the boys kept going on about for a few more shots (I casually noticed that no one else on his team even said a word about the situation or even defended Pete in the conversation) until we made peace. Pete shook our hands and said it was done with but after he was done bowling, he quickly packed his bags and left. It seemed for all the world that Pete was, most assuredly, not over it. As it turns out, I did need all 3 in the 10th for the 300 and the series point and threw an awful shot in the 10th to give that away. A 264 final game gave me another 700 series for the night and my 5th this season, but all I could think about was what Pete said: do we have a lot to learn?

By all accounts, Shannon, Boble, Scherrer, esquire is the youngest team in the league (that is our last names but not our team name...that is aptly called "We Need a 4th"). We have been bowling with a major handicap all season and yet, here we are with a chance to pretty much heist a first half league title. What Pete Doyle said about us learning a lot is a tough line to take. It is not like we are young punks that came from off the street and are taking advantage of modern technology (or not nearly as much as anyone else is...we are all helped by the technological advances), I like to think that Billy, Boble, and I are good guys who might not always be bowling great but we know how to win games in team competition and that is the reason why we have made this run. Another factor might be that everyone thinks that with only 3 bowlers they should beat us handily every week and no one has really bowled lights out against us. If they did, that 160 number we get every game would prove to be too much for us to make up. So I ask Pete Doyle, who I have no issue with at all, and will not because what he said is nothing that I have not heard before or probably won't hear again...I ask you, "Sir, are you sure we have a lot to learn about winning or do you think you have a lot to learn about losing?"

I like to think that learning how to lose and understanding that in today's league game, the best teams or the most talented teams do not win. There are more politics involved in league play than there is on Capitol Hill in a session (aside from the daily question most politicians ask: "General Tso's or Sesame?"). The politics might have actually led to a downfall of more league bowlers falling like Republicans (see, two political references in one blog!). Bowling for most people is still a way for everyone to disconnect once or twice a week, to hang out with friends, to have a beer or two (Bowl Long Island does have 2 fers on pints past 10pm every day) and maybe to throw a few strikes. For the upper class of bowling, league is about winning money but politics, technology, and poor sports ruin it for most of us. For someone like myself at 24 years of age, I still have aspirations of making a living out of bowling in some form. I care too damn much about seeing bowling fall on its face. The only problem is when you hear what I heard last night about having a lot to learn from a bowler that doesn't even know you, it makes you worry about what we've come to in bowling. I guess in the long run, we all have a lot to learn about each other in this game.

Coming soon: Yours Truly hands out his calendar year bowling awards for 2008. For any comments or suggestions as to what the bowling world wants to hear, email me at Senordoscien527@aol.com.

"Bowling Blind"

PBA Tour

Good to the "Bohn"

Operating costs aside, the true cost of any product always costs more than its retail value, no matter how great the demand or how precious the supply. In tough economic times (a situation I'll actually delve into later), you need one word from a commodity: consistency. The more consistent a product has been over a long period of time, the more willing you are to take a bet on the product. Even during tough times you know that the product may be on the downside of its returns, but is still solid enough to at the very least, balance things out. The best case scenario is that the product gets on a hot trend and you can make a profit out of and still feel that your faith entrusted in the product was well justified. Every person wants to be surrounded by the words "success" and "consistent" as a sign of prominence in society and usually don't value loyalty as much as one used to.

Perhaps that best describes Parker Bohn III stock value over his career: remarkably consistent and successful for the better part of a decade or 15 years on the PBA Tour (before mega fat cholesterol meals and deforestation were title sponsors), then a downturn where Bohn struggled but was still relevant. This was followed by a near collapse in 2004 where at one point in the season, he was ranked 51st in the points list and outside of an exemption for the following season. It almost seemed the PB3, Inc. was going out of business...

But a late season resurgence got him in the points list then 2005 saw Bohn win again in El Paso, Texas on the Cheetah pattern. At that point he had become only the 4th bowler to ever win 30 titles and the career long portfolio still looked as if it had another good run in him. A win last year in South Carolina was another spike in the market then Sunday's win over Mike Scroggins 242-198 further solidified that, even in a down economic season you can still rely on Parker Bohn III.

The real story though was evident on the telecast when Bohn basically admitted that he felt that he was overlooked for Team USA during the Men's World Championships this past summer. In some cases, bowling had moved on from a standpoint of loyalty and had searched for other forms of support. Much like the economy, the USBC had devalued its loyalty to Bohn...

This isn't to say that USBC treated Bohn wrong. After all, he is on the "Dream Team" as a member but was not one of the first 6 chosen to represent America in the World Championships. The other fact that Walter Ray Williams, Jr. won the Masters division further supported USBC in not having Bohn be on the traveling squad as justified. However, I mentioned a few weeks back that as good as Williams is, he was never the greatest promoter for the sport of bowling when he was the game's top bowler and still is one of the best in the world today. Bohn, despite not winning as much as Williams has in the last 5 years was still the epitome of a bowling ambassador: a professional and a class act, a sportsman, did bowling promotions across oceans and continents, and would never utter a bad word about bowling no matter where he went. This generation's Dick Weber??? No question about it. This society's answer to a model citizen??? Of course there is. A winner??? Well...not as much recently but he's still a name in the sport with 32 titles and two player of the year awards, as well a 4 time Steve Nagy Sportsmanship winner, showing the finest example of being a pro and showing class to his fellow bowlers. In the end, he no longer was a dominant player but a good figurehead to put on Team USA as a name to attract the international attention. USBC made a clear indication that they didn't think Paker Bohn could win anymore. His win at AMF Thruway Lanes proved differently and that his true cost is much higher than anyone else's. Speaking of AMF...

AMF

"Always Means..."

Fiscal trouble?

Finance cutbacks?

Forgetting league bowlers?

Yes, I am a happy employee of AMF working at Syosset Lanes in Long Island but the recent changes in cutting back hours to save income means that the economy is hitting everyone hard. The recent hour cutbacks as well as reduction of pay increases and no longer matching 401k contributions are clear indicators that AMF is feeling the crush of revenue losses. Bowling is a strange activity in that people do not make plans to bowl for say, a date. They do it on a whim...almost as an impulse thing to do. Usually open bowlers go through cycles of going to bowl just to kill time and then something else comes along to kill some recreational time. Whether it be mini golf, movies, or your local pub, etc...the open bowler has their moments of coming and going, which puts them out of a constant. The one thing that is a constant with bowling is league and with that comes league promotion.

Bowling promotion in leagues has been a highly untapped resource primarily because league play is in the major decline and has been so for the last decade. The truly elite players don't care much for leagues because the house conditions have catered to the lesser talented players and have created bowling's version of NFL parity in a bowling center as well as bowling companies creating bowling balls that supply greater entry angles and better pin carry for players who are lesser talented. The lower level players are just that: lower level bowlers that do not ply a considerable amount of trade into practicing or learning the new advances in the game and very comfortable bowling in mixed handicap and vacation leagues. The only problem is that those mixed leagues and vacation leagues at AMF are nonexistent. True, the big leagues are still floating around in certain AMF centers but bowling leagues are a guarantee licence to print money for a bowling center. Not only are leagues but in house tournaments as well.

The next two weeks on the Big Wood PBA Tour are to be held in AMF centers (Thruway Lanes and Country Club Lanes) and this should be a time for AMF to make a gigantic push in terms of exposure and saying to the bowling public, "Hey, economy is on the short side of things but we can host a high caliber tournament in conjunction with the PBA Tour and help get our centers some exposure and we can show how good we are." Sadly though, in looking for a high profile name in the company to be in the front row showing a brave face on Sunday's telecast, there was no mention of any AMF management in attendance. Surely they were there at the show, but no mention of it was disturbing. It couldn't have hurt to mention if Mike McKinley (Northeast Region VP) was there just to show that things are ok. Alas, it sounds as if McKinley wasn't in attendance and why you may ask? Because AMF decided in their December 1st memo to all AMF centers that travel expenses for District Managers and Regional Vice Presidents will be cut by 20%. A short term panic decision that completely didn't make sense considering that the last two events for the first half of the PBA Tour's schedule are to be held at AMF centers would have been a nice memo to show the staff members that work in all the bowling centers that we, as a company are still doing ok and that we will rebound. Let's hope next Sunday that the visibility is apparent.

College

1 vs. 2

If you enjoy watching a true powerhouse bowling team look no further than Vanderbilt's 3rd consecutive tournament victory this past weekend at the Jeanette Lee Invitational. The Lady 'Dores went through the field unbeaten this past weekend to raise their won-loss to record to 36-5 and for the 3rd time this season, overpowered the field in terms of total pinfall. The march to a fantastic 1-2 Vandy-Nebraska matchup in January begins as both teams are off until the Mid-Winter Classic. And these two teams were ranked 2nd and 3rd to start the season...wow, who did the rankings? The BCS?

High School

Century Mark

If you have a young daughter in the Long Island area who likes to bowl, do yourself a favor and take her to East Islip Lanes in East Islip, NY and watch the girls high school bowling team in action. Led by coach Harold Cooley, East Islip has owned women's bowling in Long Island since I was in high school (was it really 1998?) and they have also had their success on the state level winning two state championships in the decade along with winning seven county championships as well since the 2000-01 season. Andohbytheway, did I mention that the girls are riding a 100 match winning streak.

Yes...one hundred. In times of waning interest in bowling, the high school level in New York is still high and heavy as one the few states that carry bowling as a varsity high school sport for both men and women. With that being said, for a high school team to not lose a match in seven years says a lot about overall dominance and great coaching. Coach Cooley has been at this since I bowled in high school 10 years ago and he has always gotten the very best of his players and the word "program" fits into this high school team. They were good then, should be good now, and may always be good and the team that stops the streak will have some history for themselves...that is, if East Islip loses...ever.

Tommy Scherrer had to change his personal at the bottom this week in order to plug how you can contact him. For questions, comments, concerns, or really if you think I stink at this please send all of your questions to Senordoscien527@aol.com.

"Bowling Blind"-Part Deux

Oh, here we go again...

Bowl Championship Series

For Part Two of this week's "Bowling Blind", I had to come up with something to kick off my entry that would sum up my thoughts on the BCS system as it enters yet another late season controversy that yields outright hatred for the system. I tried coming up with how the computers, which are humans actually, to get their "Revenge of the Dorks" moment in the sky by possibly instituting the worst possible scenario for the National Championship game just as revenge for not having any athletic talent whatsoever. I also looked into the BCS for the human pollsters who just are blind to the rejecting traditional norms and flat out voting the teams who simply do not lose because the pollsters really have the power of the pen to save the BCS as much as they have the power to ruin the BCS by looking into the name on the uniform. As it turns out, I could not come up with something snappy or witty until I opened up the newspaper this morning and looked under my daily horoscope-a thing for which I never, EVER subscribe to but thought the message it gave me today was worth my thoughts:

Gemini

"Someone you run into today (hopefully not literally) will annoy you in a big way. Whatever they say or do you will disagree with as a matter of principle, or so you would like to believe. Could it be you just don't like their face or the way that they talk."

That horoscope seems rather fitting, but I am launching this as a pre-emptive strike on anyone who might disagree with me on principle with what I am about to say regarding the BCS, but I get paid an absolute fortune to voice my opinions (my annual salary for writing blogs: zero dollars...First Amendment: Priceless).

For the record, I do not like the "face" of the BCS or the way they "talk" because everytime you see what it has done to college football, you scratch your head. They have given fans, media members, and coaches across the country headaches, earaches, stomachaches, and any other aches you can summate and each time they try to modify the system, it gets worse. The whole thing is a mess right from rankings to its points system, even down to its hideous logo (I mean, did you see that stupid thing starting my blog today??? Who still thought FedEx still delivered things especially when all the commercials you see are about UPS? And really...palm trees? To a New Yorker? Are you kidding me?).

What could Brown have done to the BCS? My guess is more than Jeff Sagarin.


For historical references, the BCS was created in 1998 to "determine the national champion for college football while maintaining and enhancing the bowl system that's nearly 100 years old". That statement is literally plastered on bscfootball.org as the BCS has become the the sport's showcase. Showcase for what, exactly? Last year's barn burner classic Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Hawaii...? 41-10 Bulldogs. Ok, how about last year's Rose Bowl-the Granddaddy of the them all-between USC and Illinois, that was a Big 10-Pac 10 rivalry game and your final was...? Trojans 49-Illini 17. Umm...ok. What about the Fiesta Bowl? West Virgina 48-Oklahoma 28. Eh, das ist nicht sehr gut, mein herr. Even last year's national championship was a bore fest as LSU beat The Ohio State University by 14.

Every year, the BCS seems to breed inept matchups for fans and doesn't give the neutral or casual fans the matchup they want. When you think about what the BCS has done for us in the last decade, just go back to 2005, which was the BCS apex and will never be matched again. Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State vs. Notre Dame, Sugar Bowl: West Virginia vs. Georgia, Orange Bowl: Florida State vs. Penn State, and the National Championship was the Rose Bowl Game: Texas vs. USC. To say that these games all were not in the 4-5 star range is to be a fool. Ohio State-ND was a two big time traditional school teams going at it. Brady Quinn and Troy Smith, Charlie Weis and Jim Tressel. West Virginia-Georgia was a drama filled game with the Georgia Dome the site after Hurricane Katrina. Florida State-Penn State was a triple overtime classic with the Nittnay Lions pulling off the victory.

Then USC-Texas...the greatest college football game I have ever seen played. A legit 1 vs. 2 matchup between the only undefeated teams in football, Vince Young coming back to Pasadena after his historic Rose Bowl performance against Michigan in what was the best game of the 2004 BCS games. The unstoppable USC machine with Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, looking for an historic 3 peat national championship in their backyard in their showcase bowl game. It was filled with storylines and drama left and right, and the game on the field did not disappoint: Young drives home the winning touchdown late in the 4th for Texas 41-USC 38. Texas twice stopping USC on 4th and shorts in the game that got them the ball back with Young running the zone read better than any college quarterback has EVER run it before. Leinart having a day where he threw for 365 yards, most ever in a championship game, and throwing for 29-40 that night (Young incredible as it sounds, was 30 for 40 in the game-the best duel in championship game history). Reggie Bush going for almost 300 all-purpose yards in the game and was on the sideline for USC's 4th and 2 late in the game where LenDale White was stopped short by Texas starting the great game winning drive by Young. If you never had seen a football game before or after this, I am happy for you because you will never see that type of game again considering the storylines coming into the game and the affects of the major players afterward in their pro careers (Leinart, Young, Bush, and White). It was the BCS at their finest and you know how it happened...? It happened because the BCS did not touch the game.

It couldn't have been touched because everyone knew that Texas and USC were the two best teams in the country that year and any alterations to that would have been disastrous, which leads us to 2008. This season, football has easily 5 superpower teams in Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and USC. Two are from the SEC, the best conference in college football (Florida and Alabama) and two are from the Big 12, the second best conference in college football (Texas and Oklahoma). The wild card belongs to USC, the potential Pac 10 champion and many people's pick as the most talented team in the country. The Trojans, however are killed by the fact that they play in the Pac 10 and it is far weaker than the Big 12 or SEC and they have one loss this season. Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma also have one loss and Alabama is undefeated. Both the SEC and the Big 12 have championship games, the Pac 10 does not so USC only has UCLA on their schedule to show the country how great they are and make no mistake about it, the Trojan defense is special to watch. This is truly Pete Carroll's dream team that plays this type of lock down D in winning games. USC will need help to get into a national championship.

Ok, let's run this down effectively. Florida and Alabama will play for the SEC championship this weekend and the winner effectively speaking, deserves a national title bid. The Big 12 championship is...? Oklahoma and Missouri...yes folks, Oklahoma will face (and surely crush) Mizzou in the title game and one would think their national title bid is in the cards. There is one problem...Oklahoma lost to Texas this year and they play in the Big 12 South (Missouri is the Big 12 North champion). This is where the mess begins for the BCS: you have a team in Texas that will not play for their conference championship, yet can sneak into the national championship picture if Oklahoma loses (only a man smoking stuff out of Jamaica would think that Missouri deserves a national title bid if they beat OU because they are not on the same planet as the Sooners). But if you are a purist of college football, doesn't that concern you that Texas will backdoor in without playing it on the field? Wouldn't that concern you that the Pac 10 champion USC will not get a chance to play for a national championship ahead of Texas? Especially when USC is everyone's trendy pick for their slam dunk defense, could you imagine a classic offense vs. defense dream game between Florida and Tim Tebow and USC's suffocating interior D? Well, you won't get it and why won't you get it...?

You won't get it because of the B...ig 12 conference committee.


In an archaic system with modern computers and maybe biased human pollsters, the Big 12 decided to use the most asinine tiebreaker they could use to determine tie for conference records: what team is higher in the BCS. Say what you will about the BCS (and if you have not fallen asleep yet, you will read more about it) but this mess, for once does not fall into their lap and you can thank the bigwigs with their oil rigs down south for this one. The Big 12 South has had 4 great teams all season in Texas, Oklahoma, the high powered Texas Tech Red Raiders who are ranked 7th in the BCS, and Mike Gundy's (He's a man of course...now he's 41) Oklahoma State that are ranked 14th in the BCS.

(If you love Coach Gundy, you will enjoy this Coors Light commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-lBP0Adb5g)

Texas on a neutral field in Dallas beat Oklahama 45-35 in a fantastic game to set themselves up for the BCS title picture but lost to Texas Tech 39-33 with one second left on the road. Texas Tech then moved up to number 2 in the BCS after their win then got hammered by OU on the road 65-21 to set up a 3 way tie in the Big 12 South. Oklahoma last weekend won a shootout over Gundy's Okie State 61-41 that in the computer's minds was enough to vault the Sooners over the Longhorns and get them into the Big 12 title game.

Where is the fairness in all of this, you say? Each team had one loss against each other and by all standards, this was an impossible situation to handle in that you were going to anger one team and possibly two teams. That is where the word tradition came to hurt Texas Tech in this 3 way mess. They were the team without the "history" to have any staying power among the other two teams and ostensibly suffered for it by dropping down to number 7 in the BCS. It also did not help Texas that Tech got humiliated by Oklahoma so much in that they slipped in the rankings. Case in point, had Oklahoma only beaten Tech by 7 or 10 points, it would have made Tech as a far tougher opponent which would have made the Texas loss on the road to them even better in the computer's minds, possibly giving them the duke over Oklahoma this weekend. Sounds strange to even say this but the word "history" hurt Texas too in this because the team they lost to failed to have the resume that if they lost they could avoid getting left out of the BCS title picture. Sounds even stranger to even say this but Oklahoma benefited from the word "history" in their loss to Texas. They lost to a team with a great tradition and that coupled with a neutral site loss to Texas made their loss look more credible in the computer's minds making them the Big 12 South champion.

In the end, the BCS did absolutely nothing wrong in thier decision making when it came to Oklahoma over Texas, they really had no choice but to let it play out on the field and in the minds of humans and computers. This is not to say the BCS is an infallible system: it is to a high extent because it fails to involve a playoff system for fans and maybe for head coaches so that they can relax. This is where you can make the honest case that the BCS system has its plusses and is better off than a playoff.

A) The mere fact that the Red River Rivalry game is still being talked about as the reason as to why Texas is not in the BCS title hunt is what makes the rivalry games so great. Thanks to the BCS, I have gained a new appreciation for the regular season games as well as the rivalry games. Two examples of this happened last year with the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pittsburgh and the SoCal Rivalry game between USC and UCLA. West Virginia had the inside track to be in the BCS title game by beating Pitt at home no less and gagged on it the day after Thanksgiving. The next day USC knew that a win would more than likely set themselves into a title game against the SEC champion, which was LSU. They had UCLA, a major underdog, playing them on the road at the Rose Bowl and of all things, UCLA stunned the Trojans in the SoCal Rivalry to vault a less than dominant Ohio State into the title game. Remember, both USC and WVU were their conference champions and in a playoff system would have still been heavy favorites to win a national title. Their losses in the rivalry games ended up costing them dearly and they never had a chance to make amends for it.

B) Where does one draw the line for a playoff? Say you have an 8 team playoff for the national championship and utilize the bowl games on New Year's Day as your semifinal games, culminating with the highest remaining seeded team playing in the Rose Bowl Game. Sounds like a perfect system but if you carefully observe this year's BCS standings there are three major issues:

1) In the top 8 you have the SEC champ, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 10 champion in there but you do not have the ACC or Big East champ-the other two major BCS conference champions-involved in the top 8 of the BCS. A major flaw if you only have 4 of the 6 BCS conference champions involved for which the conference's power we'll get to shortly.

2) Where does the line draw between the 8th and 9th ranked teams? Think critically for a moment about the point differential between the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in the BCS in Texas and Oklahoma. It is 0.0128, which is miniscule as to what team is in the national title game if the bowls started today. What is the point differential between 8th ranked Penn State and 9th ranked Boise State? It is O.0339. Ok, slightly higher for the 8-9 debate but less than a tenth of a point for both situations determining who gets involved in the national title game. The end result is that you will end up angering someone anyway that thinks they have a chance.

3) Here is the major kicker however this season if you were to take PSU at the 8th ranked team: Boise State is undefeated this season and is 9th. In a playoff system, don't all undefeated teams deserve a chance to get beaten? They have played the regular season as meaningful as you can possibly play it and they do not get a chance to vie for a national title? That would stand to be the real tragedy. And what about Ball State? They too are undefeated and are ranked twelvth in the BCS system. Where does the line draw? How can you humanly have a playoff without all the undefeated teams in college football? The answer is you can't do that because the smaller schools with perfect records have it held against them that they are not in the Big Six. That leads me nicely into...

C) The conference's power is overwhelming in the long run. Just make this quick take on the Big 10 champ Penn State. Had they run the table and gone undefeated as well as Alabama and one of the Big 12 South schools, you would have 3 undefeated conference champions. Everyone in their sound and right minds would tell you that of the conferences, the big 10 is the third best of the 3 and you can make the case that Alabama and the Big 12 champ were the two logical title game teams. Could you imagine the uproar the higher ups in the Big 10 would have, especially if Joe Paterno, at 80 years young, had an undefeated team and was not in the national championship game? While it's a fair political argument to make, it is a bad sporting argument to make, thanks to the 'eyeball test'. If you have watched enough games this season, your eyeballs would tell you that Penn State would not be able to score on Alabama or stop Oklahoma defensively. The sexy matchup would be the defensive Crimson Tide against the Sooner offense, which might go down as the greatest offense in the history of college football this season. In essence, the BCS would have played itself out correctly and there would be no need for a playoff.

D) In the end, we as fans love the BCS because we can debate and that is the great thing about sports: who is better? It is a flawed system but so are the conferences' dependency on the BCS for ratings, money, recruitment, and overall power in college football. It works both ways in the world of football and that is something no one can deny.

In a Utopian society, we'd see a Florida-USC championship game but games aren't won on overall talent, nor or they won on paper or in voting or in computers. They are won on the field between white lines with a leather oval shaped ball played by 22 men, 11 on each side through all sorts of weather, climates, and field surfaces. Alabama to this point is the only team that has deserved the honor of playing for a national title in that they have not lost a game yet. Just don't lose to Florida or Utah, Boise State, and Ball State are gunna start a peasant uproar. In a Utopian society, those 3 teams get to lose a game before being out of the hunt but because they don't play in front of 80,000 fans per week, have billions of dollars riding on TV deals, merchandising, and additional revenue, and are playing in mountain ranges at 1 in the morning Eastern Standard Time they are considered second class citizens in a sport where the BCS does not mess things up: the Big 12 messed it up, the SEC messed it up, the Big 10 and their compromised wads of money want to mess it up. They followed the money to protect their spots among the elite programs in college football. A true eptiome of Bowling Blind.

"Bowling Blind"-Part Uno

The Winner Within consisting of Championship Reps

NCAA

Winning...and losing

The correlation between wins and losses is simple in sports: two teams meet, one team scores more is declared the winner, while the team that scores less is declared the loser. Sounds rather simple to say, but in collegiate bowling the victors are a little bit less defined. Usually in team games and in baker games, teams bowl them out, accumulate pinfall totals and at weekend's end, the team that has knocked down the most pins is declared the winner, those that do not are considered runner up finishers. It has always been the simplest formula to observe and it makes sense when you think about it: bowling is not a 40 yard dash, it is a 26.2 mile marathon. You don't make careers in a day or in a week but in the long course of seasons and multiple victories. In the college world, as written before, you only get so many chances in four years to make a career or make a team so a season is neither a sprint or a marathon, yet a 10K or a half marathon. Your pacing has to change and be out near the front of the pack from the start in order to pull ahead in the end and emerge victorious.

Last week's Eastern Shore Hawk Classic in Millsboro, Deleware had Vanderbilt emerge victorious for the second consecutive tournament to make it a perfect start to their season...kinda...sorta...

Let's review some quick facts about the tournament last weekend:

1) Vanderbilt beat Kutztown University by 257 pins and beat third place Deleware State by 545 pins.

2) Michelle Peloquin and Josie Earnest finished 2nd and 4th respectively for the all-events, marking the second consecutive tournament the best 1-2 combo in the nation and possibly the best 1-2 bowling combo since Nathan Bohr-Sean Rash at Wichita State came out in the top 5.

3) The mere fact that teams cannot physically hang with the Lady 'Dores, especially in the northeastern part of the country has now turned the college bowling season into a rather intriguing storyline between Nebraska and Vanderbilt. These two teams have clearly emerged as the two superpowers in NCAA bowling and nothing short of a 1 vs. 2 season long power struggle to where you hope at season's end bowling fans get a national championship between the Huskers and the 'Dores and that it lives up to the hype in April.

4) Vanderbilt's record after two events this season is not 2-0, but it is 28-5.

28 wins and 5 losses??? Yes, their record is 28 and 5. Despite these being "tournaments", the game within the game is a win-loss record in the context of the tournament which, in turn helps establish teams with records in the course of a season. This enables the National Tenpin Coaches Association (NTCA) to establish a rankings system to determine the top teams in the nation. The NTCA then selects 8 teams to participate in the women's national championship in April.

This past weekend, Vandy lost 3 games this week (same as host school and reigning national champions, Maryland-Eastern Shore) which now put them at 28-5 despite being utterly dominant in their first two tournaments in terms of pinfall. Michelle (who if you haven't noticed, I like a lot..."she's cool, pretty, excellent bowler, maybe she'll go on a date with a starving blogger"...) intimated to me on Saturday after their team game loss to Sacred Heart that the team has to learn how to win games. It is a strange dichotomy into how NCAA bowling is in that a team that was leading the tournament after Saturday afternoon was leaving the bowling center a loser in relation to win-loss record...by one pin no less.

While Michelle's worries are warranted as well the worries of Earnest as well (in tears after the SHU match as she failed to strikeout to win the match outright and showed tremendous emotion), the three losses must be looked at in their own context. Friday, they lost to Jersey City in bakers after NJCU shot a tournament high baker game of 269. Saturday in the team game portion, they lost twice to Bethune-Cookman and the aforementioned Lady Pioneers of SHU. In both those games however, Vandy ran into some lefty magic. Against Bethune-Cookman, it took a tournament high game of 257 to beat Vanderbilt by 27 pins. In the second loss to Sacred Heart, the lefty combination of Sarah Pellatier and Katie Edsall both shot in the 240's, with the latter Edsall basically channeling her inner Tommy Jones and carrying everything in sight to help score the upset. In Pellatier, she ended up winning the all-event title playing a risky bank shot but rewarding enough to claim individual victory.

But team bowling is not based on the one player, but the 5 bowling and the support system on their bench. Vanderbilt went on to sweep all 6 games in Sunday's baker format using a combination of good team play, rotation changes, and flat out solid shotmaking to turn a tight tournament between a game Kutztown team into a rout, plus a rather solid beatdown of KU in bakers 816-697. Win-loss records aside, you can observe a lot just from watching as Yogi Berra would say. What I have seen from Vanderbilt in two tournaments is a dominant team game group of players who are great shotmakers from player 1 to 6. They have a versatile lineup so much so that Peloquin, easily the best senior class bowler in the nation is bowling second in team games. The real question is whether or not they can pull off success in the baker games, the backbone of college bowling come April. That will be the true question of winning and losing. Will Peloquin be right in saying that her team has to learn how to win? They have until April to find out...

PBA Tour

Just a few quick observations on the Big Wood PBA Tour this past week:

1) "Dear Kenny Simard....": keep talking to Norm Duke and you're bank account will go up. Simard was easily the best player in the field this past week in Chicago as he threatened to shoot the 19th televised perfect game in tour history against Brad Angelo Sunday. Unfortunately, Simard shot 289 in the semifinal match and then lost in the title match to Wes Malott in devastating fashion leaving a ringing 10 pin to lose 216-211. In fairness to Malott, he completely outbowled Simard in terms of lane play and in hitting the pocket but still had to sweat out Simard needing a double in the 10th to claim his first title. It was not in the cards for Simard but as long as he keeps Norm Duke's ear, he will win soon and often.

2) Jason Couch's return: great to see JC back on TV after 9 months away due to knee surgery and he was his usual solid self albeit in defeat to Angelo. Couch is a great mark for the sport of bowling in terms of excitement, energy, clutch, big-game, big-time performances as well as his risk-reward style of game. Yes, he's got 15 titles and 4 majors and here is hoping he's got another great 1999-2002 major run in him especially with Duke still performing at a high level in the majors and pushing the major envelope to another level in recent seasons. Bowling is better when these two players are in the hunt for big time wins because of the intensity they bring and the audacity they have on the lanes. Hopefully, both are healthy for the entire season and bring their best to the big tournaments.

3) Wes' one win was...?: Wes Malott likes to win once a year so he got his title out of the way really quickly by winning for the second time in Chicago in his career-4th title and one each in the last four seasons-and for the second time on the scorpion pattern. However...I don't see this being the end of Wes' winning ways this season. In six events, he has already made 3 shows on 3 different patterns, in the top 3 in points, average, and player of the year points. He is truly a monster out on tour and Malott can really revolutionize the sport for big men.

4) Angelo is back: I knew he won earlier this year in Omaha but in losing to Simard yesterday (or getting gangbanged for lack of a better word), you see Brad Angelo be Brad Angelo again. In his first two or three seasons on tour he was great on TV from a standpoint of talent, humor, personality, and intensity...but no wins. The last part (the no wins) started to mentally affect him it appeared and whenever he got to television in recent years, he struggled and wallowed in darkness while not showing much emotion. It seemed as if for all the world, it looked as if a great player was not going to get over the winless hurdle. Then Omaha came, Angelo outbowled everyone on the show and won his first title which seemingly has rejuvenated him. In getting creamed by Simard, Angelo was waving the towel in the 8th frame of their match when he knew he was done in for and he smiled through it all. One win can change a lot in a guy's eyes and for Angelo it was a spirited win. He is back on TV smiling, showing himself to the crowd, having a good time like he did several years ago when he was arguably the best player on tour. If you wanna argue over details about "best player" go ahead but he was the top player in points in a cumulative sense for almost two seasons. His ball roll might very well be match by roughly 0.1% of the guys on tour and when he's on, he's on.

5) Ladies...?: So far in three Women's Series events, nothing has stirred my interest in women's bowling this season. Yes, Michelle Feldman becoming a dominant player in the series is helping putting an old face with a new concept but so far, the Women's Series events have been rather uninspiring. It has not helped that Feldman's two victims in Jody Woessner and Missy Bellinder have averaged about 160 in their matchups against Feldman but still, we are dealing with a so far lifeless Women's Series.

Tomorrow: Part Two of Bowling Blind surfaces around 'bowling' in another sense...