A different view of International Bowl Expo and Key Players By Dick Evans
07/14/09
I started the long walk through the Mandalay Bay Hotel/Casino in order to register for International Bowl Expo, which is produced by the Bowling Proprietors Association of America.
But as I entered the long walkway surrounded by shops and restaurants of all descriptions, I began to think I was lost and had taken a wrong turn, which is easy to do in this giant complex that extends for about a third of a mile before you reach the end of the convention area.
It is so gigantic that use have to use the escalators to reach the registration area for Bowl Expo, which is surrounded by many meeting rooms or various sizes.
As I started the long trek, I came across men carrying their golf bags and I noticed some of them were proprietors and even former top bowlers.
I thought they would be carrying bowling bags so that all the visitors also strolling the walk way would wonder what big bowling event was being held at the Mandalay Bay.
In my mind a bunch of men and women carrying or rolling bowling bags through the Mandalay Bay would be great advertisement for the bowling industry ...and free.
The farther I walked the more bowling officials I spotted carrying golf bags...what great advertising for golf as a fun sport I thought to myself.
By the time I reached the area where you used the escalator to go down to the BPAA area to register, I bet I had passed 50 golf toting proprietors.
I knew that they had been playing golf for a good cause and were raising money for charitable endeavors but I wonder what the hordes of other people walking down that long concourse thought.
Perception is everything in life and I think bowling didn't do much for its perception that Sunday afternoon. I just hope the president of some big potential bowling sponsor did not come away with the same perception that I felt seeing bowling proprietors toting golf clubs.
Maybe next year at the Hilton the golfing proprietors can find some way to take their golf clubs to their rooms via some hidden freight elevator.
I heard very little discussion about the giant USBC Open Tournament being contested at the Cashman Center in Las Vegas at the same time although a few people told me they were going to be bowling in the event during their stay in Vegas.
I was hunting for a seminar that would be dedicated to informing proprietors on the benefits of a new handicap USBC Women's National Championship event next year in El Paso but I couldn't find it. Under the new unity in Arlington, it would have been a great time to inform proprietors and everyone interested in the benefits of going from a scratch to handicap format for the first time since 1916.
But maybe I missed such a seminar because I will admit I was lost at times in that sprawling complex.
I was fortunate enough to be one of five that interviewed NASCAR race driver Dale Earnhart Jr. before his appearance at the opening reception Monday night. I got a short bowling column out of it that ran in the Daytona Beach News-Journal just before the Firecracker 400 race July 4.
I also sat in on a short press conference with Fred Thompson, the former movie star and a Republican presidential candidate. Most of the things he had to say I had heard on national TV programs the past 12 months.
All the time Thompson was talking I was hoping his appearance during Bowl Expo would draw local TV and print coverage. It didn't happen so I got to wondering:
Why doesn't the BPAA hire such great speakers as John Petraglia or Parker Bohn or Carolyn Dorin Ballard or Jason Belmonte or Diandra Asbaty or Brian Voss or Bo Burton to speak to the proprietors and charge them up and rejuvenate their conception of bowling as a great sport. Don't get me wrong, Earnhart Jr. and Thompson are big names and good speakers but neither impressed me or moved me as much as John Petraglia did when talking about the sacrifices that Parker Bohn has made to make those with handicaps feel like champions.
Petraglia is a gifted speaker when it comes to telling serious or funny stories about bowling and he certainly has a flair when thinking outside of the box with his new TV scoring system.
Unfortunately, Petraglia was speaking in front of about 60 people during the BWAA Media dinner, hosted by Ebonite and the BPAA at the Luxor on a Tuesday night.
My crusade to get the bowling industry to feature its own stars instead of people from other sports or businesses traces back to a speaker that the Miller Brewing Company brought in from Sports Illustrated Magazine years ago in Jacksonville to speak to the writers. He said then and I still believe now that bowling is haunted by a deflated ego and is always searching for ways to become a mainstream media sport despite its undisputed popularity with Americans.
One time I was asked to speak to proprietors during the BPAA convention in Reno and I asked: "Did Chris Evert and Billie Jean King make women's tennis popular or did tennis make Chris Every and Billie Jean King household names in most homes in America?
Of course the answer was that tennis and the media made Evert and King popular. And bowling should learn from that lesson, it should honor its own more often on big stages like the International Bowl Expo...and praise but not give Hall of Fame recognition to great football players like Lynn Swann.
Mind you, that is my opinion – you promote your own at every opportunity.
Maybe the strange vibes I was getting out of International Bowl Expo last June was traceable to the fact that this was John Berglund's (pictured left) last convention as executive director of the BPAA.
I have sat in amazement for seven years listening to Berglund speak for about five minutes without notes and without missing a word.
I have been truly amazed.
I also have been amazed with his original concept of bringing all facets of the bowling industry under a wing of the BPAA and now Strike Ten Entertainment and his focal point has been International Bowl Expo.
Everything he has touched has turned golden.
His legacy will be that he took rival organizations and made them friends and allies.
John Berglund should be inducted into the BPAA Hall of Fame next year along with an outstanding proprietor. It would be fitting that Berglund became the first French citizen given that honor by the BPAA since Berglund has done everything in his power to make the BPAA, International Bowl Expo and the new International Bowling Campus appealing to all bowling organizations around the world.
He and Jeff Boje are the primary reasons that the International Bowling Campus in Arlington will up and running on all cylinders, hopefully before Berglund retires Dec. 31.
The only missing component will be the PBA, and I envision the PBA moving to Arlington within the next two years as long as harmony remains between all the bowling organizations.
And in closing, let me regress and say that the best speech I have heard delivered at any International Bowl Expo was delivered by Jeff Boje when he was installed as BPAA president in 2004 and the most enlightening bowling book printed in the past decade was made possible because John Berglund commissioned publication of the Book "A Diamond Celebration", a uniquely done history book of the BPAA from 1932-2007.
Every BPAA proprietor should own one or order one and read it to really appreciate the BPAA's amazing history.
Column
I started the long walk through the Mandalay Bay Hotel/Casino in order to register for International Bowl Expo, which is produced by the Bowling Proprietors Association of America.But as I entered the long walkway surrounded by shops and restaurants of all descriptions, I began to think I was lost and had taken a wrong turn, which is easy to do in this giant complex that extends for about a third of a mile before you reach the end of the convention area.
It is so gigantic that use have to use the escalators to reach the registration area for Bowl Expo, which is surrounded by many meeting rooms or various sizes.
As I started the long trek, I came across men carrying their golf bags and I noticed some of them were proprietors and even former top bowlers.
I thought they would be carrying bowling bags so that all the visitors also strolling the walk way would wonder what big bowling event was being held at the Mandalay Bay.
In my mind a bunch of men and women carrying or rolling bowling bags through the Mandalay Bay would be great advertisement for the bowling industry ...and free.
The farther I walked the more bowling officials I spotted carrying golf bags...what great advertising for golf as a fun sport I thought to myself.
By the time I reached the area where you used the escalator to go down to the BPAA area to register, I bet I had passed 50 golf toting proprietors.
I knew that they had been playing golf for a good cause and were raising money for charitable endeavors but I wonder what the hordes of other people walking down that long concourse thought.
Perception is everything in life and I think bowling didn't do much for its perception that Sunday afternoon. I just hope the president of some big potential bowling sponsor did not come away with the same perception that I felt seeing bowling proprietors toting golf clubs.
Maybe next year at the Hilton the golfing proprietors can find some way to take their golf clubs to their rooms via some hidden freight elevator.
I heard very little discussion about the giant USBC Open Tournament being contested at the Cashman Center in Las Vegas at the same time although a few people told me they were going to be bowling in the event during their stay in Vegas.
I was hunting for a seminar that would be dedicated to informing proprietors on the benefits of a new handicap USBC Women's National Championship event next year in El Paso but I couldn't find it. Under the new unity in Arlington, it would have been a great time to inform proprietors and everyone interested in the benefits of going from a scratch to handicap format for the first time since 1916.
But maybe I missed such a seminar because I will admit I was lost at times in that sprawling complex.
I was fortunate enough to be one of five that interviewed NASCAR race driver Dale Earnhart Jr. before his appearance at the opening reception Monday night. I got a short bowling column out of it that ran in the Daytona Beach News-Journal just before the Firecracker 400 race July 4.
I also sat in on a short press conference with Fred Thompson, the former movie star and a Republican presidential candidate. Most of the things he had to say I had heard on national TV programs the past 12 months.
All the time Thompson was talking I was hoping his appearance during Bowl Expo would draw local TV and print coverage. It didn't happen so I got to wondering:
Why doesn't the BPAA hire such great speakers as John Petraglia or Parker Bohn or Carolyn Dorin Ballard or Jason Belmonte or Diandra Asbaty or Brian Voss or Bo Burton to speak to the proprietors and charge them up and rejuvenate their conception of bowling as a great sport. Don't get me wrong, Earnhart Jr. and Thompson are big names and good speakers but neither impressed me or moved me as much as John Petraglia did when talking about the sacrifices that Parker Bohn has made to make those with handicaps feel like champions.
Petraglia is a gifted speaker when it comes to telling serious or funny stories about bowling and he certainly has a flair when thinking outside of the box with his new TV scoring system.
Unfortunately, Petraglia was speaking in front of about 60 people during the BWAA Media dinner, hosted by Ebonite and the BPAA at the Luxor on a Tuesday night.
My crusade to get the bowling industry to feature its own stars instead of people from other sports or businesses traces back to a speaker that the Miller Brewing Company brought in from Sports Illustrated Magazine years ago in Jacksonville to speak to the writers. He said then and I still believe now that bowling is haunted by a deflated ego and is always searching for ways to become a mainstream media sport despite its undisputed popularity with Americans.
One time I was asked to speak to proprietors during the BPAA convention in Reno and I asked: "Did Chris Evert and Billie Jean King make women's tennis popular or did tennis make Chris Every and Billie Jean King household names in most homes in America?
Of course the answer was that tennis and the media made Evert and King popular. And bowling should learn from that lesson, it should honor its own more often on big stages like the International Bowl Expo...and praise but not give Hall of Fame recognition to great football players like Lynn Swann.
Mind you, that is my opinion – you promote your own at every opportunity.
Maybe the strange vibes I was getting out of International Bowl Expo last June was traceable to the fact that this was John Berglund's (pictured left) last convention as executive director of the BPAA.I have sat in amazement for seven years listening to Berglund speak for about five minutes without notes and without missing a word.
I have been truly amazed.
I also have been amazed with his original concept of bringing all facets of the bowling industry under a wing of the BPAA and now Strike Ten Entertainment and his focal point has been International Bowl Expo.
Everything he has touched has turned golden.
His legacy will be that he took rival organizations and made them friends and allies.
John Berglund should be inducted into the BPAA Hall of Fame next year along with an outstanding proprietor. It would be fitting that Berglund became the first French citizen given that honor by the BPAA since Berglund has done everything in his power to make the BPAA, International Bowl Expo and the new International Bowling Campus appealing to all bowling organizations around the world.
He and Jeff Boje are the primary reasons that the International Bowling Campus in Arlington will up and running on all cylinders, hopefully before Berglund retires Dec. 31.
The only missing component will be the PBA, and I envision the PBA moving to Arlington within the next two years as long as harmony remains between all the bowling organizations.
And in closing, let me regress and say that the best speech I have heard delivered at any International Bowl Expo was delivered by Jeff Boje when he was installed as BPAA president in 2004 and the most enlightening bowling book printed in the past decade was made possible because John Berglund commissioned publication of the Book "A Diamond Celebration", a uniquely done history book of the BPAA from 1932-2007.
Every BPAA proprietor should own one or order one and read it to really appreciate the BPAA's amazing history.
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