I’m glad I am a bowler and that bowling is something that my family, from children through grandchildren, can and do enjoy because when I read the sports pages and watch sports news on television, I am convinced that if it weren’t for bad news there would be no news at all.

Sports has become more about money and entertainment and self-indulgence than the art of the game. Look at basketball. A player can choke and threaten his coach with death, only to be reinstated by a group of do-gooders after he has been banned from the sport.

Two players from a university that prides itself on education took money to shave points and lose games by a wider margin than the Vegas spread.

A collegiate team has players who have been investigated for armed robbery, drug abuse, assault, and point shaving, yet the coach and the basketball program remains.

A basketball player at a major university was suspended by his coach for being academically ineligible. That player, along with other players, threatened to leave the university. The university solved the matter by reinstating the player and firing the coach. How would you like to be the incoming coach of that team, and what kind of message does this send?

A major league baseball player spits in the face of the umpire and plays in the playoffs, and it is forgotten about.

Mo Vaughn of the Boston Red Sox said, "It ain’t enough." to $20,400,000 for two years. Does this give you a "gut-check" on the difference between the wages of athletes and the fans? When we compare one job with another in America, we have to ask ourselves, Does what Vaughn does compare with that of a teacher, nurse, or soldier?

How many of you have been to a fight lately and a hockey game broke out? I watched the women’s hockey in the Olympics and enjoyed the sport for the first time. The women actually skated, used skill and teamwork, and scored points. Games were like 5 to 4 and 6 to 3. Professional hockey is 1 to 0, but you have 30 minutes of senseless fighting.

Of course, we have boxing. One boxer losing miserably decides that if he can’t win, he simply will bite the ear off his opponent. Another promising heavyweight gets disqualified in three consecutive fights for low blows.

I won’t waste space writing about wrestling, and I hope Pete Weber gives it up, too.

That takes me to bowling. There was a serious scandal and major blow to the Professional Bowling Association earlier this year as Pete Weber actually had the audacity to complain about lane conditions. This is serious stuff, folks, and by golly, the PBA should make an example out of Weber and prevent him from bowling in the first three tournaments of the season. After all, it’s conduct unbecoming of a professional, and we have to enhance the image of the PBA as well as bowling in general.

So how do we enhance the image of bowling? I know, let’s make a movie about a physically handicapped person. Let’s have him come from a minority group of individuals that won’t sue us. Let’s make him look really stupid and have a hustler that looks even more stupid. Now somewhere in all of this idiocy, let’s have a few quick glimpses of some professional bowlers.

Okay, so you don’t like the concept. How about a couple of hours of four-letter words? We’ll throw in a run-down bowling center, a weapon or two, and a group of misfits with no talent, goals, or objectives. And just to make it authentic, we’ll have a few glimpses of real bowlers.

The point of all this is that bowling has very little problems except for image. Unfortunately, we aren’t doing anything to help that. We buy tickets to Kingpin and The Big Lebowski, scribes rant and rave about how good they are, and the PBA endorses them by having bowlers like Brian Voss attend the gala premier of the latter film in New York City.

That premier earned $220,000 for the New York Academy of Art. The Big Lebowski had grossed nearly $11 million in the first two weeks of release and ranks sixth in top grossing movies being played.

All bowling got was bad publicity.

As I wrote at the beginning, I am proud to be part of bowling. I have been around the PBA and PWBA and know what great professionals these organizations have.

It’s time to clean up the image problem. Let’s not worry about complaints about lane conditions.

See you on the lanes.

Don Wright is a member of the Bowling Writers Association of America. His home page is located at www.vvm.com/~wrightd.