Kegel Bowling Lanes proprietor John Davis ran a typical bowling center in Sebring, Florida with a typical number of lanes and typical equipment with a typical snack bar and regular bowlers in league competition.
But Davis and his brothers, Mark and Dennis, felt a need to be more creative. They already had blazed an innovative trail when they invented a revolutionary lane dressing machine which is now used exclusively by the PBA Tour on their stops since the early part of this decade. The Davis brothers wanted to go even further into unexplored territory and revolutionize the entire concept of the bowling center and the sport of bowling as we have known it.
The brothers took a cue from Daimler/Chrysler Corporation and converted their Kegel Lanes from a "plain Plymouth" to a sporty new "Chrysler Sebring convertible" (the name was taken from the famous auto race of the same name and location in this small south-central Florida town) by renovating the entire center. This involved taking away all but 16 lanes in the building and converting recreation rooms into classrooms for the training and improvement of top-level bowlers. The new name of the old Kegel Lanes bowling center was designed by the Davises and their collegues to grab the attention of the public.
According to Richard Shockley, who runs the operation and is known as the head coach, Herbie’s Bowling Center in the Sky Training Center at the Kegel Institute has stirred up more talk about this place of business in and out of the bowling industry than any other name could possibly accomplish. He says there are no plans to change the name.
"Years ago, the Davis brothers dreamed about acquiring the perfect bowling center which ran perfectly, and it would be like ‘pie in the sky’ without any problems and with perfection in the staff, machines, and lane conditions," Shockley said. "One night at the old bowling center, these philosophical brothers said, ‘If we could come up with the perfect bowling center, what would we call it, and how would we build it?’ And that’s where the concept was born: Herbie’s Training Center in the Sky—the bowling mecca of perfection."
All of this would be easy prey for someone like Fox sportscaster Jim Rome to pounce on and make fun of from now until the end of his broadcasting career, but these guys are really serious about what may seem silly to some.
"We thought about changing the name to Professional Bowling Instructional School or the traditional bowling camps, but we decided that this was John’s dream, and it’s coming true for him, so we are going to stay with Herbie’s Training Center in the Sky."
One throwback to the old days before the world became so high-tech is a training and experimenting bowling lane which comes complete with a hand crank like an old Model T Ford to actually adjust the height of this magic lane from side-to-side. You can raise the lane higher on the left and lower on the right or bank it vice versa.
This specifically constructed lane at Herbie’s can be banked to various heights so bowlers can experiment and scientifically compute ball reaction to a tilted lane based on the fact that no lane is perfectly flat in our imperfect world—except at Herbie’s in the Sky. Shockley says this adjustible lane is unique in the world.
"We can see what advantages a right-hander or left-hander has on a banked lane left or right or downhill and uphill before we ever apply lane dressing. We are really investigating this hard and heavy because we have a new machine design that will determine 2,400 surface spots or checks on the surface to give us a reading, something we previously did manually. The key to ball reaction is the revolution upon release of the ball versus the velocity of the ball. Use of this mathematical formula is where we find out the good and bad of ball reaction."
Herbie’s in the Sky has two lanes in addition to the height adjustment lane which incorporate a computer tracking system known as "CATS" which measures a ball’s velocity in miles per hour. It also shows the location of the ball on the lane surface and the angle of entry to the pins. This system has been demonstrated in the past on TV during the finals of the pro bowling tours.
One lane in particular has several computer sensors that study the surface frictions of various makes of bowling balls.
"Bowling ball companies have been here to test the friction of their new balls," Shockley said. "Ebonite tested their new Tomahawk bowling ball right here on lane 16 for characteristics before they introduced it on the market. Larry Vezina is the co-creator of the software we use at Herbie’s, and the computer is a powerful teaching tool."
Two different makes of synthetic lanes exist at Herbie’s—the DBA and the Heddon, which feature large differences in characteristics concerning lane reaction.
The PBA seniors fell in love with the technology of the computer equipment when they took time out to experience it during the Greater Sebring Open in September, as did PWBA bowlers when they were at Herbie’s for their tour stop last February.
Shockley says experimental lane oils, conditioners, and the machines which distribute them will be tested on Herbie’s first six lanes in this 16-lane house of weird science.
Herbie’s in the Sky is equipped with removable walls which can be changed to accommodate any bowling scenario.
The thrust of Herbie’s business is in lane maintenance and equipment sales worldwide rather than league bowlers. A section of the buildling which houses Herbie’s in the Sky and the Kegel Institute has been partitioned off to incorporate a lane dressing machine factory. Several models of Davis’ lane dressing machines are on display in the front corridor near the entrance to showcase their innovations.
The league bowlers who once competed at the old Kegel Lanes were sent to Royal Palms Bowling Center in Lake Placid. Those bowlers will be invited to form new leagues at a bowling center the Davis brothers plan to open in 18 months on property they own in Sebring.
"We want to accommodate the league bowlers as best we can," Shockley said. "We did keep the student bowlers here from the schools we had, and they bowl here on Wednesdays. All of the others were sent to Royal Palms down the road."
The biggest key to Herbie’s training center is the video replay computer rated system, including three cameras. It has a video system which replays on a digital TV screen every shot of a bowling ball by the use of computer sensors in the lane channels. The digital TV system replays every bowling shot this way from the front side and rear, digitally and verbally for students of bowling to scrutinize their game and make improvements. The majority of students at Herbie’s in the Sky are pro bowlers and high-level amateurs.
"We store over 500 shots at a time on computer in the library for students to study," Shockley said. "You take a lesson as a student, come back in a week, and we bring you back into the system and put you at the top of the screen and bring in a new lesson for the student to compare the latest lesson to the other one."
Herbie’s trains international bowlers with several team camps. The Malaysian team was hosted for a week, as were the Guatemalan and Mexican teams, with more international competition planning to stop at Herbie’s in the future.
Instructors at Herbie’s include silver-medal level Olympic instructors Tom Lehmkuhl, and Larry Bisner, and Shockley. The teachers are three of the original Olympic instructors as created by former TEAM USA coach Fred Borden. Their ultimate goal is to become the first gold-level coaches in the program. Huge levels of technical training in bowling are required to become gold-level coaches, and Herbie’s is designed for such training.
Syndicated columnist Richard Kolb is a member of the Bowling Writers Association of America.