KOLB'S KORNER / Richard Kolb
PWBA touring pro Lisa Wagner has joined Jan Schmidt as the new commentator/analyst for their tour's championship round telecasts on ESPN2.
Wagner has been angling her way toward the top broadcasting spot for the past three years while still competing as a regular on the PWBA Tour. She began as a statistician in the TV production truck, which is the route other PWBA commentators have taken, such as Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, who has done audience interviews. Wagner continued up her broadcasting ladder by doing the same type of audience interviews until she became a substitute commentator for former regular Leandra Reilly when Reilly had other commitments.
"Leandra is doing WNBA basketball now that they have a contract and also women's golf," said Wagner. "She has previous commitments to those sports, so I was asked to go in as the commentator. I said I would absolutely love to do it. I have a lot to learn, but it's getting easier for me since I'm a regular on the tour. I know the sport and how the other bowlers would feel in certain situations."
The point about knowing bowling is the key to better commentary to the benefit of the fans watching the finals on TV. The last time a duet of commentators know enough about bowling to give meaningful analysis to the women's tour audience was when Denny Schreiner and Leila Wagner teamed.
Once Schreiner departed for the Golf Channel, the nasal Leila could still give a fair assessment of what the viewers were seeing on the lanes since she was a touring pro herself. However, her new partner, former Olympic swimming gold medalist John Nabor, admittedly knew nothing about bowling as a TV sport. Nabor was last seen doing commentary for the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif., for ABC Sports. He clearly knows more about flowers on floats than he does about strikes and spares.
Mercifully for the ladies' bowling tour and its fans, Jan Schmidt, who serves as PWBA's marketing director, took over for Nabor to team with Leila Wagner and later Leandra Reilly.
When Leandra replaced Leila (Do you have your scorecards up to date?), Reilly had a problem similar to Nabor in that she didn't know much about the TV finals of bowling.
It appears PWBA finally has the right combination of knowledge and chemistry for the new millenium between Lisa Wagner and Jan Schmidt. This pair just might help the ratings because viewers can now better understand what they are watching.
"I'm very comfortable working with Jan because being a bowler on tour, she knows what to say when something significant happens on the lanes, and she knows how to lead me into my comments on the air about it," Wagner said.
The defining difference between Schmidt and Wagner compared to Nabor and Reilly is that John and Leandra are ESPN general assignment commentators. ESPN's personnel department apparently has trouble finding qualified announcers to cover pro bowling if they are not already touring pros.
Wagner intends to keep competing on the tour in conjunction with her broadcast duties. She says that even though she's burning the candle at both ends, one end benefits the other. She wants to win several more tournaments in addition to the record-tying 30 victories she already has amassed, especially now that Aleta Sill has matched her in pro titles. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Wagner won her 31st pro title May 12 in Omaha, Neb.]
"Neither one of us are doing great right now," Wagner said, "but we are going to work with some coaches during the breaks in the season to see if we can improve our games and remain competitive."
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Another glaring problem which needs to be solved quickly for PWBA if it wants to appear legitimate is to assign a regular scorekeeper who actually knows how to keep score during the TV finals.
PWBA should take a cue from the PBA Tour, which has the tournament director keep the official score for the TV finals—he seldom makes any mistakes. Conversely, the PWBA Tour asks volunteers to keep the official score. This is usually a friend of somebody who works at the bowling lanes and does not know all of the ins and outs of keeping a bowling score.
When scores are regularly recorded with the wrong numbers, it causes confusion and chaos for the bowlers, fans, and media alike. In addition, there's always the possibility that a bowler could wrongfully lose over the wrong score being recorded at the end of a match.
"It's a volunteer job," Wagner said. "Everything else involved with keeping score are paid jobs except the finals scorekeepers. If somebody's a new volunteer and he knows everybody is watching and depending on him for the correct score, he get flustered and it happens. But the players know the score in the finals. If it's 10 pins off, they know the difference."
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Speaking of keeping score, PWBA has introduced in conjunction with its innovative computer technician, Bowling World publisher and pro bowler Donna Hazel, a unique way to see the scores frame-by-frame on your computer screen during the actual competition of the TV final matches. (The finals are bowled Wednesdays at 7 p.m. and will be shifted to Thursdays in the summer and fall.) Hazel said the new concept will only increase interest for fans by allowing them to see the live coverage of the scores of the bowlers on the net during the matches as they are being recorded for their tape-delayed presentation normally on the following Tuesday on ESPN2.
Hazel added that if you log on to www.pwba.com on those days of PWBA competitions, you will see the scores as they come in directly from the computer terminal at the tournament site from the scorekeeper as the matches are bowled without spoiling it later for anybody. You won't see the matches on your computer screen, since that would infringe on ESPN2's exclusive rights to delayed TV coverage of the same tournament.
Since the official scorekeeper is a volunteer who is bound to make several mistakes, when all of the wrong scores show up on the Internet with frame-by-frame corrections made later by the scorekeeper, those actions would supply the net viewer with plenty of entertainment separate and apart from the real scores of the bowlers.
Syndicated columnist Richard Kolb is a member of the Bowling Writers Association of America.