...Which reminds me of our bowling industry.

When most of us were kids, doctors set broken limbs with old-fashioned plaster casts, meticulously applying each layer, usually accompanied by a wise bedside manner and advice to be extra-careful during the healing.

However, many kids who received these "badges of honor" thought they could ignore the wise doctor's advice. Some very immature, very active children forgot they had a cast at all, which usually resulted in a broken cast that had to be replaced by a doctor with a big frown and more stern advice—even a warning. "If you're not careful, you could break that arm again, and that could be very, very serious!" he might have said.

Bingo! There you have bowling.

Our beloved industry has suffered compound fractures, and the many casts that have been applied in recent years have been broken over and over. I'm not even sure we're past the phase where the bleeding is under control. Our doctor must be very upset.

Apparently, we are not mature enough to realize that we must give the healing process time to work. Unfortunately, we have many rambunctious leaders who think we can go on swinging for home runs and diving for touchdowns before the compound fractures heal.

When Bowling Inc. came along a few years ago, our glory-grabbing leaders stood on the balconies of the ivory tower and proclaimed: "The fractures are healed. We are united. The bleeding has stopped. We will work together."

It was just lip service. False proclamations. Politicians telling people what they wanted to hear with no basis in truth. Intentions may have been honorable, but egos were and still are much too large to give up enough power to allow a strong union to form.

Bowling Inc. was touted as our salvation. Expensive consultants were hired, and millions were spent to tell us what we already knew. Finally, Strike Ten Entertainment evolved as a permanent expensive consultant. STE, the marketing company for bowling—the experts who know little if anything about the sport who would sell it to "Corporate America." They would save us.

It didn't happen, and it won't happen because there are too many weak leaders (politicians) in our industry who are still pretending that we are something that we are not.

You can't blame STE. They came from outside, and they only know what they have been told by ignorant leaders. They were told that bowling is a recreation. They were told that bumper bowling and cosmic bowling and birthday parties and entertainment centers would (will) save the industry.

STE wanted to promote the pros, but our stubborn leaders made it impossible by forcing the PBA to choose its own marketing path. PBA was then thought of as a rival of Bowling Inc. and STE. At Bowl Expo '97, it was not even allowed to participate in the opening ceremonies as part of the bowling family, and PBA leaders were made to feel very much like outsiders in the industry.

That incredibly stupid episode forced STE to take sides with PWBA. Some foolish leaders made statements like, We don't need the PBA. We'll promote the women pros and make the PBA sorry they signed with Marquee, or words to that effect.

Now here we are, three years into this chapter in bowling's soap opera. STE's attempted promotion of PWBA has failed. The PBA, even with huge support from Brunswick and Marquee, is barely hanging on. Bumper bowling and cosmic bowling are fading. Entertainment centers featuring almost all open play are struggling to make huge payrolls.

Our politicians (leaders?) are grasping for new words to pacify the growing number of revolutionaries. Recently, the leader of the American Bowling Congress told Bowlers Journal International that they were now going to focus on rebuilding the sport. He tried to pass off the System of Bowling, created in 1991, as a deliberate effort to build the recreational side of the game. He declared that effort a success, and they are now ready to move to the other side—fixing the sport. Only they are not going to mess with the lanes or the pins.

Give us a break!

The System of Bowling is a colossal failure because it established no maximum perameters and ignored the basic principle of the game—challenge—for both the recreation and sport. For ABC to spin SOB as a planned attempt to create recreational players is a not-so-funny joke. Even the Clinton White House wouldn't attempt such a far-fetched lie—or maybe it would.

With Bowl Expo '99 right around the corner, another opportunity will be available for bowling to stop the insanity and move on to real progress.

Real progress is possible. If I didn't believe it, me and my newspaper would find another sport. However, I suspect we will see a lot of finger pointing and playing of the blame game before our immature leaders can come together.

Maybe bowling needs a Supreme Court. I've heard some say that we need a commissioner with the authority to make the tough decisions that must be made. But having one person with that much power is a little frightening to many of us (read the recent article about Cuba in National Geographic, and you'll get a good read on how much damage the wrong person can do).

An independent panel of real experts who care about the game with the authority to replace anyone who does not perform just might get us going in the right direction.

Until our leaders learn it's the sport
that must be promoted first,
we cannot succeed.

Anyway, let's start the blame game now, so we can move past it and perhaps accomplish something worthwhile. Who is to blame for bowling's current sorry state of affairs?

Look in the mirror. It's all of us, or at least almost all of us.

Start with ABC. Blame it for becoming a political and promotional organization out to please everybody instead of just making and enforcing the rules of the game. WIBC is guilty of going along with the hopeless task, and blame it for being completely unwilling to give up their precious "women only" turf. For bowling to move forward, there can only be one organization with men's and women's divisions, not separate groups that secretly compete against each other on all levels.

Blame BPAA for holding a gun to the head of ABC, causing the creation of the stupid System of Bowling. Also blame proprietors who have been dumb enough to abandon their youth programs and leagues and have ignored their customers' needs for things like challenging conditions, clean centers, and no-smoking days or areas.

Blame the pro groups for never making a real attempt to work together, for following the lead of ABC and WIBC in maintaining complete separation, and for taking dozens of outside sponsors for granted, resulting in the loss of almost all of them.

Blame the manufacturers for not supporting the industry in proportion to their profits. For selectively choosing one group to support over another, and for taking advantage of the environment by flooding the marketplace with extremely expensive capital equipment and overpricing consumer goods that have far surpassed the rate of reasonable inflation and profit margins.

And finally, blame the bowling media for not questioning the flaws often enough and for selling BS in pursuit of advertising.

What about the bowlers? Blame them too, for quitting the game by the millions instead of sticking with it and fighting for change.

When the blame game is over, and I hope it's soon, only then can we rebuild a once-great game. Maybe then we can stop pretending to be something we are not.

Cosmic lights and loud music do not define us. We are not wrestling, nor are we a sensational television sport with non-stop action. If the young people today want action, noise, and gore, let them watch sports that provide those things without compromising their integrity.

It's time to admit that is just not our audience. Maybe our audience is more blue-collar, a little older, a little more intelligent. In plain logical language, we should stop trying to sell ourselves to those who don't like us, and probably never will, and start paying attention to those who still do like us. So what if the demographics skew a little older—isn't that the fastest growing portion of the population?

Bowling is a great recreation for families and people of all ages. It's also a very interesting game with many technical challenges that make it a legitimate sport. It's an old cliché, but it's still true: Bowling is very easy to learn, but very, very difficult to master.

Here we go again: Until our leaders learn it's the sport that must be promoted first, we cannot succeed. If I were in charge of this very complex industry, the first order of business would be to make it top priority to promote two areas: the pros and the kids. And the pros must be promoted with large enough dollars to get national attention, both men and women.

Manufacturers must not choose one group over the other—they must support both. The most important aspect of the youth program is college and high school bowling. It is an untapped gold mine.

If you speak to any of this industry's leaders, almost all will tell you they have the highest regard for the sport. The problem is they succumb to political pressures and manufacturers who want to sell capital equipment to open play customers. ... Short-term thinkers.

It's time for our leaders to face the truth. Either that, or it's time for this industry to get a new cast—and I'm not talking about the plaster variety.

Jim Goodwin, a BWAA director and PWBA's regional program director, is the award-winning editor/publisher of Stars & Strikes, in which the preceding originally appeared. Subscription rates are $20 per year (Pin Point Publishing, 2850 Red Valley Run, Rockwall, Texas 75087. Voice/fax: 972/771-0069).