Make your own computer game

HAS IT REALLY BEEN MORE than a year since my last national pro tournament? I've been doing my share of reminiscing recently about my early years on the LPBT/PWBA tour. Between that and being part of the planning committee for a new women's tour through WIBC/USBC, I structured some observations about our sport. One of the biggest observations I've had could be part of an answer to bowling's lack of organized participation. It's a way that you can be involved in the process of change.

Women's professional bowling has never been a lucrative business from the athlete's perspective, at least not like other individual sports. I personally have enjoyed some good years, but as Steve Miller from the PBA says, you have to spend money to make money, and I've had my share of expenses. As a professional bowler, I pay for entry fees, all travel and hotel expenses, food, and all other expenses related to my career, such as health club memberships, health insurance, marketing, and more. I must perform to earn money in a tournament. And only if I am a top performer can I receive extra income through endorsements, appearances, and speaking engagements.

I was lucky. I worked hard. I had open eyes and a strong intellect. I also realized early on that I needed more resources to make my dreams come true: I needed knowledgeable, regular coaching--and I needed a mentor.

I have found my personal share of mentors over the years who have helped me to improve myself. Professional bowling, or even bowling at a high level, is more than understanding bowling balls and lane conditions. It is learning to handle stress, time and money management, dealing with loss, and scores of other "non-bowling" topics.

What I have observed during the past 15 years is that most successful tour "newbies," including myself, had people in their lives that gave them a solid foundation of mental, emotional, and physical skills before coming out on tour. Those young players then also developed new relationships with tour veterans on the road to further their skills. Individuals who did not create these two situations went home without tournament success.

Some top professionals who helped me over the years by giving me all types of advice and allowed me to learn from their examples include Pete Couture, Bill Spigner, Jeanne Naccarrato, and Jeannette Robinson. I have observed our "next generation" of top young professional bowlers being taken under the wing of veterans as both friends and proteges. It was an informal process of more social means, but it happened on a weekly basis for years.

Several claim our sport is on the decline. But it can be improved by taking these observations and using them to develop a formal method to improve younger people's lives through bowling. Bowling can be used to help improve the lives of our youth. Not every young bowler will want to go into the professional ranks, but if they learn certain skills through bowling, they can go on to become successful individuals. Positive motivation also gives young players a better chance at staying in the sport.

"It is important to note that while mentoring enhances other types of training, it does not replace it. A mentor can help the protege to use all the tools available to enhance success, but ultimately success lies in the hands of the protege. To be successful, a coach has to be able to access all the tools that are available, such as videotape analysis, computer analysis, and physiological and psychological analysis. A good mentor will help you to access these tools and will help you to work with them more effectively. Mentors may not have the solution to every problem, but they should be able to help you find the solutions."

--Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching

I have personally been mentoring a few young people in the past few years [see sidebar on page 23]. Personal experience leads me to believe this philosophy: Bowling is" life! I teach that if you can learn a personal skill, such as better concentration through bowling, you will be able to use it in your non-bowling life. Also, if you come to the lanes with the proper emotional and intellectual skills learned off them, it could help to improve your bowling. It is a reciprocal process. You may not be a bowling instructor, but you can help someone (or even yourself) become a better bowler by improving your "off-lanes" skills.

Here are some ideas you can use to improve your own bowling by becoming a teacher yourself:

* Become a junior league coach. You do not have to be "bowling knowledgeable" to be involved in the junior programs through your local center, but you will improve your knowledge just by being there and observing problems and solutions at a very basic level of bowling. As you observe juniors trying to do their best and have fun, you can become inspired by their own enthusiasm. I became a junior league coach when I was only 16, and many young players do the same by becoming bowling "big brothers/sisters."

* You do not have to be an adult to coach others. I have an 11-year-old student who has begun helping bowlers younger than her by sharing her own knowledge and communicating it in age-appropriate terms.

* Bowl in an adult/youth league and take a junior bowler under your wing. There is so much benefit to bowling with others. Learning by example is a wonderful technique, and what better way is there to do so than to be experiencing the same problems together?

* Research a bowling method together with students (or potential students). The online world allows for unprecedented opportunities for learning. There are countless sources of information about the sport. Spend time together in a specific area of bowling you would both like to learn more about. Learning about a specific topic--for example, the mental aspect of bowling--can help you both become better bowlers. Make copies of your findings and post them for others to read at the bowling center "community board," tables during your league, and so on.

Education leads to enthusiasm. Enthusiasm leads to true meaning and purpose for being involved--a way for our sport to develop more "roots."

RELATED ARTICLE: A mentor can change a life.

WHEN OUR 11-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, ELISE, BEGAN bowling two years ago, we had no idea how much our family would change. Elise and her dad joined an adult youth league on Sunday afternoons; we all thought it would be a good way for Dad to spend more time with her. She enjoyed bowling so much that she wanted to join another league when that one ended.

My husband and I bowled in many centers all over south Florida, but we never knew about youth bowling. As our children's bowling skills improved and they became more interested in the sport, we realized bowling was a great way for the whole family to get involved in something that would bring us together.

We realized through bowling that Elise needed special attention. That is when a guardian angel stepped in--her bowling mentor, Kim Adler. Even though my husband and I had been bowling for years, we knew nothing about the sport. It's much more than walking into a bowling center with a Sponge Bob ball and pair of shoes in a plastic bag. The world of competitive bowling is more than showing up on Friday night and meeting your friends for three games of bowling.

As Elise started working with Kim, her bowling skills improved very quickly. But we also saw something quite unexpected and very welcome. We sat there at each meeting watching the intent in our daughter's eyes as she listened very carefully to explanations of board numbers and oil patterns. But it was more than just Elise's improved concentration--there was something deeper in her eyes that was far beyond her being. There was inspiration, desire, and self-confidence growing in her with each word that Kim spoke. No one could have told me that one day my daughter would have another woman in her life that meant as much to her as I did, but that happened, Kim can teach her things about life that I as her mother cannot.

Kim taught Elise to be self-confident, that she does not require peer approval to be a successful person. Elise is now the leader n her peer group in a positive way, organizing other children at her school into bowling teams that now bowl in our local YABA program. Her friends took up to her because of her bowling skills, as they try to improve their own. Elise is more self-confident around adults; she knows that with her 170 average, she can go out and be competitive in adult leagues. And because of Kim, Elise has handled this self-confidence with respect and grace, proudly, in many different types of everyday situations ... she is now much more mature than her 11-year-old friends.