Cornerstone Newsletter, April 2009

June Davis — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:33:13 GMT

The Cornerstone

The Foundation Newsletter

Volume 12, Issue 4 April 2009

"The crisis is upon us, friends. Our sport is in trouble. Many of you, that love the game as we do, will look at the crisis like a friend who is in trouble and needs our help. We must not shrink from the task before us, we should welcome it. It is 'our' generation that has been called to the challenge. If not now, when? If not us, who?"

The Foundation

“One World, One Game”

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Letter from the Editor

Open Championships Rolling Strong

We’re a little more than a month into the 106^th USBC Open Championships and already the statistics are heating up. Here are a few of those random stats in honor of the tournament:

There are 17,200 teams scheduled to make the journey to Las Vegas for this year’s tournament. This makes the 2009 Open Championships the second largest in event history falling just shy of the record 17,285 teams at the first event held at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno in 1995. The 2009 tournament far eclipses the previous non-Reno record of 13,222 set when the tournament visited Baton Rouge in 2005.

As of this writing, there have been eight 300 games; one of them by a first time USBC Open Championship participant.

Two-hander Steven Vance briefly held the lead in Regular Singles shooting 747 to claim the early lead for the second consecutive year. Keith Jeffery is currently leading with 777.

One couple tied the knot just before hitting the lanes at the Cashman Center in Las Vegas. Blair and David Hamilton planned their wedding around the 2009 tournament.

George Kontos became the first bowler to roll an 800 series in the 2009 tournament. He shot 801 in the Regular Doubles event.

As of this writing, three bowlers have entered the 50 year club after having competed in the tournament for 50 consecutive years.

With more than three months left in competition, the stats are sure to continue piling up.

Good luck to all of the 2009 USBC Open Championships participants.

Field set for 2009 USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships

By: Gene J. Kanak; USBC Communications

This weekend, the nation's top collegiate bowling teams took part in sectional qualifying for the 2009 USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships. Qualifying competition consisted of 64 Baker games bowled at one of four sectional sites: Allentown, Pa., Chattanooga, Tenn., Fairview Heights, Ill., and Las Vegas.

Every team began sectionals with the same goal: to finish in the top four in their division. Doing so would mean a trip to the national finals, which will be held April 15-18 at The Cherry Bowl in Rockford, Ill; unfortunately, it was only possible for 16 men's teams and 16 women's teams to reach that goal, and it took some outstanding bowling to do so.

In Allentown, Pikeville won the men's competition with a 64-game total of 13,066 pins. Rochester Institute of Technology was second with 12,983, leaving Webber International (12,956) and Robert Morris (Pa.) (12,546) to collect the final two qualifying positions.

Maryland-Eastern Shore topped the women's field with 12,027 pins. Defending women's national champion Pikeville finished second with 11,902 pins. Penn State (11,791) and Erie Community College (11,575) finished third and fourth, respectively.

Saginaw Valley State had an easy time at the Chattanooga Sectional, putting up 13,477 pins to win the men's competition by nearly 700 pins over second-place Robert Morris (Ill.), which finished with 12,789 pins. Purdue (12,757) and Vincennes (12,709) grabbed the final two advancing spots, narrowly holding off Florida State (12,691), Morehead State (12,622) and Central Florida (12,613).

Things were not nearly as close on the women's side. Central Florida breezed to the title, shooting 12,778 to finish well ahead of second-place Bellarmine (11,876) and third-place Robert Morris (Ill.) (11,838). Ball State shot 11,641 to secure the final advancing position.

The Wichita State men's team earned the right to defend its national title by shooting 13,657 to win the Fairview Heights Sectional. Newman (13,169), Nebraska-Lincoln (13,147) and Calumet (12,718) also made it through. Nebraska-Omaha (12,592) and Western Illinois (12,570) also were in the hunt, both finishing within 200 pins of the qualifying number.

Things were even closer on the women's side where Calumet (11,540) grabbed fourth place just 38 pins ahead of fifth-place Wisconsin-Whitewater (11,502). Wichita State won the division with 12,473 pins. Wright State (11,678) and Newman (11,591) finished second and third, respectively.

The final spots to ITCs were given out at the Las Vegas Sectional. Fresno State (12,994), Lindenwood (12,823), Arizona State (12,805) and North Dakota State (12,703) advanced in the men's competition while McKendree (12,131), Lindenwood (12,101), Fresno State (11,793), Martin Methodist (11,658) made it through on the women's side.

Complete sectional results can be found on the sectional home page.

Field set for 2009 Intercollegiate Singles Championships

By: Gene J. Kanak; USBC Communications

Sectional qualifying for the 2009 USBC Intercollegiate Singles Championships took place Friday, March 13 in Allentown, Pa., Chattanooga, Tenn., Fairview Heights, Ill., and Las Vegas.

When the day began, 750 bowlers had their sights set on the national finals, which will take place May 17-19 at AMF Euless Lanes in Euless, Texas. Now, only 32 bowlers (16 men, 16 women) remain.

Those competitors punched their tickets to Texas and kept their national title hopes alive by finishing in the top four after six games of qualifying action at their respective sectional sites.

Here are the 2009 USBC Intercollegiate Singles Championships national finalists:

Allentown Sectional

Men

Player School Total Pins Average
Jonathan Buckert Wichita State 1,419 236.50
John Szczucinski Toledo 1,370 228.33
Carl Zbranak William Paterson 1,314 219.00
Adam Chase St. John’s 1,302 217.00

Women

Player School Total Pins Average
Liz Seibel Penn State 1,241 206.83
Caitlin Edwards Penn State-Berks 1,232 205.33
Nicole E. Burke Pikeville 1,228 204.67
Jessica Lowery Penn State 1,221 203.50

Chattanooga Sectional

Men

Player School Total Pins Average
Nick Davis North Carolina State 1,314 219.00
Brad DeUmberto Martin Methodist 1,314 219.00
Christopher Moyer Saginaw Valley State 1,308 218.00
Dan MacLelland Saginaw Valley State 1,308 218.00

Women

Player School Total Pins Average
Kristie Petravich Central Florida 1,352 225.33
Brigette Harrelson Central Florida 1,314 219.00
Danielle Corrao Central Florida 1,227 204.50
Samantha Kelly Robert Morris (Ill.) 1,225 204.17

Fairview Heights Sectional

Men

Player School Total Pins Average
Joshua McBride Wichita State 1,363 227.17
Sammy Krucek Calumet College 1,341 223.50
Jacob Peter Wichita State 1,336 222.67
Derek Hartnell Newman 1,325 220.83

Women

Player School Total Pins Average
Daniela Alvarado Wichita State 1,314 219.00
Linzey Roberts Newman 1,281 213.50
Sandra Gongora Wichita State 1,276 212.67
Erin Bault Wisconsin-Whitewater 1,258 209.67

* Erin Bault (Wisconsin-Whitewater) and Samantha Linder (Wichita State) tied for fourth place with 1,258 pins. Bault defeated Linder, 39-29, in a 9th- and 10-frame roll-off to earn the final spot. *

Las Vegas Sectional

Men

Player School Total Pins Average
Zack Wilhelmi North Dakota State 1,367 227.83
Jonathan Merriman North Texas 1,336 222.67
Robert Klann Lindenwood 1,328 221.33
Dennis Kasprzak Weber State 1,326 221.00

Women

Player School Total Pins Average
Rebekah Diers McKendree 1,280 213.33
Hayley Beavis Martin Methodist 1,274 212.33
Kirsten Sorensen Fresno State 1,273 212.17
Danielle Belobraydich McKendree 1,270 211.67

USBC partners with PBA to continue Women's Series

By: Lucas Wiseman; USBC Communications

The Professional Bowlers Association Women's Series presented by the United States Bowling Congress will return for the third consecutive season in 2009-10 with more competitors and eight events showcasing women's bowling on ESPN.

The PBA Women's Series will feature five standard events, the open-field PBA Women's World Championship, the Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles Championship and the season-ending PBA Women's Series Showdown. Each standard event will have a 20-player field, up from the 16-player field used this season.

In all, women will be competing for nearly $500,000 in prize money.

"USBC is committed to continuing to support opportunities for elite women bowlers and this is another step in that direction," USBC Vice President of Media Pete Tredwell said. "Partnering with the PBA offers us a great opportunity to promote the best women bowlers in the world."

Four of the five standard Women's Series events along with the newly created open-field PBA Women's World Championship will be contested and taped for broadcast in suburban Detroit during the PBA World Series of Bowling starting Aug. 13 and concluding Sept. 7. The fifth standard event will follow the Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles Championships in the spring.

Players will have the opportunity to qualify for PBA Women's Series exemptions at the U.S. Women's Open in Las Vegas from Aug. 3-9. Players who opt to pay a separate entry fee will be eligible to use their qualifying scores toward the PBA Women's Tour Trials to earn exemptions for the PBA Women's Series.

"It is a positive sign for everyone that each year there has been an expansion of the PBA Women's Series, whether it be increasing the number of events and now the number of exempt players," PBA Chief Operating Officer Tom Clark said. "The creation of the third women's major, the PBA Women's World Championship, and having the women prominent during the new PBA World Series of Bowling will also add more excitement to the Women's Series."

Here are some highlights of the 2009-10 PBA Women's Series:

* A total of 18 players will be exempt for the five standard events. The top 12 at the PBA Women's Tour Trials will earn spots while the six champions during the 2008-09 season will be granted exemptions (Stefanie Nation, Michelle Feldman, Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, Jodi Woessner, Liz Johnson and Wendy Macpherson). The prize money available at each standard event is just over $50,000.

* For each of the standard events, two spots will be up for grabs during the PBA Tour Qualifying Round, allowing those who do not earn exemptions another opportunity to bowl their way into each event. If any of the exempt players elect not to compete in an event, the number of players advancing through the Tour Qualifying Round would increase.

* The PBA Women's World Championship will be open to any female bowler and will be conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 5. It marks the first time an open-field women's event has been conducted in the three-year history of the PBA Women's Series and creates a third major women's event alongside the U.S. Women's Open and USBC Queens. The PBA Women's World Championships will feature an estimated prize fund of $85,000.

* The Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles Championship will return during the second half of the PBA Tour season at a location and date to be determined. The 18 regular exempt players will be joined by the next 14 players from the PBA Women's Tour Trials to create a field of 32 women battling for more than $100,000 in prize money.

* The PBA Women's Series Showdown, which debuts this April, will return in April 2010 and feature the winners of each Women's Series event during the 2009-10 season with $50,000 in prizes up for grabs. The event will take place at the new USBC International Training and Research Center in Arlington, Texas.

The PBA Women's Series debuted in 2007 and has been conducted alongside the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour as a way to showcase women's bowling. It marks the only professional women's bowling tour in the United States after the Professional Women's Bowling Association ceased operations in 2003.

(Editor’s note: The 2009 PBA Women’s Series Showdown is being taped at the Kegel Training and Tournament Center on April 8, 2009. An additional PBA special event is also being taped at the Kegel Training and Tournament Center on April 9 and 10.)

What Is "Process Verification", And Why Do We Do It?

By: John Davis

Answering The Four Unanswered Questions :

There are four questions on the minds of every competitive bowler at every event in the U.S..

1. Who chose this condition?

2. What right did he or she have to do this?

3. What was the motivation of the person choosing?

4. Were the lanes conditioned the same from week-to-week (day-to-day), or was an adjustment made to change the course of the event?

It seems to me, that in order to make a dent in our psychological attitudes, these four questions need to be answered and the answers need to be accepted.

For question number four, we now have a solution. In the past, the lane maintenance person’s word has been questioned because of perceived changes in ball reaction. He/she never wins that one. We have found that there are many reasons why the lanes may be done the same, but ball reaction is different.

With the introduction of Sanction Technology, we can now prove the pattern is exactly the same every time. This is a huge step forward in understanding bowing’s technical problems, because it eliminates the oil pattern as a variable. So, if the ball reaction is perceived by the players to have changed from the previous week, we can then look at the other variables.

Your sport league will bowl on specific conditioner patterns supplied by Kegel. We will ask for your cooperation in ensuring we follow the Process Verification Procedure every time you condition the lanes for your league. What this means is that each week when your league bowls the process of cleaning and conditioning the lanes is verified. Please be sure to follow the Process Verification Procedure checklist every week. A Process Verification Committee must be formed by the league president and a representative of this committee must be present each week to verify the process. This ensures to your bowlers that the same procedures are being followed each and every time you do the lanes for your league. Keep the signed forms so that you will have a permanent record that your lanes were verified.

Process Verification Procedure (PVP)

A). Inspection of the lane stripping, including taking tapes of the clean lane.

B). Inspection of the actual lane oiling program while the machine is running.

C). Running the calibration checks. This is a procedure where the oil that would normally go to the lane is captured into a graduated cylinder for measurement. The amount is calculable from the program.

D). The committee representative then walks with the machine to watch the oil go on the lane. The machine operation is very visible under a black light that is attached to the lane machine.

E). The committee representative then signs-off that nothing in the procedure has changed.

(NOTE: This reminder has been featured many times before and can be found on our website at www.kegel.net. The overall importance of this procedure is of utmost importance.)

“NEW” Scoring System ?

When the inaugural PBA Women’s Series Showdown airs from the Kegel Training Center April 22 on ESPN 2, the big news won’t be that it features the return of today’s top women bowlers in their own dedicated telecast in a special season-ending airing.

Nor will the headline focus on the fact that the USBC-presented event commands back-to-back one-hour telecasts to fit it all in. Nor will it even be the $25,000 title that’s up for grabs.

Rather, the most attention will be generated by what the PBA calls its “radically different” format; i.e., the Petraglia Scoring System.

The Petraglia System ignores pinfall completely. Instead, it simply counts the number of balls it takes to clear the deck in each frame. For instance, a strike is scored as a “1” and a spare yields a “2” for the frame. If a split was left, it might require three or more balls to knock down all the pins.

Under the Petraglia system, the lowest score wins. A perfect Petraglia game would be a “10” for 10 strikes. Any ties would be broken by a one-ball sudden-death roll-off.

Revolutionary? To be sure. One that defies tradition? Absolutely! A format that will inspire considerable controversy? We would be shocked if it didn’t.

Yet the system has one ingredient that we find positively compelling. It is a system that absolutely anybody can understand. We’re not sure how important this is. However, we do know that there are many folks who have trouble figuring out where they stand in most matches today.
That even includes some of the most hardened competitors. We can’t help but feel that limits bowling’s appeal. After all, go to a tennis match or any sporting contest, and you know exactly who’s ahead or behind.

If you’re a spectator at a bowling match, the dialogue might go like this: “Who’s winning?” Answer: “Dunno.” Or, “How much is so-and-so losing this game by?” Answer: “Haven’t a clue.”

With the Petraglia System, you not only know exactly where you stand — or whoever it is you’ve following — in a given game or match, but you can figure it out in your head as simply as making change for a newspaper after giving the clerk a dollar bill.

The field includes five 2008-09 winners of PBA Women’s Series events — Michelle Feldman; Stefanie Nation; Carolyn Dorin-Ballard; Jodi Woessner, and Wendy Macpherson — plus Missy Bellinder, who finished second to two-time champion Feldman.

We don’t know how they feel about this new scoring system today, but we do know one thing — they might be surprised at how easily they adapt to it once they give it a try.

Recent Phantom Radio Trivia Contest Winners

Phantom Radio’s monthly Trivia Contests continue to be popular with the listeners and the list of Phantom Phans continues to grow. The contests are sponsored by Storm Bowling and you must be a “Phantom Phan Club Member” to be eligible to win. It’s easy to join, just go to our website, at: www.foundation300.com and look for: How to join The Phantom Phan Club.

Listed below are the most recent Phan Club winners. Sign-up today and you could win, too!

JANUARY – 2009

1. Doug Chase: Wins a Storm Bowling Ball. Doug, please contact me as soon as possible so that I can put you in touch with our friends at Storm

2. Gil Cyester: Wins a Chris Barnes Bobble-Head Doll……..which is a very nice prize.

3. Amanda Northrup: Wins a collared Foundation Shirt that are seen around the world.

4. Keith Matson: Wins a Phantom Radio T-Shirt and a Phantom Radio souvenir towel.

FEBRUARY – 2009

1. Brett Diamond: Wins a beautiful Bowling Bag from Storm Bowling. Brett, please contact me so that I can put you in touch with our friends at Storm Bowling. Congrats!!

2. Dave Kowalski: Wins a very nice Wall Clock, courtesy of The Kegel Company. This is a great prize that you would be proud to display in any room in your house or business.

3. Jon Wolfe: Wins a Special “prize” which is the very first copy of a book that Phantom wrote several years ago, about: “The History of Bowling and Lane Maintenance.”

4. Sally Raudy: Wins a souvenir “Carry Bag” from International Bowl Expo.

MARCH – 2009

1. Bob Gritzke: Wins a Storm Accessory Item, so Bob, please contact me so that I can put you in touch with our friends at Storm. Congratulations Bob.

2. Rick Wiltse: Wins a Souvenir Shirt from the popular Don Glover Masters Scratch Tournament to be held later in the year.

3. Joan Schliewenz: Wins a Pete Weber Bobble-Head Doll – a very popular Prize.

4. Art Johnson: Wins an assortment of prizes that include; A Letter Opener, A Kegel Souvenir Pen, A Storm Key Chain and a Sun Glasses “holder for your automobile.

For a complete list of all of the past winners (and their prizes) go to: www.foundation300.com

Once you are there, scroll down and click-on: Phantom Phan Club, then go to: Storm Bowling Trivia Contest Winners. If you don’t see your name, it’s because you are NOT a member! Join today and start taking advantage of all of the great monthly prizes that are given away.

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Membership Report

We have members in all 50 states,
and the District of Columbia

We have members in 49 countries, including the United States:

Argentina Australia Bahrain Belgium Brazil Canada China Columbia Costa Rica Denmark Ecuador Egypt Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Guam Guatemala Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea Latvia Malaysia Mexico The Netherlands N. Ireland Netherlands Antilles
New Zealand Panama Philippines Puerto Rico Peru Qatar Scotland Singapore Slovenia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Thailand Turkey U.A.E. Ukraine Venezuela

Corporate Sponsors

The problems that exist in our Sport are “industry-wide” problems that must be addressed by the entire Industry. The Foundation does all that they can to help, but we can NOT do it alone.

The Foundation has well over 1000-Members who have joined-in to assist. Some Members (Founding and Charter) have paid to show their support. Some Members (Associates) have just lent their “voice”. ALL of the members are important.

Even though The Foundation has NOT actively solicited bowling-related companies for help, some realize the importance of our “Mission” and have come forward with donations. We recognize the following companies for their loyalty and support to bowling.

KEGEL

KAT Travel

I.B.P.S.I.A.

EBN Services

Storm Bowling

Classic Products

Bobs’ Business, Inc.

Vincennes University

BowlersParadise.com

Virtualtournaments.com

Wichita State University

David Driscoll & Associates

International Bowling Industry Magazine

Stars and Strikes Bowling Newsmagazine

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The Cornerstone,

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The Foundation

c/o Kegel

6800 US 27 North

Sebring FL 33870

Phone: 863-382-2643

Email: savrsprt@yahoo.com

The Foundation

“One World, One Game"

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Cornerstone Newsletter, April 2009