This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, August, 2016
There is one phrase most humans will utter at least once during their formative years, either as naïve grade schoolers, know-it-all middle schoolers or figured-out-life-in-its-entirety high schoolers: “I’ll never need this in real life.”
Whether it’s the location of the frog’s kidney, the proper use of a semicolon or the Pythagorean Theorem, some kid somewhere thinks it’s useless knowledge that will never appear in his life ever again beyond the test he’s going to fail next week.
Of course, this oblivious, self-important, insufferable degenerate is wrong. The proof, as with most things, is in bowling.
Math
From the simplest things—the pins are numbered, the lanes are numbered and the building’s address is in numbers—to the glorious insanity of a changes-with-every-shot cut line, bowling cannot exist as a sport without math.
In order to know who is leading the tournament, you need to know how to add scores through all 898 qualifying games as well as how to determine which cumulative total is larger than all others. To figure the score in relation to par, it’s imperative you can multiply 200 by the number of games and subtract that product from the sum of qualifying scores. What’s your average? The quotient of two sums will tell you. Finding the volume of your freshly drilled bowling ball is a simple matter of rudimentary calculus. It’s time to integrate, ladies and gentlemen.
The reason you can so quickly add by 19 and 29 these days is due in large part to all the math problems you solved as a youngster. And because you’re stubborn and won’t adjust after a trip 4.
Science
This ball, with this cover stock and this core design drilled with this layout held with this grip and rolled at this target at this speed, will get to the right spot on the lane to turn back toward the pins, making contact with the pocket at the precise angle that propels each of the pins into each of the other pins, resulting in an X on the board.
Even if most high-level bowlers can’t explain the actual amount of acceleration required to generate enough force with the ball to turn the potential energy of the inert pins into kinetic energy, especially considering the ever-changing coefficient of friction (30 bonus pins to anyone who can pronounce μ). But, if they miss by even a little, they know a two-and-one move will make all those complicated physics equations work out properly on the next shot. Inherent mastery is still mastery. Every time you ace a physics test, your bowling average goes up one pin.
Geography
If there is only one type of map you can recall from elementary cartography, it is undoubtedly a topographical map. Bowlers can’t get enough topography. Or they get too much. The only certainty is the topography on every lane is advantageous to every bowler except the one telling the story.
Beyond topography, a sense of direction is massively important as a competitive bowler. Without a modest comprehension of land and sea, your 94-hour drives stuffed into an SUV with 10 other bowlers and 368 bowling balls might seem unbearable.
Reading and Writing
It’s long been said without attribution that writing is an essential skill to every job on the planet. Haha ya rite lol but rly tho. In bowling, you need to be able to read to decipher what the asterisk next to the word “Guaranteed” on the entry form means (hint: it means “not guaranteed”).
If you lack even basic writing skills, you’ll never be able to label your equipment, keep notes on pair-to-pair tendencies or write eloquent complaint letters to the tournament director.
Capstone
Pay attention, kids. Everything you learn in school will some day and in some way help you improve your bowling game, which, as we all know, is the reason schools were originally invented.