This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, September, 2017
One of the most common arguments against bowling fandom, coming from those who don’t watch professional bowling, is that bowling is too easy. All you have to do is a throw a ball 18.288 meters and knock down 10 pins. Anybody can do that. Right?
To anyone who’s bowled even a few times, that argument holds no merit. Bowling sometimes looks easy when the pros do it, and while it is possible for anyone of any skill level to throw a strike (or even a few in a row), only some can understand what it takes and only the best can sustain that performance, especially on the difficult lane conditions confronting professionals.
Some bowlers and bowling fans will go back at the detractors and say, “If only you understood how good these pros really are, you’d like it.”
Unfortunately, telling people what they should like usually doesn’t work.
Yes, it would be nice if everyone understood the incredible talent level of the best bowlers in the world. However, we’re not going to hook any new fans with the if-you-only-understood-how-good-they-are argument. That’s like suggesting your local CPA firm would have a crowd of onlookers cramming into the hallways and cubicles because word got out they’re the best CPA firm in the world.
“Hey, let’s go downtown and watch the CPAs do taxes,” says Warren, an avid CPA fan.
“Why would I want to do that?” says Warren’s friend. “It’s just math. Anybody can do it. It’s easy.”
“You don’t understand. It’s not just math. They have to know each person’s specific situation, adjust to the tax laws and use the best strategy to get the maximum refund.”
People, for the most part, are not going to be drawn into something simply because they’re told it’s highly complicated and difficult. In fact, studies show complications and difficulties are the two leading causes of quitting anything.
Bowling is Difficult
There’s one thing that may be more challenging than bowling: a bowler trying to explain to a non-bowler how difficult bowling is.
If you’re a bowler, at least two of the following are true: (1) you’re married to or dating a bowler; (2) you have the number 300 or 900 in your social-media handles; (3) you can easily talk over the heads of the general public with intricate knowledge of cover stocks, cores, layouts, thumb tape, oil patterns, adjustments, topography, deliveries, fairness, speed, angles, surface, shine, forward rolls, axis tilts, kinesiology, oil viscosity, humidity, hypothetical situations and putting it all together, completely synchronized, on the way to a perfect game.
This is all fine amid wonderful bowling nomenclature, but a potential new fan can’t be attracted to all this until that person has a very basic understanding and genuine interest in the act of knocking down 10 pins.
Go Bowling
Why not take someone bowling? Instead of explaining how difficult it is, take a friend and go have fun playing the game. Your friend will naturally start asking you questions. How do you hook it like that? Why did you make the guy put us on two lanes instead of one? Why did you bring 48 bowling balls when there are racks full of them here already? Why didn’t you tell me not to step past the foul line?
Your friend—just as you did once upon a time—will gradually come around at his own pace. He will start to learn about oil, experiment with different drilling layouts and lament the fact it rained last night. Soon enough, he’ll know how difficult bowling is. Your friend, thanks to you taking him bowling, is luring himself into the never-ending learning opportunity that is bowling.