A Valuable Learning Experience

bowlingball.com, Originally Posted: 3/17/2015; Updated: 6/24/2022

A Valuable Learning Experience -- Mothers need not worry about bowling

by Chuck Pezzano

Many a mother worries if her youngster seems too interested in a sport, be it football, baseball, field hockey or bowling.

She may rightfully feel that a sport could have a distracting influence on the youngster when he or she should be concentrating on the basics of education. There's little need for concern, if the sport is bowling.

If boys and girls are bowling enthusiasts, they must learn the scoring and mathematics necessary. The math end needs close attention, and it can become a bit complicated when the youngster gets involved with averages, high games, high series, point systems and the many other statistics connected with bowling. In addition, they learn to count quickly and true, just to make sure opponents are doing it properly.

So, to keep their place as young bowling experts, they must pay heed to math. They want to be able to decipher entry blanks and rule books, and they want to read the accounts of leagues and tournaments and the exploits of their bowl- ing heroes in newspapers, bowling publications and magazines, so they have more concern for reading. Whether they know it or not, they become better readers, and more acquainted with words.

They learn how to win, how to lose, how to organize, how important team efforts are, and how it is just as important to be an individual. And they learn those things, sometimes all too painfully, and they learn without undue pressure on them.

Boys and girls interested in bowling can't bowl all they want since most allowances won't stretch that far. Many become a little more eager to do some extra chores around the house to earn some extra money to bowl some extra games.

Some take on a part-time job, and many keep score at tournaments. There, mothers have little to fear, a bowling center is a good place for a youngster to be.



There are many ways to lose bowling friends and teammates, or at least, annoy them greatly. Here’s a few:

• Use a person’s personal ball or stick your fingers in it without asking permission.

• Spill your drink on their bowling shoes.

• Shake hands with them after eating chocolate or potato chips, or after you run your fingers through your hair.

• Always tell them how good the person whose place on the team they took was.

• Yell at them.

• Give them the silent treatment.

• Go to every league meeting and question everything that comes up.

• Never read the rule book.

• Memorize every rule and make sure everyone knows that you know every word of the book.

• Tell the proud owner of a new, very expensive bowling ball that you could have gotten it for them wholesale.

• Always keep score.

• Never keep score.

• Don’t bother to learn how to keep score.

• Whenever you roll badly tell everyone how good you used to bowl.

• Use the bowling center as your marketplace to sell raffle tickets, cookies, candy, and everything else.

• Rush to the line without ever taking a look to see if anyone is ready to bowl on either side.

• Don’t bowl unless there are six lanes open on each side.

• Be the last one to arrive and the first one to leave, so much that you don’t know how your team stands before the night starts, and you’re gone before the night’s results are known.

• Never be ready when it is your turn to bowl.

• Tell everyone, every time, when it is their turn to bowl.

• Make excuses for every shot.

• Never have a reasonable excuse.

• Cry about everything.

• Never cry.

Article was posted with permission from Stars & Strikes, America's Bowling Newsmagazine.

www.starsandstrikesbowling.com​