THE WORLD'S ONLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO THE BUSINESS OF BOWLING
CONTENTS
VOL 18.10
6 THE ISSUE AT HAND
25 OPERATIONS
Patent pending
Turnabout How do you keep your consultant’s objectivity when you buy into the business and start running it?
By Scott Frager
8 SHORTS Industry says YES... summit for state prexies and E.D.s...and peoplewatching.
29 PROFILE
Rock pioneer, nightclub owner, food business entrepreneur – but Lloyd Price can’t stay away from bowling.
A celebrity town that’s also a mom-andpop village, and a bowling center for everybody.
By Gregory Keer
32 THE ATTIC TRUNK
12 OFF THE CLOCK
Bragging rights
Planting seeds 18
When it comes to bowling, Detroit is in a league of its own. By Matt Fiorito.
46 REMEMBER WHEN
18 COVER STORY
1946 It was a year of big transition for bowling.
Patent in the pan Bowl Expo rumor was wrong that Fred Borden’s glow patent had been invalidated. Here’s the story behind the patent, Borden’s lawsuits, and what lies ahead.
37 Showcase 38 Datebook 38 Classifieds
By Fred Groh 32
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MANAGING EDITOR Fred Groh groh@bowlingindustry.com
OFFICE MANAGER Patty Heath heath@bowlingindustry.com
CONTRIBUTORS Matt Fiorito Gregory Keer
tahmizian@bowlingindustry.com
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4
frager@bowlingindustry.com Skype: scottfrager
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Victoria Tahmizian
Price is right for bowling and music
What does bowling have in common with a pastor’s mission? Akron Lanes.
PUBLISHER & EDITOR Scott Frager
SPECIAL PROJECTS Jackie Fisher fisher@bowlingindustry.com
ART DIRECTION & PRODUCTION Designworks www.dzynwrx.com (818) 735-9424
FOUNDER Allen Crown (1933-2002)
13245 Riverside Dr., Suite 501 Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 (818) 789-2695(BOWL) Fax (818) 789-2812 info@bowlingindustry.com
www.BowlingIndustry.com
HOTLINE: 888-424-2695 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One copy of International Bowling Industry is sent free to every bowling center, independently owned pro shop and collegiate bowling center in the U.S., and every military bowling center and pro shop worldwide. Publisher reserves the right to provide free subscriptions to those individuals who meet publication qualifications. Additional subscriptions may be purchased for delivery in the U.S. for $50 per year. Subscriptions for Canada and Mexico are $65 per year, all other foreign subscriptions are $80 per year. All foreign subscriptions should be paid in U.S. funds using International Money Orders. POSTMASTER: Please send new as well as old address to International Bowling Industry, 13245 Riverside Drive, Suite 501, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 USA. If possible, please furnish address mailing label. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright 2010, B2B Media, Inc. No part of this magazine may be reprinted without the publisher’s permission.
MEMBER AND/OR SUPPORTER OF:
THE ISSUE AT HAND
Patent pending Fred Borden has been a tall profile in the industry for many years. Probably best known as a gifted coach, he has made a heavy contribution to developing a new generation of competitive players. In the process, he has earned a reputation as a teacher second to none, a reputation that reaches even outside the industry. Borden’s contribution to bowling is unmatched – a proposition very few on the business side would dispute. But recently another side has been cleft in the Borden reputation, and it was the talk of Bowl Expo. Some years ago, Borden took out a patent on glow bowling – not a “small” patent on a new type of light or fog juice, not even on some unique configuration of glow apparatus, but a very “large” patent on “method and apparatus for bowling in minimal ambient light,” to quote the title of his patent. The talk around Expo touched on Borden’s lawsuits against Brunswick and QubicaAMF in defense of the patent, but mostly those who talked about it were issuing small sighs of relief. The word was that Borden’s patent had been thrown out by the U.S. Patent Office. No worry, then, about a proprietor having to license his glow bowling from Fred Borden. The talk was wrong. In the years since Borden began defending his patent, items have popped up now and then, in one
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publication or another recording newsworthy points in his campaign. But until now, in this issue, the full story in Borden’s words has not been told. Has he been doing anything in defending his patent that an inventor in any other field wouldn’t do? Has he been biting the hand that fed him, as some people claim? There is a good chance that what you think you know about the Borden case and what is true could be quite different. You’ll have to read the story before you decide. Whatever your final judgment on the case, we believe kudos are due BPAA for asking its general counsel to look into the matter. BPAA stepped up and dedicated resources to having the facts reviewed and recommendations formulated on behalf of its members in a matter that goes right to the heart of an important part of doing business in a bowling center. Whether one sides with or against Fred Borden, this is exactly the type of thing that a trade association should be doing on behalf of its members. – SCOTT FRAGER, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR frager@bowlingindustry.com
THIS MONTH AT www.BowlingIndustry.com
Videos from around the industry – funny, serious, kool! Add you own, too.
SHORTS
INDUSTRY SAYS YES TO YOUTH BOWLING Industry suppliers have pledged $250,000 for initial funding of a new BPAA-USBCBowling Foundation initiative to develop youth bowling. The seed money for YES – for Youth Education Services Fund – was contributed by Brunswick, 900 Global, QubicaAMF, Roto Grip, Storm, and Ebonite and its brands Columbia 300, Hammer and Track. Bowling Foundation directors will choose programs to fund, with BPAA and USBC to develop the programs jointly. The initiative is headed by Chad Murphy, BPAA’s Youth Director. A “youth experience/coaching concept” is currently in field
test at centers in California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, New York and at the International Training and Research Center in Arlington. Public introduction of the final version of the concept is expected at Bowl Expo next year. Pictured at a meeting Aug. 24 at the International Bowling Campus, where they pledged the initial YES funding, are, in the back row, Dave Smart, 900 Global; Bart Burger, Brunswick; Stu Upson, USBC; Steve Johnson, BPAA; Randy Schickert, Ebonite; and Dave Symes, Storm. In front are Mike Sellers, 900 Global; Bob Daniels, Brunswick; Bob Reid, Ebonite; and Hank Boomershine, Storm.
IN THE LOOKING GLASS: BPAA Hosts Leadership Retreat for State Prexies, E.D.s
Thirty-five state association presidents and executive directors convened at the International Bowling Campus for a two-day Leadership Retreat, Sept. 15-16.
A series of loosely structured discussions among the state association people and BPAA national, the retreat turned out to be an occasion for review, evaluation, brainstorming, and frank talk. Attending from BPAA were executive director Steve Johnson, president 8
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John Snyder, president-elect Cathy DeSocio, secretary Nancy Schenk, and treasurer Tom Martino. After a welcome by Johnson, state attendees moderated discussions through the two days based on their own practices and experience. Among the E.D.s, Ken West (CT) led talk on how state E.D.s can be better at their jobs; Pat Marazzi (OH), on dealing with difficult association members; and Kathy Leitgeb (NY), on BPAA and the states becoming more relevant to one another. Howard Davis (president, NC) sparked a discussion on motivating proprietors to become more involved in associations, while Tracy Ridgeway (E.D., ID) asked the group how media exposure for bowling could be improved at state level. The value in belonging to a state association – a recurring question – was raised at the retreat and answered by E.D.s and presidents pointing to center visits by E.D.s. The visits are critical to the effectiveness of programs that BPAA seeks and to the value of the programs for proprietors, they agreed. In other take-away points, attendees agreed on the critical importance of job descriptions and training for presidents and executive directors; strategic plans and the setting of specific goals; and accountability (including state boards justifying state dues to members).
SHORTS
KEGEL TRAINING CENTER OPENS IN EUROPE The first Kegel Training Center in Europe has opened inside Dolfijn Bowlingcentrum, a center in Ringbaan Oost te Tilburg, The Netherlands. Kegel Trainingcenter Europe NL, modeled on the 12-lane training center at Kegel headquarters in Lake Wales, FL, includes Dartfish video software with HD cameras and the Computer-Aided Tracking Systems (CATS) on four lanes. The technology gives coaches and players shot-by-shot data on ball speed, launch angle, target accuracy at various points on the lane, entry angle and rev rate. The new facility operates under license to Dolfijn Bowling Tilburg, Ronald Dol president. Coaches at the new venue spent four months in preparation at the Florida training center, where 10,000 bowlers have been schooled.
KIDS BOWL ON NBC Kids Bowl Free got 2 minutes 30 seconds worth of national fame on Aug. 31. The “Making a Difference” segment of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams showcased the youth bowling promotion and how it’s working at Richfield Bowl in Flint, MI. Segment host Lee Cowan described the promotion for his audience as “part of the nationwide effort to make sure the country’s economic downturn didn’t
Bruce Davis (left) and Darin Spindler (right), principals of Kids Bowl Free, flank NBC newsman Lee Cowan, who hosted the NBC News segment.
land their [kids’] summers in the gutter.” He said the 3,000 kids who signed up for the program this summer at Richfield represented $1 million in revenue that owner Jim Teuber had foregone “in exchange for a smile” on kids’ faces. (Teuber told IBI he didn’t know where the news program obtained the figures, but that they were inaccurate.) On air, Kids Bowl Free principal Bruce Davis remarked, “Dollars were short and the bowling operators stepped up and said, ‘Bring ’em in, let’s enjoy the summer.’” Nationally, Kids Bowl Free has enrolled more than a million youngsters to date, making it the most successful youth promotion in industry history, according to Davis.
Happy men at the opening of the first Kegel Training Center in Europe are (from left) Hans Krol, owner of Bowltech and a partner in the training center; Ronald Dol, owner of the Tilburg house where the training center is located; and Del Warren, VP Kegel Training Center.
PEOPLEWATCHING Dave Patz is new national sales director for ZOT Pinsetter Parts, Denver. In more than 30 years in the industry, Patz has been VP of sales for Done-Rite and, more recently, president and COO of Freeway Lanes Bowling Group, where he remains a partner.
Dave Patz
Doug Barth, vice president of sales at Classic Products
Corp, died in a motorcycle accident in September. A replacement had not been named at press time. Classic’s Bob Gudorf, who worked with Barth from the formation of the company in 1987, said, “I lost a very, very good friend. We argued, we fought – both being German – but the name of the game was Doug Barth what’s best for the customer and what was best for Classic.” IBI
October 2010
9
CENTER STAGE
CENTERSTAGE “Vail is its own world. We live in this very affluent vacation spot, but it’s really a small town, like Mayberry.” Winter tourists to Colorado’s skiing heaven, who swell the population like water bursting a pipe, might never guess. Especially if they check out what condos are selling for in the new mixed10
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use development where you’ll find Bol, a 10lane bowling emporium that opened this summer. “In the $19 million range,” Bol operating partner Barry Davis reports. That exclamation-point luxury set the standard for everything at Bol, says Davis. That goes for lanes (supplied by Brunswick) that are white with
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flecks of wood grain and custom balls that look like billiard balls. Also in the swing of things are a Maine lobster personal pizza, lamb finger sandwiches stuffed with carrot salad and tzatziki, and homemade potato chips on the menu created by chef Eric Wupperman. Mom-and-pop the town may be, but also, as Davis says about Bol, “there’s lots of eye candy going on.” ❖ IBI
October 2010
11
OFF THE CLOCK
PLANTING
SEEDS
What does bowling have in common with a pastor’s mission? Akron Lanes.
W
hen AMF decided not to renew the lease on what’s now called Bill White’s Akron Lanes in Akron, OH, Bill Jr. needed to head back. His father was 77 and about to take over the 64-lane house, which the two of them owned. The junior White was an experienced bowling manager. In fact, he started in the business at the same center in the late ’70s when Bill Sr. was the manager. Fair Lanes bought the house a few years later and Bill Jr. became an assistant manager for the chain in Indianapolis, then manager – at Akron Lanes – while Bill Sr. ran a second center, Twin Star Lanes in nearby Kent. But Bill the younger was not managing a bowling center in 2005 when he packed the car and pointed it toward Akron and the center he partly owned in. He was a pastor in the Evangelical Free Church. He became a Christian in December 1978. Soon active in church work, “along the way, as I was teaching and praying and studying, I really felt a call to the ministry,” he says. That was in the late 1980s. He quit Fair Lanes in ’87 to work with his father, complete his undergraduate degree in Akron, then head west to Denver Theological Seminary. He graduated in 1997 with a master’s in divinity/educational ministries, and took a position at the Wabash Friends Church in Wabash, IN, about three hours from Akron. He was headed from there after AMF pulled out of 12
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Bill Jr. on the big day for Gene and Sharon.
Akron Lanes and Bill Sr. was about to take it over. “I still wanted to be a pastor,” Bill Jr. says, “so I was a candidate – I interviewed – at different churches around the area. Nothing worked out.” Then last year, he and his wife, Sheryl, were taking a class on the world Christian movement. One section had to do with “planting” – establishing – a church at “third places.” “You may have heard Starbucks say, ‘We want to be your third place.’ Your first place is your home. Your second place is your work. And the third place is [where] you hang out and know people,” Bill explains. “The idea is that if you plant a church in a third place, people that
OFF THE CLOCK wouldn’t go to a ‘regular church’ would come because they’re used to the environment, and they probably know some people [there].” Coffee shops and health clubs have been used as third places for plantings. What place better than a bowling center? “That’s what every bowling center wants to be,” he says. “We may not say it that way but we want them to feel like they’re part of it.” What better than his bowling center? “I really think God wants us to plant a church at Akron Lanes,” he told his wife when they arrived home from the class. “I knew it! I felt the same thing,” she answered. ❃❃❃
Bill started Akron Action Church, now meeting weekly in the bar at Bill White’s Akron Lanes, by contacting various denominations. The best for him was the Evangelical Free Church of America, a Minneapolis-headquartered association of about 1,500 churches in 75 countries. With the mission of “glorifying God by multiplying
healthy churches among all people,” church plantings are central to EFC. It was closest in agreement to Bill’s theology and he figured they would be the best source of support as he established his church, having 11 church plants in the Akron vicinity. It was like applying for a job. Bill worked up a proposal and his own mission statement. He went to an interview with the planting director and another EFC pastor, who did an “assessment” of Bill and Sheryl, a “rather extensive” one, Bill reports. Next, he proceeded to develop a core group – something like starting a bowling league. He mailed bowlers in the center’s database. “If you might be interested, come in and bowl a couple of games and we’ll talk about it.” He did a mass mailing to postal zones. On weekends, he came in – with the permission of his church in Wabash – and walked the lanes, talking to bowlers, talking up the church he wanted to start at the bowling center. By the time he was ready to start, on Jan. 31 this year, he had a group of 40 or so who said they would attend. ❃❃❃
The watchword at Akron Action Church is ‘casual.’ Donuts and coffee are set out before the Sunday service, the music is upbeat, no dress code. “We have people that come in shorts and T-shirts. Some people dress up a little bit. We’ve only had one guy wear a tie.” (Bill wears a short-sleeved shirt and dress pants, usually, so “I kind of fit in either way.”) Teens meet Mondays at 6 p.m. on lanes 61-64, bowl a game, have a lesson, bowl another game, and finish with a prayer. Bible study is Wednesdays at 7 in the bowling center meeting room. ❃❃❃
In July this year, Bill got a phone call. A close friend and league-bowling buddy of Bill Sr.’s for years, Gene Bond, was inquiring about Bill Jr. conducting a wedding service. Gene’s. At 76, the 25-year DJ at country music station WSLR was going to marry Sharon Lastocy, 61. The three got together at the center and Bill asked where they wanted the service. “We can get married anywhere,” Gene said. “We can get married here if you want.” Bill thought that “kind of cool.” On July 22, the center was crowded with parents and families of Soap Box Derby contestants when Bill Sr. made an announcement on the PA system. “There’s going to be a wedding down here and if anybody wants to come down and watch....” He walked Sharon down the approaches, from 21 to 26/27 where Bill Jr. was waiting. When the pastor said “Gene and Sharon Bond” for the first time, the crowd of 300 watching broke into applause. ❖
Do you host church functions at your center? Share your success on www.BowlingIndustry.com. 14
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COVER STORY
18
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COVER STORY
F
BY FRED GROH
red Borden was issued a patent for glow bowling in 1998. He sued Brunswick for patent infringement in 2005 and settled the case in 2007. He sued QubicaAMF in 2007 and settled in 2008. In June 2009 he sent a cease-and-desist letter to selected proprietors in Ohio, where his own center is located. The letter created hard feelings. “I don’t know how you go around suing your friends and the people you’re doing business with – that was my first reaction,” a recipient of the letter told IBI. “Fred is coming to the end of his career. It’s not a great way to exit – to sue all your friends.” “Fred and I go way back,” another proprietor said. “Nothing social [but] we’ve talked a lot and have a lot of the same philosophies business-wise, and I respect the man tremendously.” Had he been in touch with Borden since the letter arrived? He answered deliberately. “No, “ he said, “I have not, and no intention of.” The month the letters were received, BPAA asked its general counsel to
Cover photo courtesy of Bowl New England. IBI
October 2010
19
COVER STORY look into Borden’s patent.
••• In 1989 Fred Borden had just bought out his partner in Stonehedge center in Akron, and had a sizable mortgage. Times were not so good. “Our league business had really fallen off, Firestone being bought by the Japanese, General Tire being bought by the Germans. A lot of factories especially in the Akron area – Youngstown, Akron, Detroit – were really feeling a drop in their numbers, so I knew we had to come up with something,” says Borden. “I was starting to see open holes at 9:30 at night. Nobody in there. It started happening ’91, ’92, ’93, then kept getting worse.” Thirty years before, in 1961, he got into bowling when it was “just hot.” At 23 years old, he was a center general manager. But now, “The trends were very strong. It was jumping out at you if you were paying attention.” What could he do? Step one, he decided, was just to get people in, especially during the evening, when bowler numbers were especially poor. “I started thinking, who’s out late at night? In order to get the place filled up at 9:30, 10 o’clock I needed young people. I thought, ‘I’ve got to concentrate on the 25-and-younger crowd and that time slot.’”
But it wasn’t until the fall of 1994 – Borden doesn’t recall more exactly – at an airport – he thinks it was Chicago – that he found the answer. Possibly he was flying for Team USA. Definitely he was waiting for a connecting flight. In the airport was a Spencer store with a window showcasing games and novelties. Having some time to kill, Borden wandered in. “I’ve always been inquisitive.” What he saw was a $19.95 black light. It plugged into the wall. He thinks it was a night light for a child’s room. “That’s it! We need to turn our centers into glow-in-thedark, reflective this, reflective that – music, sound, glow-inthe-dark – it’s going to be an atmosphere, we’ll create a new atmosphere.” When Borden got back, he called Jimmy Mansfield, his general manager, and Jeri Edwards, his head coach and sales and marketing director, into his office and turned off the lights. He put some papers under the light. They glowed. He had an “atmosphere.” “You should have seen our office for the next five months. It was crazy. I had dryer hoses that I put paint on. We contacted some company in the theatrical business [and] we bought some lights that cost us $5,000 a light. We bought, like six of them [to cover] the area.” With phosphorescent paint, he slathered pins in various colors and put in a second, UV set of deck lights. He tried putting messages on the approaches that couldn’t be seen in ordinary visible light: “Have a hot pizza.” He painted sidewalls and masking, added a row of black lights in the ceiling, and thought about glow-in-the-dark logo decals and T-shirts for his staff – and customers. “We decided to concentrate in the bowling area,” Borden offers. “Back [of that], if people didn’t want to be in black lights, just wanted to watch or just sit on the concourse, fine.” The effect was to draw attention toward the bowling and the decal-laden balls hurrying away toward the pins. Some polyester balls also glowed, as it turned out. Borden spent the rest of 1994 and into the summer of 1995 – about nine months – and lots of “trials and tribulations,” developing the new atmosphere before he introduced it to his customers as Lunar Bowling.
••• Fred Ziesenheim was a patent attorney from Pittsburgh who wanted to play on the bowling team at the Oakmont Country Club. The Pennsylvania course has hosted golf’s U.S. Open, but Ziesenheim was no golfer. He only wanted to be on the bowling team, and to do that he had to join the country club. He also needed some bowling lessons. Since Ziesenheim frequently found himself in Akron on business, he decided to look up a coach who had been recommended to him, Fred Borden. They became friends, Borden says. “I think the Lord works 20
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COVER STORY in different ways. I said, ‘Fred, I’d like to run something by you. I have an idea.’ He said, ‘Boy, I think that’s marvelous. Let me do a search.’” Ziesenheim meant a search of the patent records to see if anyone else had rights to what Borden had in mind. The search satisfied Ziesenheim that no one did. Through the year Borden took in developing his concept, Ziesenheim was “holding our hand to make sure we did this thing correctly” for patent protection.
••• Jeri Edwards danced across the approaches in an alien-from-space costume under the black lights and in front of “the whole industry – Brunswick, AMF, Ebonite, Ace Mitchell.” She pulled off her mask, releasing her long blond hair, and said, “Hi.” The audience, Borden says, was “amazed.” About 500 people had shown up for this Ohio state convention trade show at Borden’s bowling center. It was May of 1995, and Borden’s way of introducing glow-in-the-dark to the industry. TV cameras were there along with a reporter working his way down the line, asking bowlers what they thought. The same as Borden’s bowlers thought during a couple of Friday night dry-runs. “Wow! What the heck is this? This is fun!” in Borden’s words. “We knew right away we had come up with something that had magic to it. It had an appeal especially to the young crowd, which we had been losing.” He started to run it at his center two
In 1995 photo of Lunar Bowling, player uses a concave disk riveted to the end of a pole to push the ball down the lane. The idea of Push Bowling, says Borden, was to draw “non-bowling people into the center to try to convert them and young people with something crazy but not too stupid.”
nights a week – Friday and Saturday, as he recalls. The “next big thing” in bowling was underway. “We just packed the place. Two hundred people a night. We upped our business $6-, $7,000 a week. “We went to the universities and the colleges [to] give out passes. ‘Come enjoy the all-new Lunar Bowling at Stonehedge and bring a friend.’ It didn’t take us three weeks to get the place loaded. “Then we realized we were doing this a little backwards, probably,” running glow on two nights when he was already doing well and ignoring his slow times. “So we started doing Monday nights. All of a sudden we had 200 people on Monday night. “Then we did it Tuesday. Then we said, ‘Hell, why don’t we do it all the time?’ Then we did it 52 weeks a year. Now we do it seven nights a week at 10 o’clock.” Says Borden, “If it weren’t for Lunar Bowling, I don’t know if I’d still be in the business. I was doing $60-, $70-, $80,000 a month with it between the food and beverage and bowling.”
COVER STORY
Lunar Bowling in 1995.
When he went to the BPAA convention a year later, 1996, he found that other proprietors were already picking up on glow. “It didn’t take long for the whole industry” to get aboard, says Borden.
••• The patent application was filed on June 2, 1995, naming Borden, Mansfield and Edwards as co-inventors. Patent protection begins on the date of filing the application, but is not confirmed until the patent is issued. Competitors usually stay away from duplicating a “patent pending” device because only the patent grant makes plain what they can and can’t do. In that sense, Borden opines, “patent pending” is actually better, more comprehensive protection than a patent. Borden, Mansfield and Edwards were issued their patent on Dec. 8, 1998. According to Borden, talks with Brunswick about a deal on his patent-pending invention began at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in January 1996, about six months after he introduced it at the Ohio trade show. Borden says there was another meeting with them at his center, when Brunswick representatives flew in on their private jet. The discussions had not reached a conclusion when Brunswick introduced a line of glow equipment in 1997. 22
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Discussions continued for five or six years, Borden says, before he concluded that Brunswick was not going to close a deal. At that point, 2005, Borden filed a lawsuit. The parties settled in 2007. Next he took up with QubicaAMF, who similarly was not interested in working a deal Borden wanted and who also was sued. The parties settled in 2008. As part of the settlements, their terms are confidential. Then Borden began contacting proprietors. As he recalls, he sent 46 letters to center owners in Ohio, and settled with one. “Some of them [proprietors] have made $100-, $200,000 a year off this. I’m asking for $1,500. I’m not trying to hurt anybody. The American dream is to patent something and be paid for your patent.” That has certainly been a dream of Borden’s, and one that came true with a bowling glove he patented in the early 1970s. Currently he is working on an “equation for bowling” in which hook and oil patterns, mass and inertia of balls, and other variables could be entered into a handheld data device; with tracking, a player would be able to create a history that would help him improve his game. Borden regards these achievements as contributions to the industry – a recurrent theme as he talks about industry reaction to his lawsuit campaign. He makes two additional points: he has followed required legal procedures in patenting his invention and pressing his claims, and, to say it again, that it’s part of the American dream to invent something and patent it. “I’ve given a lot to the sport. I wrote the core curriculum for the coaching program for free. I worked five years traveling all over the United States certifying coaches. I never charged USBC a nickel for any of that. It sort of hurts my feelings, to be honest with you, when people that I know for a long time – and I think they know who I am – resent me for getting anything on this patent when in fact I invested $250-, $300,000 in this thing. This isn’t just a $10,000 deal. I invested in excess of a quarter-million dollars between the lights and the patent work and all the research and development.” In face-to-face dealing, people have been “very respectful,” he says. Nothing serious has come flying back. “Every once in a while you get something from some proprietor somewhere, who [doesn’t] even know me but will say something. I think a lot of them didn’t understand that I’ve done my homework on it, that I’ve filed for a patent, that everything was done the way it was supposed to be done and that I wasn’t looking for a legal battle, I was just protecting my patent. A lot of them didn’t even know I had a patent. But I haven’t had anything nasty.” Once, he was going to do a seminar at a center but the proprietor refused. “I don’t want him in here if he’s going to sue us,” Borden says, reporting the proprietor’s words. Says Borden, “I don’t know that I was going to sue him. Maybe he thought I should because he was using my patent.”
••• “I think our initial reaction was [that] it was surprising that the patent had issued because it does seem to cover more of a concept than an actual invention,” says
COVER STORY Kathy Schill, an attorney with Michael Best & Friedrich LLP of Milwaukee, WI, BPAA’s general counsel. “As we did more research we discovered that even if you proceed on the assumption that there is an invention in there somewhere, it isn’t new because each piece of the alleged invention has been done by someone else before. That’s how we approached it. “For example, the first claim requires a room with fluorescent bowling lanes, where the surface of the lanes is fluorescent. We knew that had been done before.” “I recall my days as a youth, bowling on ‘Starlight Bowling’,” says Thor Lundgren, an attorney with the firm, who worked on the case with Schill. He was Starlight bowling in the 1950s, Lundgren says. “All of the elements, we believed, had been publicly disclosed, in many cases years if not decades before. It was knowledge that people in the bowling industry – and in other industries – had acquired over a period of years,” Lundgren sums up. Says Schill, “We thought that every element in Mr. Borden’s patent could be found in prior patents and that some of [them] were not considered by the examiner who issued the [Borden] patent.” Deciding they had a good case, the attorneys filed a request for re-examination of the Borden patent on March 12, 2010. A patent holder is not obligated but has the opportunity to respond to the request. Borden’s attorneys did not respond. The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), finding a “substantial new question” of patentability, granted the request. On June 18, PTO issued an office action, tentatively finding all of the claims in the Borden patent to be invalid in light of various combinations of older patents. The office action gave Borden until Aug. 18 to respond, with additional time available to him under PTO procedural rules. On Aug. 13, Borden met with his attorneys.
••• “I worked hard my entire life and come up with a patent, and now all of a sudden everyone wants to make me a bad guy, and I don’t get that. I think that’s the American dream. I feel like I came up with something that made a lot of people a lot of money. “We could keep fighting and create more legal fees for everybody involved. There’s reason to believe that several of our claims will stand up to a fight. [But] when’s a fight enough of a fight? And at what expense – not financial expense but all the things that enter into the emotional side as well as trying to do what’s right?” Borden asks. “We’ve decided to just put it to sleep.” Just forget it? “Yep.”
••• If Borden sticks to his decision, PTO will issue a notice of abandonment of the patent in due course. It could be a while coming. The re-examination office of PTO is a separate unit from the patent issuer, established because re-examination is growing quite popular with people who want to contest a patent but also want to stay out of court. The re-examination office is backlogged. The effect of abandonment on Borden’s settlements with Brunswick and QubicaAMF would depend on the terms of those settlements. ❖ Brunswick and QubicaAMF declined comment for publication. We thank John McDermott of Loyola University Los Angeles Law School for background.
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OPERATIONS
How do you keep your consultant’s objectivity when you buy into the business and start running it?
B
rian Smith thinks his working life is more stressful than it used to be, even though in transplanting himself to Klamath Falls, OR from the Denver area (Thornton, CO) he got away from big-city life and doesn’t have to average 240 days a year in hotels any more while he travels for business. “Owning a retail, high-transaction business and not [being] just a consultant changes your perspective,” says Smith. “As a consultant we pride ourselves on being objective to a fault. When you own something you find that you become a little more subjective. You worry about things a little more personally. I try to remain as objective as I can because I think it is best for the business, but the fact is that I [have] become a little more subjective than I should be.” Smith talks in the present tense about being a consultant because he still is. His consultantcy office is upstairs from his bowling center, The Epicenter Family Entertainment Complex. And he still travels from time to time, as recently to China, where he has several clients. All together, his consultancy has 22 active clients in seven countries including the U.S. But he spends about 40% of his time doing the typical proprietor things – checking P&Ls, making operational decisions, pressing the flesh with customers. He is not doing any of this by the seat of his pants. ◆◆◆
‘Objective’ is the word Smith uses repeatedly when he talks about his consultancy, Business Efficiency
Brian Smith. More subjective these days.
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OPERATIONS Group. It’s the small-business specialization of his larger consulting practice, Individual Advantages. The larger practice is an outgrowth of an accountancy Smith opened, uses proprietary software called BIZVision, and is backed by an IT firm, Envision Networks, Inc., also a Smith creation. The objective situation for Smith the consultant in 2004 when he was approached by the owners of Epicenter was that the owners couldn’t get things together. “The problem with the six partners, I believe – and I think they would agree – is that there were six partners,” he says. Of the married couple who were the managing partners, the husband was also the sales manager for another company – owned by one of his Epicenter co-partners. His wife, who was handling the marketing and PR, was having trouble with the dense competitive situation: two other bowling centers in a town of 42,000. Epicenter was highly leveraged when it opened. In its first five years, it had lost $1.7 million. The partners wanted to know whether it could be saved. It took Smith three weeks to do the BIZVision review. It took him, hands on, another three weeks to implement the beginning changes, and another six months of off-site support. BIZVision is designed for a certain amount of consulting time on-site but clients usually require some fairly regular hand-holding for the first three to 12 months, Smith says. Then they have him back once or twice a year for reviews to make sure they’re on the right path and to determine whether any recent changes in their industry require him to tweak his results. He found, as Epicenter’s losses suggested, that the center was not in outstanding shape. “The first thing we did was break down their operations to labor distribution, cost of sales distribution, pricing, portion controls in the restaurant, portion controls in the liquor.” Epicenter did have P&Ls but they were “very convoluted and co-mingled. They weren’t segregated by operational department. They did not properly convey cost of goods sold, special pricing and they didn’t tell us when the core business was here or wasn’t here. So we had no idea how to market to the public; we didn’t know what worked or what didn’t work. There was no track record of understanding. So there were assumptions made and they were bad assumptions.” Morale problems, especially high turnover, were springing from the operational control issues. “Also, they had an image problem: how to overcome some of the stereotypes of being a bowling center so that people would [patronize] the nightclub and the restaurant – which are fairly typical problems of restaurants in bowling centers.” ◆◆◆
Six months after his on-site work, Smith was again in touch with Epicenter. He had remarked casually in conversation one day that it would be nice to move his family out of the city and 26
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into a smaller town. “Hey,” said the partner he was talking to, “how’d you like to be a partner? What you did here was great. We’re having a hard time implementing it...you wanted to move to a smaller town...” That might not have been enough to pull Smith away from Colorado but the same week, his employees in the IT company there told him they wanted to buy the business. They pointed out he was always traveling...consulting all over the world...he was never there anyway... Epicenter would be a chance to work in two lines of business Smith already knew. He was born into a 12-lane house in West Dundee, IL, and today his family owns nightclubs and sports bars in Colorado. Epicenter would fit well with that background: 32 bowling lanes, a 2,500-square-foot arcade, and a sports bar/nightclub that is a full-service restaurant during the day and a “fairly traditional” nightclub after 9 p.m. every night except Monday. He bought shares from each of the partners. ◆◆◆
After he refinanced the mortgage for lower monthly payments, Smith went to work in three areas to turn Epicenter around: P&L issues, marketing, and personnel relations. “We did an analysis and discovered where our business was coming from. We retooled the entire company to go after that business. We changed pricing models. We lowered costs, increased revenues and refinanced our debt, and all three together made it a profitable company.” See sidebar for details. Epicenter now does a lot of in-house marketing by way of specials, but in a new style. “Every special has our break-even point factored into it – not only the overall break-even point but for that special. We’ve cut our prices to get a certain number of people into the building and we’re counting on those people doing more than just buying that [special].” He charts customer participation in his programs. For example, his $25 family package, running on Sundays, includes bowling, food and game tokens, but no beverage. He therefore expects to see an up-tick in beverage sales, where he makes a lot of money on the initial sell (as against refills). If the numbers aren’t where they should be, the program is dropped. If it’s successful, it’s put into the cycle. “This town is so small that if you run the same thing all the time, they get numb to your marketing.” He stopped treating his employees like transients. “When you think they aren’t going to stay, you tend to not empower them, to not trust them. In the back of your mind, you think, ‘Well they’re going to leave anyway’ or ‘they’re only a minimum– wage employee’ or ‘they’re not a high school graduate.’ You can stereotype employees a hundred different ways. I think business owners do that a lot.” Empowered, Smith’s employees “feel like they can make decisions that are not only important to the company but
OPERATIONS
A BUSINESS ANALYSIS:
WHAT BRIAN SMITH FOUND Operations analysis – Labor and F&B “We looked at how labor was scheduled, and compared it against a three-year daily trend. Interestingly enough, in any given day, on- and offseason, you could project within 10% daily sales. I could tell you that on a Wednesday in off-season we were going to do $850 in food and beverage, $600 in the bowling center. Within 10%, that is going to be right. “We looked at [F&B] cost. Before you get to plate costing – how much it costs to put a plate in front of a customer – you have to look at what your inventories are or how they’re used, like your recipes. We did the same thing with liquor. “We started with our menu, looked at how our inventory was managed. Once we understood that, we looked at the recipes and the plating — how it was plated and how it was presented. We refined the menu and we refined our inventory control practices to allow us to keep the freshest product here at the lowest cost, and the best-looking and the largest portion for the price that we needed, which we computed with a breakeven point. We determined from that break-even point what we wanted our projected profits to be. You kind of back yourself into what your pricing model is going to be. “If you know that a burger is going to take x amount of hamburger and x amount of tomatoes and lettuce, we train our kitchen to utilize portion control so that a plate goes out looking the same every time. The amount of fries on the plate is the same amount every time. Within our inventory managements system we use inventory control or inventory counting practices, and also par levels in inventory ordering practices. “You begin to lose shrinkage and you begin to control your inventory. Your cost will hold. Our food and beverage costs have held within 2% for almost as long as we’ve been here. To have a 2% fluctuation in a commodity market, we’re real proud of it.
P&L issues – Financials and Pricing “A pretty typical question when you’re doing your surveys is how many league bowlers do you have, what was your league revenue, what was your food and beverage during league? None of those questions could be answered here. “So we had to dissect the financials. We went to the daily sheets that are created by the Brunswick systems and the food and beverage systems downstairs and we recreated the financial picture for the company for the three years prior to me being here [2001 to 2004]. “Nobody knew where the business came from. Did it come from bowling, from the bar, from selling food, from leagues, from open play, from kids, from the arcade? It was all just co-mingled into one or two line items. It was bowling center and Aftershock. Even the lottery money was co-mingled. It was extremely difficult to understand. We may take in
$35,000 in a week in lottery funds but in reality we only keep $1,500 or $1,700 with the rest going to the state of Oregon. But that $35,000 was being dumped into the Aftershock sales account. So of course it looked like a nice big number. It looked like a good $4 million company when in reality it’s a $2 million company. “Decisions are made when you see numbers like that: business is good, cash flow is good, we can do this, we can do that. And you can imagine how the cost side of things looked if the revenue side was that consolidated. “So we rebuilt the total accounting system from the ground up. We separated liquor and non-alcoholic beverages; we separated food from the Aftershock side of the business and the bowling center side. There’s the snack bar that feeds the bowling center and our bowlers and there’s the Aftershock with traditional diners and your bar crowd. We separated those. We separated bowlers between youth bowlers and adult bowlers and senior bowlers. We started analyzing where our business came from. “After we understood our breakeven point, we changed all of our pricing so it was competitive with the market but it still made us money. We knew how much money we had to make because we knew what our breakeven point was. We also understand what our specials can be. Because we know our breakeven point, if we do a loss leader, we know what we have to do to make up the loss. “We went up and down. When we raised prices, we always gave something in return. For instance, we raised the base price on our soda products in the bowling center. The 16-, 32- and 44-oz. sodas went up in price, but we lowered or eliminated the refill [price].”
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OPERATIONS important to what they’re doing and who they are dealing with, which [makes them] feel more engaged, which makes them want to stay.” And he attacked the image problem for his business by rebranding it. The Epicenter Bowling Complex became The Epicenter Family Entertainment Complex. The Aftershock Lounge morphed and is now changing again to become the Aftershock Restaurant and Nightclub to boost the image presence of the restaurant. “We’ve seen our food sales drop over the last 18 months steadily. We’ve also seen our nightclub business drop over the 28 months. We think [it’s] because in this market people tend to get sick of a place, I guess because they go to it every day. It’s not going to change a whole lot on the inside but the perception [will be], ‘They have a new menu, it’s now a restaurant, maybe we should go try it out.’” ◆◆◆
All of this is right in line with what Smith did and does in consulting. The bowling business as such, however, is a big difference – “shocking,” he says. “Touching the public at all socioeconomic [levels] has been the most shocking for me. I have been used to dealing with employees of my clients, but generally I deal at the ‘C’ level somewhere – CEO, CFO. Now I am dealing with customers in every walk of life, from every demographic, from every business sector.” Touching everyone’s life in his small town, as Smith says, “puts us in a unique position.” Klamath Falls does have another bowling center, but it is “very traditional. They’re great people and have been in the bowling business for a very long time, but they have chosen a different path for their business.” A small nightclub in town is a competitor two nights a week, but they never admit people under 21. All told, “from October until May, the Epicenter is the only entertainment venue for hundreds of miles in every direction.” One gets the impression that Smith is feeling the connection, the intertwining of business and community so often remarked by bowling center owners. Epicenter’s story has a happy ending. In less than a year under Smith, revenue was up 22-25%, costs were down 20%. Turnover has decreased by 200%. There is, however, one problem Smith has not solved. He still doesn’t know why the place is called Epicenter, why the LLC that controls it is called Faultline, why the restaurant/nightclub is Aftershock, and why the motel across the street, also owned by Smith and the other partners, is operated through a company called Lava Rock. He hasn’t got around to asking. ❖
What are your key metrics for running your business? Share your insights on www.BowlingIndustry.com. 28
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PROFILE
PRICE IS RIGHT FOR BOWLING L AND MUSIC
BY GREGORY KEER
A mammoth record-seller, concert producer, nightclub owner, entrepreneur in the food business, and more. But Lloyd Price can’t stay away from bowling.
loyd Price has helped write the history books of rock ’n’ roll. He’s done it through million-selling records, including the world-renowned 1959 smash, “Personality.” He’s done it, quite literally, via a coffee-table book he cowrote with William “Dollar Bill” Waller that tells his story in rock from the 1950s to today. And he’s about to do it again with a Broadway-caliber musical, based on that book, projected for 2011. Yet, this musical legend says music is not his first passion in life. Bowling is. Price began bowling when he was nine years old. At 16, “I was racking pins at the Suburban Bowling Alley in Metarie, Louisiana,” he recounts of an early job he had in the 1940s. “Every Sunday night, blacks were allowed to bowl. It was 11 cents a line. Ever since, bowling has been
Left, the teen in L.A. with dad Louis Price to receive his Song of the Year honor for “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” from Cashbox, the largest music magazine in the industry then. The year was 1952. Below, the man today.
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PROFILE a great love of mine. I would take home broken pins and balls and try to bowl at home in the mud.” As Price grew up, and his career in music moved from member of a teenage band that knew two numbers to entrepreneurial performer, bowling stayed central for him. Even as he expanded his business savvy and love of good food into Lloyd Price Icon Food Brands, Inc., maker of unique snacks and entrees, Price kept up his love of the lanes. The oh-by-the-way Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has also put his brand on the Lloyd Price Bowling Ball Collection. “After being in bowling for so many years, I wondered why there were no balls for the African-American market,” he explains. “Our balls are USBC-approved. There are no fillings in there. It’s all ball, true as can be.” The Lane Masters-manufactured balls–the Lloyd Price Personality Pin Buster Ball and the Lawdy Miss Clawdy Voodoo Momma Ball–made their debut at the 2009 USBC Open Championships. The balls will soon be presented to President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. “I’ve come a long way since I was a pinboy in ‘48, wishing I could just bowl a game,” Price adds. Indeed, he has traveled far in many respects since his boyhood in Kenner, LA, then a small suburb of New Orleans. With his first band, “we played at lunch around school and eventually performed in places like a local teenage club,” Price recalls from his home in Pound Ridge, NY. “We made $5 a night.” By the time Price was 18, he had found a way through the maze of America’s racial segregation to score what many call the first rock ’n’ roll anthem, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” Based on a reference made by “Okie Dokie” Smith, the first black disc jockey Price heard, the song turned into a phenomenal hit. Price became the first teenager in history to sell one million records. “The bigger that record got, the bigger the business of rock ’n’ roll got,” Price says of the 1952 single, which featured fellow New Orleans musicians Fats Domino on piano and Earl Palmer on drums. “It’s been recorded 169 times by many artists and has been played more than a billion times worldwide.” But while Price and his music were topping charts, not everyone was pleased with the way they were helping to change the social fabric of America’s youth. “White kids were among the spectators at the skating rinks and other places I performed,” Price remembers. “Someone heard about the black kids and white kids mixing. Even though there was a rule that not every son from one family had to go into the service, someone in the Army made an exception.” Price feels it was because of the way young people mixed at his concerts that he was drafted into the Army in 1954. Fortunately, he spent his service time entertaining troops. He also received a pleasant surprise when he first arrived overseas. “When I got to Japan and Korea, where I served, I heard them playing ‘Lawdy.’ “When I got drafted, there was nobody but me performing in the way I did,” he adds. “When I got back, there was Fats and the white singers 30
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like Elvis and Pat Boone. “Music had changed. I learned about business while I was in the service, so I bought my contract from Speciality. I formed my own label, KRC, and recorded ‘Just Because.’ I had never tried a slow song, but I had to do something different. It was a takeoff on the opera Rigoletto.” Following his 1957 comeback triumph with “Just Because,” Price drew from New Orleans-area folklore to make “Stagger Lee,” a swinging jazz-rock tune set against a gritty story about a night that goes wrong. The single was hugely popular, topping both the R&B and pop charts. From then, Price released a string of hits, including what is possibly his most recognizable tune, “Personality” (1959). When asked what favorites he has among his own songs, Price says, “You have to treat songs like children. You have to love ’em all. ‘Lawdy’ was my most popular song. ‘Personality’ has been recorded 170 times in 17 languages. Everywhere, somebody knows that song.” Price’s career continued to flourish in the years that followed, particularly because of his entrepreneurial drive. He continued recording, founded other record labels, owned a popular Manhattan night club, toured all over the world, appeared on television numerous times (including a recent appearance on HBO’s New Orleans-centered series Treme), and entered the show promotion business. In 1974, Price produced the now famous concert that accompanied the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” fight in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). It was around that time that he considered venturing into the food business. “I have a passion for food from early on, being born in Louisiana,” Price explains, but adds that his business interest in food “started when I tried to get Ali to do chicken. The Perdue company was selling all the chicken in Harlem in the ’70s.” Although a foray into the chicken market without Ali failed to pan out, “About seven years ago, I started in the niche food business. My father did everything with a sweet potato, and I began with Lawdy Miss Clawdy Sweet Potato Cookies. We pitched an executive at Wal-Mart and within 12 minutes, without even seeing or tasting the product, he bought it. We’ve expanded to other foods and are in Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven. There was a need for African-American products.”
PROFILE A trip around information-rich www.LawdyMissClawdy.com offers details of Price’s culinary offerings–and his many other accomplishments. Price and his friend and business partner, Waller, have co-founded no less than six corporations, including Lloyd Price Brands, Inc., which oversees all licensing and brands. One of the key projects is a stage musical adaptation of the book he co-wrote with Waller, Lawdy Miss Clawdy…The True King of the ’50s: The Lloyd Price Story. “It’s all about what ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’ did for the music industry and what life was like at that time,” Price says. “Most rock ’n’ roll was banned in the early days, but ‘Lawdy’ was too powerful a force to be stopped. The musical will tell the history of the music business, with the politics and religion involved in it. We’ll also tell why the state of Louisiana was so relevant to the music business. We’re hoping to open in 2011 at the Mahalia Jackson Theater in New Orleans.” Price points out that Emmy-honored record producer Phil Ramone (awardwinner with albums by Billy Joel and Paul Simon) will work on the show, along with a team of other production heavyweights. Not to let any moss grow under his feet, the evergreen performer is currently recording again. “I’m doing an album of standards for the 35-and-older set,” he explains. “I’m giving them a new twist with a big band. The songs will include ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ [and] ‘You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You,’ among others. We’ll start marketing it as a downloadable album.” At age 77, Price acknowledges he has much to be thankful for, including his wife, Jacqueline, his three daughters and two sons from previous relationships, and his nine grandchildren. He also makes a point of giving his time and wisdom to other young people. According to his website, Price has
pledged to raise funds to build a National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame in Harlem. In addition, “I work with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame through their educational programs for children,” he says. “I’m committed to helping young people understand the history of this country and the music. I’ve been lucky to watch what has happened in this country in the last 50 years.” With every spare moment he has, Price is out on the lanes. “Currently, I am in four different leagues and I participate in quite a few tournaments. I have a low-200 average. I bowl at the Rip Van Winkle Lanes in Norwalk, Connecticut; the Nutmeg Bowl in Fairfield, Connecticut; Bowler City in Hackensack, New Jersey; Ball Park Lanes in the Bronx, New York; and Paradise Lanes, which is my summer alley in Yonkers, New York.” Waller points out with a laugh that Price has been known to occasionally forgo a business meeting “rather than let his league bowling buddies down.” In fact, whether it is in music, food, or bowling, Lloyd Price refuses to let anyone down. ❖
Gregory Keer is an award-winning columnist, teacher, screenwriter, and guest expert in national media. Read more of his work at his online parenting magazine, www.FamilyManOnline.com.
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THE ATTIC TRUNK
BRAGGING RIGHTS WHEN IT COMES TO BOWLING, DETROIT IS (WE CAN’T RESIST IT) IN A LEAGUE OF ITS OWN. By Matt Fiorito t’s too bad that songsmiths Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t into bowling early in the 20th century. Had they been, they might have written a little ditty something like this: “Everything’s up to date in Dee-troit city, “They’ve gone about as fer as they can go. “They went an’ built a bowling alley seven stories high, “About as high as a buildin’ orta grow!” Yes sirree, Bob. The palatial Detroit Recreation, the city’s first Mecca of bowling, was indeed seven stories high when it was built in 1918. Four of its seven floors, with 22 lanes each, were dedicated to bowling. The 88 lanes made it the largest bowling center in the world at the time. (The Detroit USBC Association still has the largest center in the U.S. under its aegis — the 90-lane Thunderbowl in Allen Park, which hosted the ground-breaking PBA World Series of Bowling last year.) The spiffy Detroit Rec was one of the first things, though hardly the only one, that made the world sit up and take notice that Detroit was extremely serious about bowling. And although the city wasn’t the birthplace of bowling in the United States, it didn’t take long for Detroit to capture the title of bowling capital of the world. ◆◆◆ At first, the title was self-bestowed, and cities such as New York, Chicago and St. Louis were eager, and perhaps able, to contest it. But eventually Detroit’s status became indisputable, either through achievements or the number of bowlers registered with the local associations. Detroit’s march to its position of prominence was almost a run. In 1930, the men’s Detroit Bowling Association, formed in 1913, had more than
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31,000 members; the Detroit Women’s Bowling Association, formed in 1918, reported 3,505 members. In 1942, the Detroit men’s association had more than 70,000 bowlers and was the nation’s leader, according to ABC figures. By 1950, with 162 bowling centers in the area, the men’s association had 129,000 members, the women’s association more than 39,000. New York’s bowlers then numbered in the 60,000s.
Anita Cantaline, on the left, and three unidentified but happy ladies in 1953, when Detroit became the first city to draw 5,000 teams to the WIBC Championships. They played on 44 lanes – also a record at the time – at Detroit Recreation.
In 1979-80, the men’s association hit 151,097, its peak, while the women topped out at 127,603 in 1977-78. From 1900, when six bowling alleys are listed in the R.L. Polk directory for the City of Detroit, the numbers just grew and grew. By the early ’60s there were 245 centers. Even today, as the business has retrenched, there are still around 90 centers in the Metro Detroit area, although only two, historic Garden Bowl and Renaissance Lanes, are in the city proper. When Garden Bowl was built in 1913, as Garden Bowling Alleys, it was the 14th known bowling center in Detroit. It is still operating at the same location on Woodward Ave. The third-oldest set of sanctioned lanes in the United States
THE ATTIC TRUNK and the oldest actually built as a bowling center, Garden Bowl now is patronized mainly by students from nearby Wayne State University cavorting in the strobe lights with fog and loud music. Today’s scene would be a shock to the staid old-time patrons, who mostly wore ties and white shirts with sleeve garters and who were greeted by the equivalent of a butler when they entered Garden Bowl. You could get your hat blocked and your shoes shined while you bowled. Then along came the Detroit Rec. As the Rec flourished, Detroit’s claim to be the bowling capital of the world began to have some basis in fact. In those days — when, as Cole Porter noted in song, a glimpse of stocking was something shocking — few women dared to bowl. Those who did had to enter the bowling alleys through back or side doors and then were restricted to bowling on a couple of lanes that were curtained off from the rest of the house. But Detroit Rec manager Jim Shillady had a better idea. A few months after the Rec opened, he reserved one of the building’s 22-lane floors exclusively for women. And, no coincidence, the Detroit Women’s Bowling Association was formed that year. The Rec maintained its affiliation with women’s bowling. In 1953, Detroit Recreation was awarded the WIBC tournament and for the first time in its history, the event drew 5,000 teams, almost 2,000 more than the previous best. It occupied 44 lanes (two floors of Detroit Rec), also a record at the time. ◆◆◆ Detroit’s burgeoning bowling scene soon began to develop
a national influence. In 1932, at a meeting in Detroit, proprietor Harold Allen, with John Bauer and Don Campbell, formed the Bowling Proprietors Association of America. For many years after that, Allen toured the nation promoting the sport with Bauer and Chicagoan Louie Petersen. Allen, inducted into the ABC Hall of Fame in 1966, went on to open a bowling alley that was another first — Palace Recreation, which featured a then-record “24 alleys in a row without a post.” But it wasn’t just the forward thinkers like Allen (an ABC doubles champ in 1915 at age 18) or the size of the associations that really made the city stand out as the bowling capital of the world. It was the incredible wealth of talented bowlers that either came to prominence here or started on their way through their association with the All-Star Classic, the league Joe Norris founded in 1935 in association with Allen and Herb Mertens. The impetus for the Classic came from a team Norris had formed two years earlier with Stroh’s brewery as a sponsor, setting the stage for an era of brewery-sponsored teams that battled for national glory for 30 years. Brewmeister John Stroh, upset by bowling’s sometimes ragtag image, insisted that his team be smartly and uniformly clad, leading to the creation of the classic white Stroh’s uniforms — sharp-creased flannel trousers and long-sleeved shirts, red ties, white belts and white shoes. “When we walked into a bowling alley, everybody took notice,’’ Norris said in 1986. In 1934, when Detroit had an estimated 25,000 male bowlers and 1,200 females, Stroh’s Bohemian Beer became the first
A WOLF IN BOWLING CLOTHES Before Chris Schenkel, before Billy Welu, before Whispering Joe Wilson, before Jack Buck, there was Detroit legend Fred Wolf. Wolf, renowned for his smooth delivery on the lanes, was just as smooth on the airwaves, where he not only pioneered bowling broadcasts, but set the standard for all who followed. “Freddy was the best,” Schenkel said in 2000 when Wolf was inducted into the Michigan State Bowling Hall of Fame. “He really did set the standard. There were others, but Fred more than anyone popularized bowling in Detroit and Michigan and wherever his broadcasts aired. My only regret was that I didn’t get to meet him until his later years when he was off the air.” Wolf, who died at age 90 just a few months after his MSBHF honor, had been in poor health and partly paralyzed after suffering a stroke in 1978, But his fans never forgot him. At any major bowling event, there was always someone asking media members,
“How’s Fred Wolf?” Wolf got his start as a bowler in 1930 when he began setting pins, and within a year, bowled a 300 game. For a while, Wolf held the ABC record for most years between first and last 300s – 44 – bowling his last in 1975, the year he was elected to the ABC Hall of Fame. He was a charter member of Joe Norris’ All-Star Classic league in the mid-1930s and was a key member of the great Stroh’s team for many years. He led the All-Stars with a 206 average in 1941-42. When a back injury curtailed his career on the lanes, Wolf moved behind the microphone. In 1945, on radio station WXYZ (now WXYT-AM), Wolf started a 15-minute weekly show called The Tenpin Talker. In 1948, when the ABC nationals were held at State Fair Park in Detroit, Wolf broadcast from the Coliseum each of the 80 days of the tournament. In 1949, he produced a one-shot bowling show, Make It and Take It, on WXYZ-TV and in 1950 started a weekly series called Champions Bowling. In 1956, he launched a 12-year network stint with Championship Bowling. And in 1961, Wolf did the commentary for the first televised PBA tournament (in Paramus, NJ), which was used to sell the PBA tour to the American Broadcasting Co. IBI
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THE ATTIC TRUNK Detroit team and the first big-brewery team to win the team title at the then-ABC the first ball to open the 2000-01 season tournament. “That was like being world champions then,” Norris said. for the All-Star Classic, he reminded the The original team consisted of Norris, Phil Bauman, John Crimmins, Cass Grygier bowlers of the legacy and tradition they and Walter Reppenhagen, who won the individual all-events title that year. Fred Gardella later replaced Crimmins in some events. The same year, Stroh’s won the first of its five World Match Game titles in a tournament staged by an international bowling promoter in New York. But Stroh’s success produced a backlash. Although there were several strong leagues in Detroit, Stroh’s and other elite teams that had formed were “politely discouraged’’ from joining because they were too good. “We couldn’t find a league to play in,” Norris said. So Norris and his supporters started a league of their own. The league started with 10 teams, with other breweries jumping on board, and by 1937 it had been increased to 16 teams as ace bowlers from around the country — including the great Don Carter for two years before he The natty men of the Old Stroh’s team were (in the top row from left) Joe Norris, Phil Bauman, bowled for the Budweiser team — moved to Detroit, Cass Crygier, and (bottom row) Fred Gardella, Walter Reppenhagen, and manager C.B. Hansen. clamoring for admittance. Norris left Stroh’s and the league in 1946 to work with Brunswick, but John Gavie, had to uphold. who had joined the league in 1936, became its chief promoter and helped keep it in “Fully 25% of the inductees of the the sports pages. He and Norris remained close friends until Gavie’s death in 1997. ABC Hall of Fame have come from this The advent of the PBA in 1959 and the short-lived National Bowling League (1961league,” Dalkin said. 62) undercut the All-Star Classic’s national allure, but the league, which at times The roster: Start with Norris, then add bowled twice a week as a fixed house league and a traveling league, still exists today Fred Bujack, Johnny Crimmins, Buzz as a traveling league. Fazio, Therm Gibson, Billy Golembiewski, In 1988, the house league, at Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, set a national record Joe Joseph, Tony Lindemann, Ed for one-night pinfall for an 18-team league with 61,128, an average of 226.4 per man. Lubanski, and Bob Strampe. The traveling league, which bowled in 35 different centers, set a national 16-team record Not enough? How about Harold with 53,925 in 1998, an average of 224.7 per man. Asplund, Bill Bunetta, Ray Bluth, Don When Roger Dalkin, executive director of the American Bowling Congress, threw Carter, Frank Clause, Steve Cruchon, Sarge Easter, Bob Hart, Tom Hennessy, George Howard, Lee Jouglard, Bob Kennedy, Bill Lillard, Howard McCullough, Steve Nagy, Chuck O’Donnell, Lou Sielaff, Jim Schroeder, Harry Smith, Dave Soutar, Mike Totsky, Bill Tucker, Billy Welu, Fred Wolf, George We congratulate Marv Sontz, Bill Young and Wayne Zahn. Gene Stus is the Cornell and Mandy and Don most recent, modern-day addition. Herrington on their purchase of this Norris died in 2001, but the Classic, fine center and thank Michael Amos for working with David Driscoll to which reverted to a single traveling complete the transaction. We wish league for 2004-05, is still going, having them all the best in the future. began its 76th season. ◆◆◆ Although the league that Norris built was responsible for much of Detroit’s Bowling’s Only Full-Service Brokers, Appraisers & Financial Advisors reputation, there were other factors. 28200 Southfield Rd., Southfield, MI 48076 Detroit has always been blessed with (800) 222 • 9131 strong leaders who shared their talents on
High Point Bowling Center High Point, NC (32 lanes)
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THE ATTIC TRUNK the national scene. That led to a succession of Detroiters rising to the ABC presidency, starting with E.J. Ryan in 1914. He was followed by Charles Ryan (1924), August Jankowsky (1935), Frank Mitzel (1955) and Thomas W. McKay (1992). Mitzel and McKay also were executive secretaries of the Greater Detroit Bowling Association, who made it one of the best-run associations in the country, a status it still enjoys under Mark Martin, who succeeded McKay in 1996. Martin, now a USBC director, led the seamless transition of the men’s, women’s and youth organizations into one unit in 2006, something that associations in other areas are still fighting. Detroit was also ahead of the curve in 1951. The Allen Supermarket team of Detroit became the first black team to compete in an ABC tournament after the organization rescinded its caucasianonly clause in 1950. Team members were Lafayette Allen Jr., George Williams, Maurice Kilgore, Lavert Griffin, Bill Rhodman and Clarence Williams Jr. Allen and Rhodman are in the USBC Hall of Fame. But even before 1951, black bowlers had a strong presence in Detroit. The National Negro Bowling Association was organized in Detroit in August 1939 and its leaders fought strongly for equal rights. It is now known as The National Bowling Association and its membership rolls are open to bowlers of any race. Although the list of male Hall of Famers is impressive, Detroit has had more than its share of female Hall of Famers, too. How about Aleta Sill (the only woman to win women’s pro bowling’s triple crown twice), Cheryl Daniels, Mary Mohacsi, Cora Fiebig, Anita Cantaline, Elvira Toepfer, Doris Knechtges, Stella Hartrick, Marge Merrick, Val Mikiel, Connie Powers, Helen Shablis and Louise Stockdale? There was also a women’s version of the All-Star Classic, the All-Star Bowlerettes, which lasted for 55 years until it was disbanded in 2002. And at
FAT TIMES IN THE CITY Go into almost any bowling center in the Detroit area today and chances are you’ll see as many black bowlers as there are whites. That’s not the way it used to be. The late Lafayette Allen Jr., who in 1951 sponsored the first black team to compete in the annual ABC tournament, recalled in an interview in 1990 a time when blacks were restricted to an enclave east of Woodward Avenue. It was in that area that heavyweight champion Joe Louis built a palatial center called Paradise Bowl. But before Paradise Bowl, there was Fat Sam’s. Fat Sam’s was a basement dive that had six pool tables and three bowling lanes. “Ahh, Fat Sam’s...that was some place,” according to Earnest Wallace, a contemporary of black bowling pioneers like Allen and Bill Rhodman. “You know, Joe Louis was a bowling fan and he had a team called the Spring Hill Farm team. They put a league together in 1937 and bowled at Fat Sam’s. That league bowled two teams at a time, seven nights a week, and then they’d start all over again. The league would bowl on lanes one and two, and they’d keep the third lane open for pot games.” When it became obvious that Fat Sam’s and its short-lived successor, the Forest Club, weren’t enough to handle the burgeoning black population, a group of black investors, with Louis up front, built Paradise Bowl. It opened in 1942 during the boom years of World War II, and became the Mecca of black bowlers and the standard by which blacks measured other bowling centers. The heyday at the Paradise lasted until 1960, when the roof collapsed in a heavy snowstorm. It was never rebuilt. But integration was on its way and Detroit’s black population was welcomed into centers all over the city, contributing heavily to Detroit’s status as the bowling capital of the world as they competed in leagues that completed their sessions in one night. Fat Sam would probably find it hard to believe. one point, a Bowlerettes franchise captained by Kathy Haislip held five of the top six five-player team series (under different sponsor names) in the WIBC record book. Its top mark of 3,552, shot by team members Haislip, Jeanne Gebbia, Aleta Sill, Cyndi Black and Lisa Bishop as Contour Power Grips in March 1998, was the record until
Fairlanes Grandville, MI (44 lanes) We congratulate Jim Hooberman on his purchase of this fine center and thank Community Bowling Centers for trusting us to handle the sale. We wish Jim and Community Bowling all the best in the future.
Bowling’s Only Full-Service Brokers, Appraisers & Financial Advisors 28200 Southfield Rd., Southfield, MI 48076
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THE ATTIC TRUNK Nov. 20, 2000, when another Bowlerettes team, All-Star Grille (Carmen Allen, Lisa Bishop, Cyndi Black, Renee Palmer and Julie Wright) shot 3,600. That record stood for six years before
THE THRILL OF IT ALL What did it mean to be a member of one of the most famous teams in the world in the Detroit All-Star Classic, quite possibly the greatest league of all time? As Bob Strampe remembers it, the phone rang at 2 a.m. in his home in Minneapolis. The call was from Detroit. On the line was Tony Lindemann, captain of the famous Stroh’s brewery team. “Bob, we had a vote tonight and we’ve selected you to be on the team,” Lindemann said. That was in July 1959, and Strampe, who had been bowling for the Hamm’s beer team, immediately accepted the offer. “I was so excited I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night,” Strampe recalled recently from his home in Port Huron, MI. “Back then, there were only four teams that paid you to bowl and Stroh’s was the one everyone wanted to bowl for.” Three weeks later, Strampe and his family moved to Detroit “with a U-Haul trailer and eight bucks in my pocket,” Strampe said. Strampe remembers being fitted for his uniform shortly after his arrival in Detroit. “I shuddered a little bit when I tried it on,” Strampe said. “I had been looking forward to something like this since I started bowling. I was so elated it was unbelievable.” But that was nothing compared to opening night of the All-Star Classic at Fred Wolf’s Eastland Bowl. “I really had chills down my spine when I was introduced. I was beside myself.” Strampe said. Strampe quickly proved he belonged, leading the All-Star Classic traveling league that year. “I was just so happy,” Strampe said. “Me, a kid from Iowa, in the middle of all these great bowlers.” Strampe’s idyll with Stroh’s ended when the National Bowling League was formed. He returned to the Twin Cities to bowl with the Minnesota entry in the ill-fated NBL, which lasted just the 196061 season. He then joined the fledgling PBA and became one of three players to win major championships as their first two titles. He won the PBA National and the BPAA All-Star (U.S. Open) in 1964 and was PBA’s leading money winner and player of the year. He won the ABC (now USBC) Masters in 1966. Finishing with seven titles, he was elected to the PBA Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2008, Strampe was named one of the PBA’s top 50 players of all time. 36
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being topped by 10 pins by a team in Rochester, NY. ◆◆◆ Everybody loves a parade, and in the 1950s and early ’60s, Detroit was no exception, using a parade in late August to open the new bowling season. Local lore has it that Detroit was the first city to do this. Initiated by Detroit Free Press writer W.W. Edgar, the Detroit proprietors’ association and All-Star Classic promoter John Gavie, the mile-long parade of dozens of vehicles, floats, fire trucks and convertibles cruised along Woodward Avenue, Detroit’s main street. Thousands of onlookers lined the route. The convertibles carried the King and Queen of Bowling – the previous season’s average leaders – and the teams from the
A mile-long parade opened the Detroit bowling season in the 1950s and ’60s. Riding in one of the open cars in 1959 were Lucille Quamby, Helen Shablis, Ethel Hanna, Pat Melvin and Peggy Kelly. Photo is from the cover of the 2000-01 Yearbook of the Metro Detroit USBC Association.
All-Star Classic, and the cavalcade would culminate at Hart Plaza overlooking the Detroit River. There the mayor–Albert Cobo in 1950-57, Louis Miriani 1957-62 – would crown the King and Queen. Hall of Famers Ed Lubanski and Elvira Toepfer were the first King and Queen. Other kings during that period were Buzz Fazio, Tom Hennessey, Billy Golembiewski, Dave Soutar and Mike Totsky. The parades have passed and association numbers are down in Detroit as elsewhere. Still, the city is not giving up its leading position. It has more than 70,000 bowlers. That’s more than just member numbers, Metro Detroit USBC Association manager Mark Martin notes. “There are other scratch leagues in the country, but they’re nothing compared to ours,” Martin says. “Our 2,292 perfect games in 2008-09 also were more than any other city had.” ❖ We thank Mark Martin for providing the photos for this story. Matt Fiorito, who has covered PBA since 1969, has been the bowling columnist for the Detroit Free Press since 1985. He has won multiple national writing awards among other honors, including the media excellence award from BPAA. An inductee of halls of fame that include the PBA, Bowling Writers Association of America, Detroit, and Michigan Majors Bowling Association, he was an inaugural member of the Michigan High School Bowling Coaches Hall of Fame.
SHOWCASE GAME PRIZES
LANE MACHINE
PARTY SYSTEM
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START SWITCH
IN-SEASON LANE INSTALLATIONS
The Seasonal Kit Schedule from Redemption Plus makes it easy to rotate attentiongrabbing seasonal mixes into your plush cranes. Pre-order for Christmas and save 5%. Schedule ensures holiday-themed kits arrive at your facility at the right time; grows revenue while reducing costs; secures your seasonal mixes before they sell out. And you don’t pay until they ship. Select any (or all) of our small and jumbo Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter kits you want. For more information, call 888-564-7587 or visit http://redemptionplus.com/ HipPrizes/HipSeasonalSchedule.htm.
It’s complete, it’s from The Lighting Store, and it will create parties your customers will remember! This Party System includes CD player, AM/FM radio, wireless handheld and headset mics, and a built-inmixer. Works on rechargeable batteries or AC power and comes with a travel cover. Save $200 now on sale pricing! For more information, call 888746-5483 or visit www.SoundAndLightKaraoke.com.
Bowling Factory Outlet announces the release of its new solid–state start switch for all capacitor start motors. This switch replaces the electro-mechanical components in a motor. It can be utilized on all 115 and 230 volt sweep, table, backend, ball return and main pinsetter motors, and any AMF or Brunswick machine. It is compatible with AO Smith, Baldor, Franklin, Leeson, General Electric, National, and Westinghouse motor manufacturers. For more information, call 877-236-8505 or visit www.bowlingfactoryoutlet.com.
SCORING SYSTEM SPECIALS
From New Center Consulting (NCC), specials mark the launch of RepairAndExchange.com. Ship your Accuscore Curtain Wall Chassis to the facility and get 40% off repairs – only $195. Also new from NCC: $595 Front Desk Replacement with new Flat-Screen Monitor, Standard Windows Keyboard/Custom Labeled, and Mouse for most legacy systems. Add a $95 Off-Site Back-up. Now use NCC for a real advantage in all your scoring needs. For more information, call 888-452-3748.
Sanction Technology, only from Kegel, is the most accurate way of applying precise amounts of conditioner. The same metering pump used in hospital medication dispensers is accurate within ±1%, with continued precision of ±.05% after millions of cycles. You get oil blended perfectly from outside to inside. Unlike other machines, with Kegel you can check the pattern before you run the lanes. For more information, visit www.kegel.net.
The first asymmetric ball release from MOTIV is here – the Cruel™ C51! The new Cruel™ inner core creates an RG of 2.48, .060 Diff, and .030 MB Diff on the 15# model. In the cover, Formula-5™ Reactive Hybrid provides an incredibly strong reaction and combines solid black with smoke pearl coverstock components. Box finish is 2000 Wet Sand to provide a strong reaction with plenty of continuation. For more information, visit www.motivbowling.com or call 800-235-8324.
Brunswick installers work around your business hours so you can provide uninterrupted bowling throughout the modernization process. Every step is completed with the utmost care to maintain a safe and welcoming environment. Your league bowlers see and experience the investment you are making in their center – encouraging them to return for seasons to come. For more details, call your Brunswick representative, 800-YES-BOWL or 231-725-4966.
TECH SUPPORT PORTAL
QubicaAMF Tech Support Customer Portal is designed to be a self-help area for customers. Whether it’s for routine maintenance, training a new employee, troubleshooting a problem or identifying a part to order, we know when you need information, you need it fast. And we know you are busy so we’re making it available to you 24/7, at your fingertips. Log on to www.customerportal.qubicaamf.com to register today! IBI October 2010
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DATEBOOK
CLASSIFIEDS
OCTOBER 3-5 West Coast Bowling Convention Harrah’s Harveys, South Lake Tahoe, NV. Sandi Thompson, 925485-1855. IBI is the official magazine of the convention. 11-13 East Coast Bowling Centers Convention Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, NJ. BPAA, 888-649-5586. IBI is the official magazine of the convention. 19-20 Texas-Oklahoma Idea Share Arlington Hilton, Arlington, TX. Karen Miller, 512-467-9331, www.texasbowlingcenters.org.
NOVEMBER 15-19 IAAPA Attractions Expo 2010 Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL. http:// www.iaapa.org/expos/attractions.
DECEMBER 6 Bowling Centers Association of Wisconsin mid-winter retreat location TBA. Gary Hartel, bcaw@bowlwi.com.
2011
JANUARY 19-22 BPAA’s Bowling Summit Red Rock Resort and Casino, Las Vegas. 800-343-1329. 38
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SERVICE CALLS WORLDWIDE • PRE-SHIPS • WE SELL
AS80/90 • BOARD REPAIR • Frameworx NEW KEYPADS • FRONT DESK LCD MONITORS
Michael P. Davies (321) 254-7849
291 Sandy Run, Melbourne, FL 32940 on the web: bowlingscorer.com email: mike@bowlingscorer.com
SELL IT FAST IN IBI
818-789-2695
CLASSIFIEDS
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE AMERICAN-MADE PINSETTER PARTS – HIGHEST QUALITY. Visit us on the web at www.ebnservices.com or call toll free (888) 435-6289. USED BRUNSWICK PARTS, A2 parts and assemblies. Large Inventory. www.usedpinsetterparts.com. NEW & USED Pro Shop Equipment. Jayhawk Bowling Supply. 800-2556436 or jayhawkbowling.com. Pinsetter Parts New from ALL major manufacturers. HUGE IN STOCK inventory. USED Brunswick Scoring parts, AS90 cameras, processors, lane cables, monitors, and PC boards. Order online @ 888SBIBOWL.com or (888) 724-2695. The Mechanics Choice! Buy or Sell @ www.bowlingyardsale.com; one-stop shopping for bowling equipment — from lane packages to dust mops! REPAIR & EXCHANGE. Call for details (248) 375-2751. AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY: 22 AMF lanes, 82-70s, spare parts and Qubica Conqueror scoring including back office and 3 cash points. (410) 535-3560. FOR SALE: 27” monitor for AccuScore Plus & AccuScore XL; used Synthetic Pin Decks. Ken’s Bowling Equipment (641) 414-1542.
SELL IT FAST IN IBI
818-789-2695 IBI
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CLASSIFIEDS EQUIPMENT FOR SALE FOR SALE: 40 lanes Brunswick Frameworx tables & seating; 13 back Frameworx tables, ½ ball racks & shelves; 16 lanes Brunswick Frameworx lower section masking units. All equipment in very good condition & in storage. Call Mike C (802) 655-3468 for pricing.
EQUIPMENT WANTED LANE MACHINES WANTED. We will purchase your KEGEL-built machine, any age or condition. Phone (608) 764-1464. AMF AccuScore XL or BOSS scoring (712) 253-8730.
CENTERS FOR SALE
UPSTATE NEW YORK: 8-lane center/ commercial building built in 1992. Synthetic lanes, new automatic scoring, kitchen and room to expand! Reduced to sell @ $375,000. Call (315) 376-3611. 16-lane center in Southern Colorado mountains. Great condition. 18,000 s/f building w/ restaurant & lounge. Paved parking 100 + vehicles. Established leagues & tournaments. $950,000 or make offer. Kipp (719) 852-0155. CENTRAL WISCONSIN: 12 lanes, auto scoring, Anvilane synthetics, 82-70s. Great food sales. Yearly tournament. Attached, large 3 bedroom apartment w/ fireplace. $550K. (715) 223-8230. EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA: 6-lane Brunswick center, bar & grill, drive-thru liquor store in small college town. Also, 3 apartment buildings with 40 units, good rental history. Call (701) 330-7757 or (701) 430-1490.
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CLASSIFIEDS CENTERS FOR SALE SOUTHWEST KANSAS: well-maintained 8-lane center, A-2s, full-service restaurant. Includes business and real estate. Nice, smaller community. Owner retiring. $212,000. Leave message (620) 397-5828. SOUTHERN INDIANA (close to Indianapolis): 18-lane Brunswick center with lounge, liquor license & movie theater on 4+ acres. Turnkey business. Owner retiring. Great investment! (765) 349-1312. CENTRAL IDAHO: 8-lane center and restaurant in central Idaho mountains. Small town. Only center within 60-mile radius. Brunswick A-2 machines; Anvilane lane beds; automatic scoring. (208) 879-4448. SE WISCONSIN: 12-lane Brunswick center including building, real estate & 7 acres. Raised dance floor, grill, pro shop, arcade, tanning room and more. Reasonably priced. Owner retiring. (920) 398-8023.
WWW.BOWLINGDIGITAL.COM
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CLASSIFIEDS
We could not have gotten our loan without him. Michael Ducat and Paul Barkley Strikers Family Sports Center Sunrise, FL
CENTERS FOR SALE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: 16-lane center w/ synthetic lanes, 82-70s, 19,000 s/f building w/ lots of parking. Newly remodeled bar & large kitchen. Owner retiring. (530) 598-2133. NEW YORK STATE: Thousand Island region. 8-lane Brunswick center w/ cosmic bowling, auto scoring. Established leagues + many improvements. $309,000. Call Jill @ Lori Gervera Real Estate (315) 771-9302.
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SOUTHERN NEVADA: 8-lane center. Only center in town of 15,000. 30 minutes from Las Vegas. AMF 82-70s, newer Twelve Strike scoring. R/E leased. Will consider lease/option with qualified person. REDUCED TO $175,000. Call Steve @ (702) 293-2368; email ljjaa1414@yahoo.com. NW KANSAS: 12-lane center, AS-80s, Lane Shield, snack bar, pro shop, game & pool rooms. See pics and info @ www.visitcolby.com or contact Charles (785) 443-3477. CENTRAL ILLINOIS: 8-lane center with AMF 82-70s, full service restaurant, pro shop. Plus pool tables, Karaoke machine, DJ system. PRICED TO SELL. Includes RE. (217) 351-5152 or toms-uvl@sbcglobal.net.
Orange County Security Consultants 10285 Ironclad Road, Rough & Ready, CA 95975
For FLORIDA CENTERS Call DAVID DRISCOLL & ASSOCIATES 1-800-444-BOWL P.O. Box 189 Howey-in-the-Hills, FL 34737 AN AFFILIATE OF SANDY HANSELL & ASSOCIATES 42
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SOUTHWESTERN WYOMING: 12 lanes + café & lounge, 2 acres w/ 5 bedroom home. Full liquor & fireworks licenses. Outside Salt Lake City area. Dennis @ Uinta Realty, Inc. (888) 804-4805 or uintarlt@allwest.net. NE MINNESOTA: Food, Liquor & Bowling. Established 8 lanes between Mpls & Duluth w/ large bar, dining room, banquet area. Two large State employment facilities nearby. High six figure gross. 3-bdrm home included. $1.2m. Call Bryan (218) 380-8089. www.majesticpine.com.
CLASSIFIEDS CENTERS FOR SALE SW WISCONSIN: 10 lanes, new automatic scoring/sound. Bar/grill. Great leagues, local tournaments, excellent pinsetters. Supportive community. 2 acres off main highway. $299,995. (608) 341-9056. GEORGIA: busy 32-lane center, real estate included. Great location in one of fastest growing counties in metro Atlanta. 5 years new with all the amenities. Excellent numbers. Call (770) 356-8751. NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: 16-lane center REDUCED to $799,000 for quick sale. Synthetics, 82-70s, 19,000 s/f + parking. Newly remodeled bar, large kitchen. Owner retiring. Will consider selling only equipment or building. www.siskiyoulanes.com. (530) 598-2133. NORTHWEST LOUISIANA: 12-LANE Brunswick center. REDUCED TO SELL NOW! Includes auto scoring, glow bowling, pizza, large dining area & video poker. Good income. Long Lease. Great opportunity. Call Mike (318) 578-0772.
WWW.FACEBOOKBOWLING.COM
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CLASSIFIEDS CENTERS FOR SALE
CENTERS FOR SALE
CENTRAL ALABAMA: Recently remodeled, split house w/24 synthetic lanes (16 & 8) in 28,000 s/f building in shopping center; Brunswick A2s & 2000 seating; AccuScore Plus; VIA returns & storage tables; systems for Cosmic; established leagues; snack bar, pro shop & game/pool table area. Nearest competition 28 miles w/ colleges & Honda factory within minutes. Need to sell due to health. Reasonably priced. (435) 705-0420.
NW INDIANA (Lake Michigan/National Lake Shore area): Well-maintained 32lane center, family owned & operated since 1997 with spacious nightclub lounge on 6.6 acres. Also billiards, arcade, pro shop, full-service restaurant, established leagues, birthday party activity & MORE! Owner retiring. Reasonably priced. (219) 921-4999. WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA: One of the top five places to move! Remodeled 32-lane center. Good numbers. $3.1m gets it all. Fax qualified inquiries to (828) 253-0362. AMF and some BRUNSWICK PC board repair/exchange. 6-month warranty, fast turnaround. Call or write: WB8YJF Service 5586 Babbitt Road, New Albany, Ohio 43054 Toll Free: 888-902-BOWL (2695) Ph./Fax: (614) 855-3022 (Jon) E-mail: wb8yjf@earthlink.net Visit us on the WEB! http://home.earthlink.net/~wb8yjf/
CENTERS FOR SALE
NE NEVADA: New 2001. 16 lanes, 19,200 square feet, 1.68 acres paved, sound & lighting, lounge w/ gaming, arcade, full service snack bar & pro shop. Call (775) 934-1539. SW IDAHO: 8-LANE CENTER w/full service, award winning restaurant, new lanes & scoring. $500,000 includes equipment & real estate. Nicely profitable. Call Ron @ Arthur Berry & Co., (208) 639-6171.
NORTHERN WISCONSIN: Turnkey business. 12-lane center, Brunswick A-2s, Frameworx scoring, full bar and restaurant. Good league base with large tournament. Contact Bruce @ (715) 614-7779. NEW MEXICO: 24-lane center in Clovis – Brunswick Vector scoring system, game room & kitchen. Call Susan, Coldwell Banker (575) 714-4018.
WWW.FACEBOOKBOWLING.COM
PROPRIETORS WITH AMF 82-70 S.S. & M.P. MACHINES Save $$ on Chassis & P.C. Board Exchange & Repair! A reasonable alternative for Chassis and P.C. Board Exchanges MIKE BARRETT Call for Price List
Tel: (714) 871-7843 • Fax: (714) 522-0576
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(570) 346-5559
CLASSIFIEDS SERVICES AVAILABLE
MINIATURE GOLF COURSES
Drill Bit Sharpening and Measuring Ball Repair. Jayhawk Bowling Supply. 800255-6436 or Jayhawkbowling.com.
Indoor/Outdoor. Immediate Installation. $5,900.00 & up. 2021 Bridge Street Jessup, PA 18434 570-489-8623 www.minigolfinc.com
INSURANCE SERVICES 30+ YEARS INSURING BOWLING CENTERS – Ohio, Illinois & Michigan. Property & Liability; Liquor Liability, Workers Comp, Health & Personal. Call Scott Bennett (248) 408-0200, Scott@Bowl-mail.com; Mark Dantzer, CIC (888) 343-2667, Mark@DieboldInsurance.com; or Kevin Elliott.
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Mechanics – AMF 82-70s in Kentucky & Indiana. Call Dennis (502) 722-9314.
POSITION WANTED Brunswick “A” mechanic, 12+ years experience, AS-80/AS-90 scoring system expertise. Former owner/GM. Willing to relocate. Contact me at (308) 380-8594.
WWW.FACEBOOKBOWLING.COM
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to place your Classified Ad in International Bowling Industry Magazine
Call Fax
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your ad to:
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October 2010
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REMEMBER WHEN
1946 I
t was a year of transition for America and for bowling, which had grown respectable enough for the business to merit a feature story in the February Fortune. The money wasn’t bad for alley owners, the magazine reported. An eight-laner in 1946 would earn about $5,000 in profit. For that, the owner would spend $16,000 for the lanes ($7,000 down), gross $15,000, and fork over $10,000 in annual operating costs (35 cents rent per square foot, 8% depreciation, $5 per lane per week maintenance). While proprietors had a serious problem in “a great scarcity of dependable pin-boy labor,” help might be just around the corner. A.M.&F. had a machine that would set the pins automatically, due for midsummer introduction. Everybody was saying that if the machines work, bowling would boom as never before. “Everybody” was right, even in the short term. Just three years later, in the ’48-49 season, ABC/WIBCsanctioned houses were up from 4,874 to 6,097, while number of sanctioned lanes had gone from 40,146 to 50,145. Not coincidentally, ABC/ WIBC bowler ranks had ballooned from 1,060,000 to 1,801,000 in the same three years. ❖
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