"If coaches came to recruit, you just ruined a lot of kids chances."
It's bad enough when centers don't oil for league play . . . but when you fail to oil for a high school tournament and the kids, most of whom are beginner bowlers, have no idea how to adjust . . . well that's just awful.
So was the case today at Bowl 360 Ozone Park, where the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) New York City High School Bowling Elite City Individual Championship took place. With about 25-30 different high schools represented in the tournament and legitimate scholarship opportunities up for grabs, the kids walked in and were greeted with disco lights and loud music blaring. When a parent asked the employee (yes, ONE employee for everything) to turn the lights and music off for the tournament, the employee told them he "didn't know how." And when they did figure out how, it only got worse.
Apparently the lanes were so dry that 90% of the kids (if not more) resorted to using plastic balls and throwing it straight down the lane. Even the seasoned kids with averages in the 230+ range were struggling to shoot 600, forced to launch plastic down the lane just to keep it on the right side of the pocket. And if that's not enough, as is becoming custom with Bowl 360 centers, there were food and drinks strewn about on the lanes with no employees to clean. So the kids had to deal with more grease on the settee then on the actual lanes!
After speaking with 2 parents whose children were bowling in the tournament, I was told that many kids were crying on the lanes, knowing their averages would go down and hurting potential scholarship opportunities for college or assuming recruiters may have actually been there watching them bowl. One child (who shall remain nameless due to their age) actually texted their father apologizing for what they bowled!
Listen, it's one thing when you give the adults a challenging shot, but when you fail to oil for a high school tournament when children's futures are actually affected by it, there's no excuse, no plausible deniability for this type of situation. We can blame the PSAL for scheduling a tournament at a Bowl 360 center, but when push comes to shove, the center (and the owner) need to know better and need to do better. Stop pretending your center caters to league and tournament bowlers when it's clear it caters to open bowlers who don't care what's on the lanes.
Our kids deserve better!
