Bowling is a Sport!  

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I am sure I mentioned that my kids are into bowling. I have 3 boys and they all Bowl. The 2 older ones have been bowling for about 8 years and my little one for about 5. Truth be told they are all pretty decent at it.

My oldest son has anywhere from a 150-170 average (depending on if it's school or youth league bowling). My middle boy carries a 109 and my little one (8 years old) carries a 90 average.
They love it, and they are pretty good at it. They have made tons of friends at the bowling alley, and that has spilled over to school and other activities as well.

In fact my oldest boy, is or I should say was a pretty shy kid. He has always been a lot bigger than most people his age, and sorta felt out of place. Not so when he bowls though. Since it's an individual sport, he isn't matched up next to somebody. He feels much more at ease then in a football or baseball game. This allowed him to sort of come out of his shell, and he has made many friends while bowling. They hang out at the house, or around town or at school.

Anyway to my point (I am easily sidetracked). A few days ago, my son came home and told me that a kid at school told him that bowling isn't a sport. My son argued that it was indeed a sport, and of course the other child responded no it wasn't. So I guess that evidently they went back and forth like this throughout their lunchtime. My son asked me if bowling was a sport or not. I told him that it absolutely was. I explained that it was a competitive activity that was governed by rules. Which is as close to the definition of sport I could come up with. He said the boy told him that it's not like the big three (baseball, football, basketball) or tennis or soccer where you have to be fast or catch good, or any of those things. He told my son that bowling was just rolling a stupid ball and it was easy.

I asked him what he told the kid. He said that he told this little boy that if it was so easy, maybe he should come down to the bowling alley on Saturday and see if he could do it better. Well sure enough this young boy showed up with his mom for Saturday bowling. I hate to say this, but I could just tell this kid was a jerk. He was a cocky, pompous little jerk. His mom signed him up, but told the directors that she didn't think it would be competitive enough to keep her son interested (wonder where he got his arrogance from). the little boy proceeded to bowl on the lane next to my middle son. I sat close enough to watch this boy make a complete fool out of himself. He would have been just fine if he wouldn't have told all these kids how they were wasting their time playing this little kids game that wasn't even a sport. He explained that he probably wouldn't bowl after this week, cause it would be too easy.

Wrong answer, the kid bowled a best game of 82. Did I mention that was his best game? Yeah, worst game was a 51. I ALMOST felt bad for the kid. He made excuses for almost every shot. He was complaining about the ball, the shoes, too much noise, it stuck in his hand. You name it the kid had an excuse and the mom wasn't far behind offering her reasons. i ignored that woman after about 2 minutes of her jabbering.

The best part of all this was, that none of the kids were rude or made fun of the kid. Most of them even tried to give him tips to make it easier for him to get a better throw. Of course the boy didn't listen to any of the advice, and he continued to do miserably. Funny thing though, he did mention that he might come back next week just to show that he was only having a bad day.

When the bowling was over for the morning, my son was talking to this rotten little kid. My son told him that bowling was a sport and that this kid better practice if he wanted to be good at it.
The only good thing that came out of all this, was that the little boy did admit that bowling was a sport (albeit a dumb one).

This entry was posted at Saturday, October 17, 2009 and is filed under , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

2 comments

Anonymous  

I love to hear a story where the good guy wins. I consider this a score for the good guys. How admirable that the kids were actually trying to help the little jerk. Story well told!
Jan

October 17, 2009 at 8:41 PM

I was definitely proud of the way that group of kids tried to help this boy out. Who knows maybe in the end it will do him some good. Definitey score one for the good guys :)

October 18, 2009 at 8:18 PM

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