Prebowl / postbowl

[Derrick]

First the postbowl, or postponment.

We added a 9th team on week 4. Our league board voted to allow the team to make up the 3 weeks and score them on the draw system. The team has bowled week 4 and week 5 as part of the league. They want to bowl all three weeks (9 games) this Saturday. Would that be kosher? Should they bowl the three series' on different lanes? Or do it on three different days? Or does it not matter, as long as the scores are recorded on on USBC certified lanes? Since a couple of the bowlers do not have an established average, they use their first weeks average (week 4 for 2 bowlers and week 5 for 1 bowler).... will BLS allow me to enter week 1,2,3 for each of the bowlers at one time and will BLS correctly use the average until 9 games are bowled, then use that average? I know this part should go in the other forum, but if I can get away with just one post... and I know Lance and Frank and a few others that may know the answer will read this. Also, if they only have 3 bowlers (playing stregth of 4) can or should I allow the forth to make up the games later and then apply it to that weeks team score, or should/must all bowlers make it up as a team?

Oh, and should the draw teams be determined before or after the postbowls? If before should the team bowling be allowed to see what they have to beat?

Hopefully this will be less confusing...

Long-term pre-bowl....

We bowl on a Navy base and not-so-surprising we have active duty Navy personel in the league. A couple of bowlers know that they we be deployed in January, and want to pre-bowl for Jan-May. I am not sure of the exact date, but it could be as much as 14 weeks worth of pre-bowl. I suggested to the team captian to find a replacement bowler for those weeks. There is a lot of time to do so. But both the captian and the bowler want the pre-bowl. Not sure why, but if it would be OK with USBC, then it would be OK with me. He said he'd come in on one day and bowl them all. I suggested that if we went with the 14 week prebowl that it might be better to just do one per week.

Awaiting opinions,


Derrick

[Lance Rasmussen]

BLS can do makeups or prebowls as individuals or teams. It's the league bylaws that have to allow individual or teams. And unless otherwise stated, it must be as a team. BLS will factor the averages in the order, so that wont be an issue.

Current USBC guidelines will only affect your prebowl/makeup bowlers if they earn an USBC award that is a high achievement category award (300, 11 in a row, etc.). Anyone earning those.... are SOL.

There are no USBC bylaws to prohibit bowling X # of games in a day. Nor is there a USBC bylaw that prohibits bowling on the same lane for each set.

Personally, I would rather a team move to a different pair each set. The advantage is that it limits the "no fair" potential issue being raised. It also may be better for the bowlers too.

If your long term league allowed the massive long term prebowl, that shouldn't be an issue unless the league prohibits it in their bylaws. Naturally, it may become confusing for position rounds because you may not know who the opponent would be at that point.

Personally and at the center I worked for, we would never let a team playing a prebowled team see the scores until they were done with the night. I could conceed maybee feeding them each games scores as they complete each game. But I wouldn't want to give them a "heads up" to cause a situation where the team would sandbag or just bowl enough to get the win (or give up because the score to beat was too high).

Pre-picking Draw teams shouldn't be a problem. I don't think there is any guideline that says you must draw each week. The idea is that it is just a random "fair" draw.

The only bylaw that I've seen in the midwest uses a term called "Banking scores". This is the practice of prebowling as many weeks as you need to. Then whenever you are gone, you pull of the first "banked" scores you bowled.

This practice is against USBC bylaws because every time you bowl, your average must be based on the pins and games bowled up until the time of that bowling. Which is why dealing with prebowls and makeups are a little harder.

[Frank Goebel]

Here's a (rare) short answer from me: Anything that can help our active service personnel (I was an Army National Guardsman in my day) enjoy a sport that can give them a lifetime of recreation, should be exploited within the guidelines of USBC rules. I firmly believe that a pre-bowl policy can be used effectively to achieve this goal.

Everyone knows, going in, that service members have the potential for deployment.

[Derrick]

If the bowlers were on an aircraft carrier that had USBC certified lanes and wanted to bowl while at sea and submit the scores, I'd be OK with that.

I did read the USBC rule that would prohibit the 'banking' system. CAQ#120.

There is also no USBC rule prohibiting the prebowled scores to be seen prior to the games completetion. But by laws can govern this. We air ours out in the open and even put them into the scoring system.

I'm not arguing anything, just posting the shortened formal rules for anyone else reading.

We don't have position rounds, at least I don't think so, still haven't figured out what those are. Sad, I know. We bowl a split half. Winner of 1st half bowls winner of 2nd half for league champion. I don't see the relation of who you bowl agaisnt having anything to do with prebowling, but I'll take your word for it.


Lance, thanks for the assurance that BLS will be able to correctly track averages when adding post bowling for 3 members and 9 games on a single week. And a 4th bowler who knows when.


D

[Frank Goebel]

A position round means that, for that week only, the teams are paired up based on position standings (hence the name). AKA Place Round. First bowls against second, third vs. fourth, and so on. Mid-season, it's a break in the schedule. It's commonly used as the final week (or two) of a league segment (half, quarter) or season. I've bowled in a league that had a position round every third or fourth week. Why?I ask rhetorically....

The reason for Lance's concern is that the scores bowled would determine what the standings would be week after week, and as a result would determine who bowls who in a position round. Your league doesn't use them, and no, they're not by any means a requirement or even a necessity. It's just another option. Bowling seems to reliever the stresses of military life for you, so no real need to add any more complexity.

[Derrick]

Thanks for clearing that up. But still don't see the need to mid season position rounds. Quaters/halves excluded. After every 3 weeks??? Insane!

[Lance Rasmussen]

You would have to pose the question to HQ regarding the scenerio if the bowlers had to travel and had access to certified lanes, to submit the scores.

I would probably guess (as well as personally agree) that this would not be allowed.

The reason, military or not, would be that the league is certified to bowl only at the specified center. The only way around that is when a travel league is established, which then would require the entire league to travel to the designated centers. Each center for a certified league would need to, of course, be certified.

I can certainly appreciate the situation with military and bowling. There's just no expecting, for the most part, that each bowler in a team will be there 32 weeks a year.

Most of my leagues that were based on halves, would have a position round in the middle of each half. It gives a little bit of a playoff type atmosphere, which works well.

Something to think about.... maybee move to a quarter based system. Then for the rolloff, have the winners of each quarter roll off. A league I've been with for a long time does that and it works well. They set up a point system (they do individual match point and team points) that would give 4, 3, 2, 1 points type of thing so that all 4 teams are going against eachother at the same time.

[Frank Goebel]

Lance, I think you missed it...Derrick was referring to a fictional set of lanes on board an aircraft carrier. Were it not for its deployment payload, the space is certainly there. That's why all the pre-bowling.

My brother's first ship was a carrier. Those things are huge.

Halves are probably better here, given the length of deployments that we see. As to a roll-off - if everyone's in agreement, and a deployed sailor is involved in a roll-off, since there's only one (at the end) there really isn't a problem with a roll-off being bowled after everyone's home. (You can't pre-bowl a roll-off.)

[Derrick]

If it's not broke, don't fix it.

The majority of our bowlers would get confused if I tried to introduce individual match-play point and they'd all feel they are getting cheated in some way.

Since their deployments are 6 months long, there would be no way to wait for any of the men to return from duty. I looked through the USBC rules and could not find anything aboutpre-bowlinga roll-off. Personally, I would not want to allow a pre-bowled score used for a championship, but my personal opinion doesn't matter. If it did, the team would need to get a replacement bowler once the sailor was deployed. It promotes the spirit and competitive nature of the sport of bowling.

I don't even know why a person would want to prebowl all the games. $10 @ 14 weeks would be $140. Even if that team won every game, using last years $ per point, would give that bowler $117. Only $67 if they win 60% of their games. Essentially paying to not be a part of the whole bowling/competitive atmosphere. *shrug*

[Keith Chambers]

Derrick,
Going back to your original question - the decision to grant, or deny, a prebowl or postponement request is up to the committee appointed by the President, or the entire board in the absence of a committee. The committee should consider the impact on the members that are going to be absent, the rest of the league, and any other conditions that the league may have.
While it is very nice to be as flexible as possible for our active duty members, it still has to make sense for the rest of the league.
I am a retired Naval officer, bowled throughout my career, and still bowl in several leagues that have active duty members - as well as civilians that also "deploy" these days. We also bowl onbase here in San Diego.
It has been our "unwritten policy" that prebowls for deployments up to 8 weeks is reasonable and are usually approved; but periods beyond two months usually call for replacements and agreements to protect the prize money earned up to the time of deployment. Two years ago we had a full team of active duty sailors, plus two spouses, that were out to sea more than they were in port and we allowed them to prebowl almost all of their second half games. They did not have to do them all at one time as they were in and out several times before the major deployment. There was some problems when their opponents found out that they had already bowled and thought that they should have been consulted; but overall it worked out OK. I would not recommend it as a standard practice and you have to be very careful to track the scores to the correct week, especially if they prebowl some games and then also bowl with the league for regularily scheduled sessions as it affects the handicap.
By the way, while there is usually a space called "the bowling alley" on most aircraft carriers, it is not for bowling! Just a long, narrow space that resembles a lane. Having a pair of lanes, or even one lane, would sure have been nice during some of those long periods at sea!