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Do you receive
our weekly email updates? It's the best way to keep up with
everything we do. If not, email us at
bowljbt@aol.com, and we'll
add you on the list!
2009-10 JBT events are open to ALL bowlers, excluding PBA
members, age 21 and under as of 8/29/09- we are an age-based
scholarship Tour. For details, click on the 'eligibility' section
at left.
Copies of all flyers currently available at JBT events, and
center addys, are posted for printing
by clicking
here.
CURRENT JBT
CHAMPIONS: (click
on the "Schedule & Results"
page for all event recaps)
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Conference |
NEW MEXICO - TEXAS |
ARIZONA |
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA |
MOJAVE |
PACIFIC NORTHWEST |
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Event |
Bowl El Paso |
AMF Shea Village |
Vista |
Sam's Town |
Triangle Bowl |
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(click on picture to enlarge) |
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champs (titles) |
William Entsminger (4th) &
Shawn Perry (1st) |
Kyle King (41st) & Taylor Coleman (1st);
Kyle King (42nd) & KJ Martinez (1st) |
Jimmy Hefley (4th) & Eric Demo (1st); Devin
Bidwell (8th) & Oscar Chan (1st) |
Kyle King (40th) & Jake Childers (1st); Kris
George (22nd) & Aaron Watkins (2nd) |
Jared McNeal (2nd) & Thomas Nute (2nd);
Jordan Plunkett (7th) & Kyle Hays (2nd) |
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scholarships awarded |
$1,655 |
$1,760; $2,140 |
$1,730; $1,700 |
$1,490; $1,495 |
$1,285; $1,360 |
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results |
click here for Sun. results |
click here for Sat.results
click here for Sun. results |
click here for Sat.results
click here for Sun. results |
click here for Sat.results
click here for Sun. results |
click here for Sat. results
click here for Sun. results |
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next events in that conference: |
March 20-21: Silva Lanes |
March 27: Antelope; March
28: Starlite |
April 4: Forest Lanes- Easter Egg Hunt! |
April 18: Riverside, Laughlin NV (with AZ) |
April 24-25: Hiline Lanes |
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Click here for info on the Las Vegas Main Event!
$52,597 was awarded at the
2009 Main Event!
2009 champs Maggie Zakrzewski,
Brent Bowers, and Adam Yoshii (click on pics to enlarge)
Entry blanks for the 2010 Main Event, December 24-28 2010
(with side events Dec. 18-23 and Dec. 29) will be available June
2010!
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The
POWERBOWL
Jackpot is now:
$200...
Wanna win it? Simply bowl a JBT event!
Britni Glasspool- $500 PowerBowl WINNER- 3/14/10
William Entsminger- $425 PowerBowl WINNER- 6/6/09
Cameron Smith- $300 PowerBowl WINNER- 2/28/09
Ryan Gallagher- $600 PowerBowl WINNER- 2/15/09
Zach Hemming- $1,000
PowerBowl WINNER- 12/14/08
Andy Byer- $300 PowerBowl WINNER- 1/5/08
BJ Baker- $600 PowerBowl WINNER- 12/9/07
Dan Hansen- $2,150 PowerBowl WINNER- 11/10/07
Kyle Frederick- $2,500 PowerBowl WINNER- 5/12/07
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SPONSOR'S BOX
The JBT would like to
thank the following sponsors for generous scholarship
contributions to JBT events:
The Junior Bowlers Tour's
Title Sponsor is:  .
Bowlers winning a JBT event throwing Ebonite equipment win a
$100 scholarship bonus!
Go Wireless is a
proud sponsor of all JBT events, as well as the Go Wireless
JBT Bowler of the Year Awards at the end of the season.
Wherever you go in JBT territory, there is a Go Wireless
outlet near you for all your wireless communication needs.
Visit them at
www.gowireless.net today!
K&K Bowling Services /
Embroidery Services has agreed to a major
partnership with the JBT. They have pro shop locations in
both Las Vegas and Kingman, and you can check them out online
at
www.bowlinglasvegas.com.
Impact Bowling is
proud to announce the Impact Challenge! At every Arizona
Conference event, a random handicap and scratch division
finisher will receive a bonus $25 scholarship. Impact Bowling
is a great pro shop at 99th Ave and Bell in NW Phoenix.
Please visit them in person or online at
www.impactbowling.com
and say thanks! Here's some of this year's Impact winners!
Bowling Blvd. is
a great one-stop shop for news, info, chat, blogging, and
everything else going on in the bowling world! Be sure to
visit them, check it out, and say thanks!
Felix Chac Chuo Farm Inc.
sponsors JBT
events. You can view over 100 pictures and 2 videos from JBT
events they've created at
www.vcsports.com
Marianne at the Crystal Jewelry Box,
located at
www.thecrystaljewelrybox.biz,
makes great gifts at reasonable prices for any occasion. Check
it out today.
Camp
Bakes is a great bowling seminar-camp run by PBA
champion Mark Baker. You can visit
www.campbakes.com for
more information!
Valentino Bowling
sponsors JBT events. They are a wide ranging company that
feature great ball cleaners and polishes. Check them out at
www.valentinobowling.com!
MORE SPONSORS MEANS MORE SCHOLARSHIP MONEY! Information on
becoming or recruiting JBT sponsors is available at every JBT
event, or by contacting us!
THANK
YOU SPONSORS!!
For more
information on how individuals, groups, or businesses can
sponsor JBT events and increase the scholarship prizes our
bowlers are playing for,
please click here,
or contact us today! |
Feedback
We
welcome your questions, comments and suggestions about anything JBT
related. Please feel free to contact us anytime!
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2009-10
JBT age rule remains "21 or under"
For the 2009-10 season of JBT competition, our eligibility rule will
read as follows: “JBT events are open to all bowlers age 21 or under as
of August 28, 2009, excluding PBA members”.
This rule
change is a necessary response to usbc’s lowering of their age limit to
19 or under as of next season. It’s irritating to me that we have to
change anything about our age rule at all-- we’re not in the habit of
fixing what isn’t broken. However, we will not abandon our older
bowlers, and thus must respond with this amending of our own rule.
Ironically, usbc’s rule change results in a simplification of the JBT
rule. Essentially, just show your ID saying you’re under 22, and come
bowl the best scholarship tournaments around. Of course, this also
results in a philosophical shift in what in means to be a ‘junior
bowler’. Yet this is, again, an end result of the Pandora’s box opened
up when juniors were allowed to compete in adult tournaments, in any
fashion, in the first place. It is plainly evident to me that these
rules and exceptions will continue to change and spiral into further
complexities, so consider the simplification of our rule to ‘under 22’
as a “preemptive strike” to extinguish these debates from the JBT world.
When we
first heard of the age change, we immediately went to our bowlers for
advice. We presented three potential re-wordings of our rule, and asked
for feedback on them, as well as took other suggestions. I’d like to
thank everyone for the great points made during this process, even if
they made a suggestion I personally didn’t agree with. After debating
all the pros and cons of each wording, I kept returning to, and telling
myself, one crucial axiom: ‘keep it simple’. What I mean by that is by
adding any further detail to the age rule, it will create a problem,
either immediately, or an unforeseen problem in the future. A lot of
folks expressed support for an option which forced bowlers ‘returning to
juniors’ to pay a reinstatement fee, 100% of which went to
scholarships. A pretty good idea, I think, but in the end, it’s
impossible to police 100% effectively. People, knowingly or not, will
try and avoid the fee, and arguments and bad feelings will ensue. No
bueno.
That’s
just one simple example of the issues that will come up with a
complicated age rule. Even after 600+ tournaments, something new comes
up at nearly every JBT event, and an issue over eligibility is something
there cannot be any gray area with. Thus, the simple beauty of the new
age rule.
Even with
this new, simple rule, I know there are pros and cons. The obvious
‘con’ many folks pointed out is that this allows what has come to be
termed ‘double-dipping’: bowlers can bowl in both adult and JBT events
at the same time. I have three points to make regarding this:
1)
Double-dippping is already allowed under last
year’s rules (and has been since usbc rule 400 was amended). A bowler
could conceivably win the PBA’s US Open, and still bowl in their local
Saturday morning USBC youth league. So, this is hardly a big step up
from the existing double-dipping, which hasn’t had a deleterious effect
on JBT competition. Anyone who wants to can take advantage of this to
gain as much experience in any form of competition they want, JBT or
otherwise, and is welcome to.
2)
I
believe that the fear of being overrun with ‘adult bowlers’ coming back
to JBT, while certainly valid, is a bit exaggerated. Here’s how I see
it: there’s a reason that kids who ‘go adult’ before their age requires
them to do so: they’re done with junior bowling. Whether
it’s because they don’t want to deal with the restrictive behavior rules
of junior events as compared to adult events, they want to bowl with
adult friends or family, they’ve “done it all” in juniors, they don’t
need scholarships or would rather play for cash, or whatever reason,
very few are going to be eager to come back to the same environment that
they voluntarily left in the first place! (Incidentally, one of our
responses to having potential ‘returning’ bowlers will be to increase-
not decrease- our discipline rules that are designed to provide a
kid-friendly environment for all ages and averages. Any bowler used to
the typical ‘adult’ environment will be in for a major attitude
adjustment when they come back to JBT!)
3)
This is a more behind-the-scenes thing, but I don’t want there
to be any misunderstanding or skepticism about it: JBT is in no
position to create a rule which will be more restrictive about who can
bowl our events. Even though we are a healthy organization, total
entries are down in a few of our conferences for the first time ever.
Whether it is the shaky economy, the steep decline in overall usbc
youth membership, a natural end to the fast rise in growth from our
initial seasons, or a combo of all of these, is hard to tell.
Regardless, the new JBT age rule means that we never have to lose a
bowler before they turn 22 ever again. This is something which is
obviously attractive to the health of the JBT, and thus should be to you
too.
Consider, though, the positive side of the same argument instead of the
negative. I used this example in earlier writings, but what about
people who shouldn’t have gone adult early in the first place? New
bowlers who were placed in adult leagues before they ever heard of
opportunities like JBT can now experience our program. Bowlers who went
adult only to find out that just maybe it was a bit premature to do so
now can rejoin our family. Bowlers who find themselves again needing to
earn scholarship money will always have an outlet to do so. Bowlers who
thought JBT was expensive who then found out adult events are reeeeeally
expensive and often at a much higher competition level, now have a
second chance. I believe that these are all good things, and more than
outweigh the negatives in the final analysis.
I’d
also like to point out that our age rule is similar to what almost all
other Tour-type organizations are doing, both certified and not. It’s
not ‘yet another rebellious move’ on our part to word our age rule as we
have, despite any cynicism from the under-informed or jealous.
JBT is
about a lot of things at once, that’s why we’re successful. Any age,
average, gender, and skill level can all have a great time, regardless
of the final results of any individual tournament. The social skills
and life-on-the-road skills learned can be as valuable as the bowling
experience. You can bowl just once or twice a year, or be a die-hard
and follow us everywhere. Our flexibility is our calling-card. But,
conversely, at its heart JBT has a clear element of the cut-throat. We
are not the pizza-party, cosmic bowl, everyone’s-a-winner event. The
goal is to find the best scratch and the best handicap division bowler
on any given day. And in the purity of our new age rule, we have an
even better embodiment of that ideal. No other restrictions- the best
scratch and best handicap bowler under 22 will win that day’s event. If
one of junior bowling’s main purposes is to be a measuring stick for
your ability level before hitting the ‘big time’ of adults, the new age
rule will give you the best possible evaluation of your performance.
All of these are good things.
I have
tried in this piece to consciously not voice an opinion towards the
actual usbc rule change, or other people’s various responses to it, and
to leave matters of opinion out (I’ve done plenty of that elsewhere). I
am sick of having my passion for doing what’s right being seen as
confrontational for the sake of being confrontational. As I gain more
age and experience, I feel JBT (and my hairline) is better served by
focusing only on what is best for JBT. Usbc is doing what it feels is
necessary to ‘save youth bowling’. Thanks to YOU believing in us, JBT
is doing just fine, and the rule change usbc came up with to help itself
is detrimental to us. Thus, my only goal is to respond to that change
in a way that best benefits JBT and its bowlers.
Thanks for
reading- if you’d like to talk about this or anything else, please don’t
hesitate to contact me.
choose an option to the left to learn much more about JBT! |
