Aaron Smith shares his thoughts from El Paso
May 18, 2010
Howdy ya'll. That's actually what the sign welcoming bowlers into the El Paso Convention and Performing Arts Center for the 2010 USBC Women's Championships reads. I haven't picked up an accent...yet.
So today, I feel like talking about participation. This is going to be a busy week recognizing some ladies reaching historic milestones, and they have certainly earned it.
Within the next five days, we will be recognizing two bowlers for competing in their 50th Women's Championships as well as welcoming back the one and only Mini Tvaska, who will be making her 64th consecutive tournament appearance to extend her own record of participation.
How crazy is that? 64 consecutive years!
The 92-year-old has been to every tournament since the 1947 running in Grand Rapids, Mich. To put that into my own scary perspective, I currently have five Open Championships appearances to my credit at the age of 25. To even sniff 50 years, I'm still 45 tournaments away! I'd be 70!
Imagine how many amazing stories she has to have. Think of all the people she has met. The cities she has visited. All thanks to a little bowling tournament that has grown into the largest participatory sporting event for women in the world.
Mini was presumably 28 years old at her first Women's Championships (her birthday is in early March). I wonder what the 92-year-old Mini would say to the 28-year-old Mini if she had the chance.
Would the 28-year-old believe the stories the 92-year-old Mini would tell her? Would she believe all that bowling was going to bring to her life? We'll never know those answers, but it would be cool to find out, don't you think?
I certainly wouldn't believe I'd be working at such an amazing event when I started bowling around 6 or 7 years of age, or even when I started to take it seriously around 16. And that was only nine years ago. She has 64 years under her belt!
It's tough to think that such a simple sport, where you roll a round ball to knock down wooden sticks, could mean so much to one's life and shape it just as much.
But it does.
And it will continue to do so as long as you want it to.
So today, I feel like talking about participation. This is going to be a busy week recognizing some ladies reaching historic milestones, and they have certainly earned it.
Within the next five days, we will be recognizing two bowlers for competing in their 50th Women's Championships as well as welcoming back the one and only Mini Tvaska, who will be making her 64th consecutive tournament appearance to extend her own record of participation.
How crazy is that? 64 consecutive years!
The 92-year-old has been to every tournament since the 1947 running in Grand Rapids, Mich. To put that into my own scary perspective, I currently have five Open Championships appearances to my credit at the age of 25. To even sniff 50 years, I'm still 45 tournaments away! I'd be 70!
Imagine how many amazing stories she has to have. Think of all the people she has met. The cities she has visited. All thanks to a little bowling tournament that has grown into the largest participatory sporting event for women in the world.
Mini was presumably 28 years old at her first Women's Championships (her birthday is in early March). I wonder what the 92-year-old Mini would say to the 28-year-old Mini if she had the chance.
Would the 28-year-old believe the stories the 92-year-old Mini would tell her? Would she believe all that bowling was going to bring to her life? We'll never know those answers, but it would be cool to find out, don't you think?
I certainly wouldn't believe I'd be working at such an amazing event when I started bowling around 6 or 7 years of age, or even when I started to take it seriously around 16. And that was only nine years ago. She has 64 years under her belt!
It's tough to think that such a simple sport, where you roll a round ball to knock down wooden sticks, could mean so much to one's life and shape it just as much.
But it does.
And it will continue to do so as long as you want it to.