BATON ROUGE - Rick Bourgeois, an extremely familiar name who for more decades than any of us care to remember, has been the director of bowling for the Malco Theater division and is also one of the fathers and defacto commissioner of Louisiana’s ultra-successful high school bowling program.

Bourgeois recently received the coveted V.A. Wapensky Award at Bowl Expo in Washington, D.C. The award is named after the Bowling Proprietors Association of America’s longtime executive director and Bourgeois joins a long list of winners that includes ABC sportscaster Chris Schenkel, pro legend Dick Weber and a writing friend, Chuck Pezzano.

In 1985 the “BPAA Special Award” was established to recognize an individual whose overall major contribution to the advancement of the bowling industry involves endless good nature, remarkable business savvy, love for bowling and continual promotion of the game both locally and nationally.

That’s exactly Ricky Bourgeois, who has spent almost his entire year supporting bowling and constantly promoting the sport. He has been in the business for over 50 years with Malco which oversees two family entertainment centers with movie operations and one bowling entertainment center in the greater Baton Rouge area with another bowling entertainment center in Lafayette.

But it was his dogged determination as he joined the effort for high school bowling in the state which now every January-April since 2005 showcases the best high school bowlers in the state in a way never before available, and a lot of that is thanks to Bourgeois.

Louisiana State Championships

The championships recently concluded in Shreveport at the All Star Lanes in that city and some Baton Rouge bowlers had good showings.

The Deep in the Hole team was ninth in the handicap team event with the Hole in the Ball Pro Shop taking fifth in the scratch division. Gregory Snee and Mykel Holliman teamed up to win scratch doubles with a strong 1,370 score with Kenny Winstead and Randy Summers in eighth at 1,285. Snee was sixth in scratch singles with a 700 and was seventh in scratch all-events at 2,053 with Holliman eighth at 2,042.

USBC Low To Cash Numbers

The USBC on July 2 put out the Low To Cash Numbers for the tournament to that date based on the number of entrants that have bowled so far.

In the top regular division the low to cash number at this point is 2,694 in team, 1,131 in doubles, 596 in singles and 1,761 in all-events.

All those numbers are lower than last year, although the singles number is only one pin lower and 25 in all-events. The biggest difference between last year and this year is in team which is at 96 pins lower.

Now to put that in perspective, the team event has been much harder than last year for one and two, there are more teams bowling this year than last year so more teams are going to get paid and the score drops lower. It’s all relative but it’s worth looking at. The numbers stack up in the same fashion in the standard and classified divisions. Again, more teams in each division, then the number is lower but it’s no surprise in team event that the number is lower because not only the number of teams, but the pattern.

Let me just ask you to join us next Monday because we are working on a project regarding the 300 games this year in Baton Rouge as we still wait to see if we will have a perfect game in the team event in the final three weeks.

Sacks Of Cash Events

The Monday night fun tournaments continue for another month at All Star, but the winners for the first two events have been announced.

In the No-Tap Singles, Gregory Snee won $173 for a perfect 1,200 score for first with Edward Basil second at 1,190 ($125). Bailee Chapman won the women’s division with 1,164 for $104. Sumner Taylor and Snee won the Baker doubles with 1,480 for $352 with Sonja Franklin and Michael Beach second with 1,468 for $220.

On July 14, it will be Scotch Doubles with No-Tap Singles (July 21) and Doubles (July 28) before the No Tap Eliminator on Aug. 4.

Look forward to visiting next Monday for a primer on Open Championship 300 games.

Until then, good luck and good bowling,

                         Kent Lowe