No Sport of Kings, but a Tiara
When Sue Jeziorski flew down from Buffalo, N.Y., she brought eight bowling balls.
OK, so Sunrise, population 80,000, is no typical Florida tourist mecca, and Jeziorski didn’t have the usual sun-and-fun holiday in mind. For the last week, the 36-year-old legal secretary has been sleeping in a $59-a-night motel by Interstate 95. She spends as long as 12 hours a day in a windowless building a half-hour’s drive from the Atlantic Ocean, making use of those 15-pound balls.
Between last month and June, more than 42,000 women like Jeziorski from throughout the United States and as far away as Japan are expected in Sunrise and nearby Tamarac. For a time, the palm-fringed bedroom suburbs of Fort Lauderdale will becomes hotbeds of women’s bowling.
Organizers call the bowling tournament, held annually in different U.S. cities since 1916, the world’s largest participatory sports event for women. For enthusiasts, it’s more than a game--it’s a chummy reunion of a large, mostly invisible nationwide sorority.
“You see people again that you only see once a year,” explained Connie Cotton, 62, of Dallas. “But you’re still friends. It’s watching great bowling. It’s also watching great struggling.”
This year, she was among the strugglers. Accompanied by fellow Texan Sammie Pope, 70, Cotton had repaired to a cocktail lounge to drink vodka tonics after being eliminated from the contest’s most prestigious event, the Queens Tournament, whose winner gets a tiara. Between them, the two Texans could claim 63 years of participation in the Women’s International Bowling Congress’ annual gathering.
“I love bowling,” said Pope, who has owned a five-lane alley in Wichita Falls for 27 years. “The day I don’t enjoy it any longer is the day I’ll quit.”
A $60-Million Prize for Local Economy
Such dedication means a perfect “300 game” for this area’s economy, said Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. By the time WIBC play ends June 27, Grossman figures, participants and the husbands, children and friends they bring along will have spent approximately $60 million in the area.
The WIBC, which claims nearly 1.5 million members, offers its own statistics. It estimates that when the tournament is over, the women competing at Sawgrass Lanes here and Don Carter Lanes in Tamarac will have rolled more than 430,000 games.
The combined tonnage of the balls the bowlers will have carried to Florida, an average of two per competitor, will weigh well more than a fully loaded 747.
‘I Saw the Ocean; It’s Pretty’
On average, tournament participants have been coming to Florida for three to five days, then returning home. In their off hours, at least some of them have been visiting the casinos on a nearby Seminole Indian reservation, betting on the greyhounds at area dog tracks, dining out and shopping.
Even Jeziorski, who has a 205-220 average and bowls every day in Buffalo, yielded to Florida’s charms and squeezed in a four-hour visit to the beach. She drank a 151-proof “high-octane” rum cocktail, and got her toes wet in the surf.
“I saw the ocean; it’s pretty,” Jeziorski said. “I picked up three seashells.” Then it was time for more bowling.
The sports extravaganza may be the biggest thing ever to happen in Sunrise. Little more than a decade ago, the land where the 64 alleys of Sawgrass Lanes are now located was still swampy alligator habitat on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
But rapid growth inland along Florida’s eastern seaboard has boosted Sunrise to the rank of the state’s 20th largest city. According to spokeswoman Kathleen Castro, the city has had the area’s largest job creation rate two years running.
To welcome the bowlers, the mayors of Sunrise and Tamarac turned out for the opening ceremony April 17. A Seminole offered a ceremonial peace pipe to WIBC President Joyce Deitch. Team, doubles and singles competition began. Vicki Gardner, 26, of Mesa, Ariz., daughter of a female pro bowler, rolled the first flawless 300 game.
Organizers don’t want too many perfect games, confided Jim Diersing, proprietor and general manager of Sawgrass Lanes. Under the WIBC’s guidance, he said, his maple and pine alleys have been oiled to make them more treacherous than usual. Now, balls rolled on the outside of the lane will have a tougher time finding the center “groove” needed for a strike.
Sport Creeping Toward Upscale
For many, the words “woman bowler” might conjure up the likes of Alice Kramden. But the WIBC reports that a recent study found its members to have a median age of 34 and a household income of $41,000, and were as likely as not to have a college degree.
The anecdotal evidence from Sunrise is that they know how to enjoy themselves when the game is over. Not far from Sawgrass Lanes is Sawgrass Mills, a mega-mall of more than 400 stores that touts itself as Florida’s largest. At the Hard Rock Cafe, business is up. “Women bowlers just want to have fun,” manager Scott Jacobs says.
Last year, the WIBC tournament was in Reno, where it takes place every third year in a stadium specially designed for bowling. In 2002, participants will head to Milwaukee.
“These woman have a lot in common--10 pins and a bowling ball,” said Sharon Bergman, 75, a retired WIBC employee from Montana who runs the tournament press office as a volunteer. “That’s enough to take you all over the world.”