Tenpin Slants By: Joe Lyou

I can’t tell you how delighted I was when I learned that Constantino (Connie) Marchione had been elected to the USBC Hall of Fame for merito- rious service. Marchione, an energetic octogenarian (he’s 83), is a longtime resident of San Fernando Valley’s Panorama City. The USBC press release stated that renowned coach Gordon Vadakin of Wichita, Kan., also was voted into the USBC Hall of Fame. Vadakin and Marchione will be inducted on March 30 during the 2007 USBC Convention in Nashville, Tenn., along with those yet to be named in the superior per- formance category via a national ballot. Marchione richly deserves “’s highest honor. In addition to being a perfect gentleman, humanitarian and all-round nice guy, Marchione has done more to promote deaf bowlers than anyone. He started the Pacific Coast Deaf Bowlers newsletter in 1962, was co- creator of the Deaf Bowler magazine—the official publication of the National Masters and the National Deaf Masters. Deaf Bowlers Assn.—and wrote a newspaper column that still appears In addition, Marchione created the PCDBA All-Star Team and Bowler of weekly in the California Bowling News. the Year awards. In 1986, he became the first chairman of the NDBA Hall Back in the ‘70s, Marchione became a member of the Southern California of Fame—which he started. Bowling Writers Assn., and I don’t recall him ever missing a meeting or the Is there any question that Connie Marchione belongs in the USBC Hall of annual SoCal All-Star Awards Banquet. Fame? I thought not. Some years later Marchione was elected to the SoCal Hall of Fame. Eventually, a new award was named in his honor, the annual Con- * * * nie Marchione Deaf Bowler of the Year Award. In 1980, Marchione organized the SoCal Deaf Bowlers Travel League The 2006-2007 Denny’s PBA Tour got off to a rip-roaring start when and, for 47 years, he has been its only secretary-treasurer. The following Doug Kent captured the recent USBC Masters, which was televised live by year, he formed the Pacific Coast Deaf Masters. ESPN from the Wisconsin Exposition Center in West Allis. He also has served as tournament director or advisor for such events as It was a good show, but… the Pacific Coast Deaf Singles Championships, the World DBA Champion- The guys in the announcers’ booth never did mention how the ladies ships, International Deaf Invitational Championships, PCDBA Senior fared in the first “major” of the new season, which attracted 498 entries that (Continued next column) included a handful of the fairer sex. Bowling aficionados were especially curious about the performance of , the first woman to earn one of the coveted Tour exemp-

tions. For that, Kulick had gotten tons of advance publicity. After digging around, Tenpin Slants learned that three women—Kulick, Carolyn Dorin-Ballard and —had survived the USBC Masters' 15-game qualifying round and made it into the match-play segment. All three ladies won their first matches. Kulick then lost her next two and was eliminated. Kulick’s first loss was to Doug Kent, 739-614, and in the doublel-elimination, was gone when she was beaten by Mark Clark, 635- 596. Kulick received $1,300. Both Dorin-Ballard and Johnson were eliminated in the fourth round of the losers’ bracket. Pete Weber ousted Dorin-Ballard, 669-629, while Mike Rose Jr., an amateur from Rochester, N.Y., defeated Johnson, 651-630. Dorin-Ballard and Johnson got $1,800 each. By the time the Tour's fourth tournament rolled around, the announcers finally got it right. In the PBA Empire State Classic at AMF Thruway Lanes in Cheektowaga, N.Y., Liz Johnson advanced all the way to Friday night’s semifinal round. With a TV berth riding on the outcome, Pete Weber— there’s that guy again—defeated Johnson, four games to one. Weber, of course, went on to win the tournament, his 33rd career win. Liz Johnson, who lives in Cheektowaga, had a ringside seat for the TV fi- nals and was featured in several close-up camera shots. Even a film clip of the Weber-Johnson match was shown during the TV finals. Kudos to the brass at ESPN for a well-done show. Hopefully, they will continue to let the TV audience know how the ladies are doing

20 www.bowlingworld.com – DECEMBER 2006