MMSTL - The League Secretary Job
OVERVIEW
After the 1990-1991 season, the secretary of the league at that time, Ken Crist and his wife, were going to be relocating to Florida, and so the league was in search of a replacement for that 'league officer' slot, which was a combination of "Secretary" and "Treasurer". Anthony Anastasi, who was an active bowler in the MMSTL and other leagues at that time, knew that I had written a computer program for league secretarial work, and so he suggested to his father (and the president of the MMSTL), Tony Anastasi Sr., that I might be interested in taking over the job for the Travel League. I don't recall the exact details, but it may have been a case of myself being asked to substitute on their team for a week or two in the league, so that I could get introduced and acquainted a little bit with the way the league operated.
As the new "secretary-treasurer" taking over the position for the 1991-1992 season, I didn't accept the job for money or accolades. It was more a case of the bowlers needing someone to fill the void -- and the fact that nobody else wanted the job. I was also very much into desktop publishing at the time, and this looked like a good opportunity for combining computer programming with publishing to produce the weekly sheet. Tony Anastasi Sr gave me 'free reign', in regard to organizing the weekly sheet.
Although the duties of being the secretary for the MMSTL were explained to me ahead of time, I didn't experience the overwhelming impact of the weekly grind until actually undertaking the 'traveling' part of the role -- it wasn't just a traveling league for the bowlers, but also for the league secretary/treasurer. I found out real soon that it was going to be a more of a challenge than first anticipated.
The Mens Maryland Suburban Traveling League was a most unique league. It was very competitive, but also had a refreshingly laid-back, friendly atmosphere. Two of the top players in the area at the time who were in my circle of friends, Wes O'Donnell and Anthony Anastasi, were members and always spoke highly of the league. But there were also a lot of other really superior players in the MMSTL that I didn't know, and it was a thrill for me to witness this talent. It was professionally run by president Tony Anastasi, Sr. and Ken Crist as secretary, who was traditionally accompanied by his wife who helped him with the duties of "secretary-treasurer" (after I took over the job, I discovered the benefit of having two people to split some of the work).
The topics shown below were some of the key parts of the MMSTL Secretary-Treasurer job:
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SUMMER RECRUITMENT
When I took over the league, I was expecting the customary 40 teams, but when the season started, the league only had 32 teams of 5. Halfway into the 1991-1992 season, one team dropped out, so we had 31 teams for the remainder of the league duration. The drop-off in team participation can be attributed to a number of reasons. Of minor note, there were a couple of natural developments that occurs with any league, especially in the 1990s. First, there was the changeover from the previous secretary to myself which traditionally can be a downer for long-standing members of a successful league. Secondly, there was a general decline in the bowling population from the 1980s to the 1990s (see reference chart here for GWDA bowling center closings).
Although the 2 circumstances mentioned above were a part of the landscape for the MMSTL -- and bowling in general -- at that time, I have to take most of the blame for the decline in team membership in the 1991-1992 season. This was one of my shortcomings as the new secretary. Ideally, an effective league secretary is outgoing and bold when approaching strangers to become members of a bowling league. Unfortunately, in that transition year from the old secretary to the new one, I waited until the summer was about half over before making the calls to the captains to remind/alert them of the date of our summer meeting. While I don't remember the exact count, there were team captains that indicated that their teams weren't returning to bowl. Others didn't discover until closer to the league starting date, that they wouldn't be able to fill their rosters. As a result, the league membership dwindled by 20% by the league start date. Reflecting back on the situation, I should have made an appearance on Payoff Night in the 1990-1991 season to give the bowlers, and myself, an early opportunity to get to know each other. That probably would have smoothed the changeover to the new secretary a little bit better.
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LEARNING THE CONGRESS RULES AND THE LEAGUE BY-LAWS
Fortunately, I was pretty well-acquainted with the rule book for the National Duckpin Bowling Congress, but the MMSTL had a lengthy set of 42 league by-laws that I had to also learn, of which I was provided by my predecessor, Ken Crist, along with other documentation that he passed along. Most of the by-laws were 'common sense' items, but there were several rules that applied to special situations to keep the league stable, such as "a bowler of known ability", which was a system put in place to compromise the use of 'ringers' in the league.
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CREATING THE WEEKLY SHEET
Probably the most important part of a league, aside from the bowlers themselves, is the weekly standings sheet. This is the reference document for the bowlers in regard to where their team stands, tracking individual averages, and a schedule for the upcoming week. As mentioned in a prior link, one of the improvements that I hoped to offer the league was a weekly sheet that was easier on the eyes of bowlers who were either entering, or were already at the stage of needing reading glasses.
One of the great assists that I received toward performing the league secretary job was on opening night of the 1991-1992 season, when one of the MMSTL bowlers, Steve Yarmola, knew I would need help and he offered to produce copies of the weekly sheet at his worksite. All I needed to do was to drop off the master sheet to his home early in the week, and he would subsequently have time to make the copies and have them ready for me to pick up at his house, sometime between Tuesday and Thursday of that same week. I mentioned to Steve an idea of folding the sheet into more of a newsletter, rather than a flat copy, and he replied, "No problem". I don't remember if his copy machines actually did the folding in the first few years, for the legal-sized (8-1/2" x 14") sheet of paper, but I do know that when the league migrated to a booklet format, with several sheets of letter-sized (8-1/2" x 11")paper composing the book, Steve's mother and father, Gloria and Steve Sr, would help me out tremendously by folding the sheets into booklets before I arrived to pick up the copies later in the week. All I'd need to do at that point was to add my cover sheet, and then staple the spines of the booklets. So, the Yarmola family played a huge role in getting the weekly hardcopies out to the bowlers.
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SELLING 50-50 TICKETS
The selling of the 50-50 raffle tickets was by far the most grueling part of the secretary job, at least for the 1991-1992 season. After recently having a chance to review some old MMSTL sheets, it seems evident that when the prior secretaries (David Ross, Tony Hughes, and Ken Crist) included their wives when performing the job, it was likely that the help received was due to the 50-50 sales. The MMSTL had a system in place in which the 50-50 tickets were partly a raffle, and partly a type of 'stock investment' system. The way it traditionally worked was that raffle tickets were sold in all 3 houses by the secretary on a given night. Because the league bowled at 3 different centers, the drawing for that week would NOT be done on that same night at the bowling alleys. The secretary would gather all tickets sold and the associated money, and then, at home, he would draw a series of winning raffle tickets, with $50.00 going to each winner. The total money collected from the sales usually yielded 4 to 5 winners per week. These winning raffle numbers would be printed on the weekly standings sheet for the following week, so the bowlers would have to hold onto their tickets for a week, and then present the winning stub to the secretary on that following week to get paid. (Obviously, to insure an honest raffle, I never bought tickets for myself under this setup of drawing numbers at home.)
But not all of the money collected went back to the weekly jackpots. Part of the money, somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.00 per week, would go into a separate 50-50 prize fund to be paid back to the bowlers at the end of the season on Payoff Night, based on the number of tickets the each bowler bought throughout the bowling year. So, the secretary would have to keep track, generally, of how much each person bought each week. For the most part though, people always bought the same amount, that is to say, some bowlers would typically buy only $1.00 per week, others would consistently buy $2.00, and some would buy $5.00 per week. Those who bought $1.00 a week would be entiled to 1 share of the end-of-year 50-50 prize fund. The $2.00 buyers would get 2 shares, and so on -- so the 50-50 system was kind of like a mini Wall Street type of deal. It was actually a popular way of handling that part of the league prize fund.
In relation to the general selling of tickets, there were 2 things to remember: 1)You also had to have change available before starting, in case the first buyer, or the first 2 buyers, started with a $20 bill; and 2)You had to approach each person . . . you couldn't just announce that you were there -- people definintely wouldn't want to stand in line to purchase $1.00 or $2.00 in chances.
The thing that made the selling of the 50-50 tickets physically draining was that the selling of the tickets was not limited to the Travel League. Folks in neighboring leagues at the different bowling centers would also buy tickets on a consistent basis, which obligated the seller to visit members of the other leagues adjacent to the MMSTL, and with the Traveling League bowling in 3 centers that ranged from 40 lanes (Prince Georges and College Park) to 48 lanes (Fontana), it made for a very hectic night. I'd often have to answer questions from the MMSTL bowlers about the rules, substitutes' info, etc. while I was selling tickets, so there wasn't much time to chit-chat. From my experience, it often took an hour to sell at Prince Georges, since that was the 2nd stop of the 3 houses that I'd visit each night, and it was usually a very full bowling center by that time during the 7:00 - 8:00 hour. Overall, there was hardly a moment to spare from the beginning of the night at my first stop at Fontana (2 floors in that building), to the final stop at College Park, especially on nights when traffic was slow between the Fontana and Prince Georges commute. There were nights when I arrived at College Park just as some of the teams of the MMSTL were finishing for the night. In this regard, while some bowlers complain of slow bowling nowadays, back then, I was happy with a more modest pace.
When the 1992-1993 season rolled around, we unexpectedly lost a team the night before the league started, which dropped the league from 28 teams to an odd number of 27. Coincidentally, there were 4 available bowlers (a potential 29th team), however, who were without a higher average player to meet the league minimum, and they were going to drop from the league if they couldn't find an anchor bowler. Since I was carrying a decent league average at the time, I proposed the idea of myself bowling with this team to bring the league back up to an even number. The league voted on opening night to allow this, which meant asking some of the teams to assist me with selling the raffle tickets in the bowling establishments where I wasn't bowling.
In all honesty, despite the fact that the 1991-1992 season was an incredible amount of work, I wasn't really in favor of offering to bowl, since I was being paid to do a job. But the 4 bowlers who were in need of a 'fifth' were long-time members of the Travel League (one of them being Elton Wiser, who was in the league its inception back in 1960), and so I felt morally compelled to propose bowling with their team, and then to ask for help with the 50-50, and simply plan on doing more work in other ways to compensate the league. In the long run, it all seemed to work out for the best.
After a year or two of this new system for ticket sales, problems came up with the "stock system" for the 50-50, as I was getting reports from a few of the sellers of the tickets that some of the players in the houses where I wasn't bowling, weren't following through with buying their 'shares', and thus it wasn't fair to pay out full shares to everyone as had been done in the past. So, eventually the league just went to a straight raffle system at each house that paid off each night, with half of the money collected going to the winner, and the other half diverted to the overall league prize fund.
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DEPENDABLE TRANSPORTATION
Having a reliable vehicle that was economical was an essential part of the job, considering that there was a lot of driving to be done during the week to fulfill the duties of the league secretary-treasurer:
- Delivering the master copy of the sheets/booklets by Monday or Tuesday (about 25 minutes each way), was one trip . . .
- . . . followed by a second venture on Thursday to pick up the copies
- Then, delivering the copies to the bowling alleys, whether on Thursday night or Friday afternoon (or both), was another trip in getting the standings sheets to the different bowling centers before the league started.
- Also necessary were the occasional trips to the party store, or Staples, to pick up rolls of raffle tickets for the league (we went through 1-1/2 to 2 rolls a week).
- In the 1991-1992 season, there were the weekly trips from Fontana to Prince Georges to College Park for selling the 50-50 tickets, followed by 'doubling-back' trips at the end of the night from College Park to Prince Georges to Fontana to pick up the league money (for the treasury part of the job) and the team captains' white sheets and the plastic telescores (for the secretarial role), and then finally back home.
So, the 1992-1993 season and the years beyond did eliminate those prime-time trips for selling the raffle tickets, and the 'soon-to-be' reduction in bowling centers from 3 houses to 2 did cut down on the amount of "prior to bowling" driving and "post bowling" trips on the weekly league nights. Of significant aid in this regard, when Anthony Anastasi bowled in a different bowling center than I did, he would often pick up the league sheets and the monies from the one bowling alley, and since I lived near him, I would stop by his house on my way back home to collect everything he brought back, which was a big help for me in those middle to later years of my tenure as secretary.
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FRAME-BY-FRAME INPUTS
During the first 3 bowling seasons in which I was secretary, from an administrative standpoint, the data entry of the scores was typical, with the inputting of each game's score, spares, and strikes for each bowler. Each team captain was responsible for completing the nightly "white sheet" from the supplied team score/record books, but more often than not, when the 2 captains wrote down the spares and strikes that accompanied a bowler's score, these 'marks' did not match between the 2 captains' copies. It was customary to bring home the plastic telescores from each match, and I often would have to refer to the telescores to extract the correct number of spares and strikes, when there was a discrepancy. After a while, this became monotonous, and I decided that since I was a skilled typist, it would be a lot less aggravation, and in some cases it was a time-saver, to simply input the numbers and marks from the frame-by-frame account of the plastic telescores (transparencies), and let the computer program handle tallying the marks. This allowed for tracking the number of "10"s per bowler per game, as well as keeping track of 'lost wood' (any frame that was less than '10'). Then it became obvious that all frames could be tallied, as well as counts on marks, and even other fun stats, like "Number of frames since last double-header".
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INNER LEAGUE EVENTS
As with any bowling league, there are inevitably going to be a few teams that stand out from the rest, leaving the balance of the league in a constant, uphill battle without the manpower to consistently contend for the league championship. The individuals on the teams who aren't members of the 'upper echilon' of the league, need an extra incentive from time to time over the course of weeks to keep their morale at a peak. To bolster interest in the MMSTL, a few ideas were implemented that were directed toward the individuals in the league, as opposed to the teams, to inspire everyone to maintain a focus on bowling. The first such idea that was introduced in that era of the 1990s was an inner-league tournament, known as the Travel League Open. Unlike the strict bowling definition of an 'Open' tournament meaning 'scratch bowling', this contest utilized handicap, and the term 'Open' was literal in that it was to apply to everyone in the league. This MMSTL event was modeled from the U.S. Open tennis tournament, and was a bracket-style, elimination format. (See description of the tournament here)
Since the Travel League Open was something new, the inaugural event was a free entry for everyone, with a modest prize of $50.00 donated for the ultimate winner of the event, and $30.00 going to the runner-up. With everyone getting a free entry, it gave the league a chance to see how the tourney would operate. Steve Yarmola won the first "Open", and the tournament was well-received. After this opener event, a $10.00 entry would be imposed per bowler who wanted to participate in the next tourney, and a prize fund was created for each tournament, based on the number of entries.
The "Open" was a continued success, as the bowlers clamored for more of the same, each time the 6-week inner-league tourney had reached a climax. In all, the league had 4 tournaments in the 1994-1995 season, starting the with "Travel League Open", and ending with "The Revenge of the Son of the Return of the Travel League Open". (See sample bracket here).
The Travel League Open was a catalyst for future inner-league formats, including three other types of tournaments: the Eliminator, the Shooter, and the Big 32). The most popular spin-off event, however, was the Singles League.
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BANKING THE LEAGUE MONEY
During the era of the 1980s and into the 1990s, many bowling leagues were responsible for banking their own prize fund 'monies'. As time progressed, bowling centers would offer to do the banking for leagues, but for the most part, a league entrusted its prize fund to its own league officers. The Mens Maryland Suburban Traveling League combined the job of treasurer with that of secretary, which had its 'up' and 'down' sides as a dual system. But for the most part, it was preferable for me to do the banking myself.
To illustrate how the banking process worked -- acting for the MMSTL, the secretary-treasurer would sign a conract with each bowling center, guaranteeing a certain number of bowlers to pay the bowling establishment a lineage fee (cost for 3 games)each league night for each bowler for a certain amount of weeks. Generally, the independent 'houses', like White Oak Lanes, had a lineage fee that was less than that of a chain establishment, such as the Fair Lanes corporation. For example, I remember that at some point in the early to mid-1990s, Fair Lanes would charge a duckpin league $8.20 per bowler for the cost of league games, while an independent center, such as White Oak Lanes, would charge roughly $7.75 for the same 3 games. In the MMSTL, the secretary-treasurer fee, per bowler, was 55 cents, which for our purposes, we'll consider as part of the league's prize fund. So, for example, if the weekly bowling fee was $16.00 a night per bowler, the portion of this fee for the prize fund at Fair Lanes would be $16.00 minus the $8.20 lineage fee -- thus totaling 7.80 per bowler.
So, in regard to the bowling alley collecting its share of the lineage fees, each team captain would typically collect the weekly fees from their team members, and pay the front desk each week. So, if 12 teams (5 players) bowled at Fair Lanes each week, this would amount to 60 bowlers. 60 bowlers multiplied by $16.00 each, amounts to a total of $960.00 that the league would pay to the bowling alley on a given night (although there was always the issue of some bowlers 'going short' for a week or two (or three) -- and some bowlers paying ahead. At $8.20 per bowler for lineage -- multiply this figure by 60 bowlers ($8.20 x 60), and the Fair Lanes "cut" of the money that the team captains would pay to the control desk was $492.00 each night. A decent number of bowlers often their captains paid with a check each week, and so when the secretary would arrive at the end of the night to collect the league money from the bowling alley, Fair Lanes (and the other centers), after taking its cut of the nightly money, would normally return the checks to the secretary first, and then pad the balance of the league's prize fund with cash. Sometimes, there would be more money in checks paid to the bowling alley than the $492.00 that went to Fair Lanes, and the secretary would then have to pay cash (when possible) to the bowling center to cover the 'overage' in checks.
Once all money was collected from the bowling centers (and any of the 50-50 sales and Singles league fees), I would take the weekly money to the bank on the following Saturday before they closed at noon. In the middle to later years of the MMSTL when I would input the frame-by-frame scores on Friday nights, sometimes doing the banking was a race against time, since I was usually worn out on Friday nights, and it took a decent amount of time to do the treasury work, which included endorsing all the checks and listing the check numbers on the back of the deposit slip, as well as counting out the cash, and then driving to the bank. It was helpful to order a custom rubber stamp for the league, which was a big time saver for endorsing the checks.
On a side note, I remember that at one time, Fair Lanes was charging $8.20 for lineage for its duckpin leagues, while the fee was $10.50 for tenpin leagues. This may have just been one of those short-time differences. However, this may have been the 'norm' at the time. I do recall that duckpin leagues seemed to have better prize funds than when I bowled tenpin leagues in the early to mid 1980s, however. If there was a standard difference between the 2 bowling variations, I can only speculate that the extra fee for tenpins may have been to help pay for automatic scoring.
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SUNDAY MATCHES
Periodically, the league would schedule "Sunday Matches" as a part of the league schedule. This was done for a couple of reasons. With the league customarily bowling 36 or 38 weeks as its full schedule, inserting a couple of Sundays would allow the league to finish in the early part of May. Sometimes, a Sunday match was scheduled on an impromptu basis, to make up for a cancellation of bowling due to bad weather.
The Sunday matches sometimes were spread across the normal 2 to 3 bowling centers, and other times, the entire league would convene at one bowling center, usually at Prince Georges or College Park, since those houses seemed to be preferable for a lot of the bowlers.
Prior to when I was secretary, the league would just use the computed averages from the prior Friday sheet to apply to Sunday's games for handicap purposes. This was the one area that I felt should be corrected by producing a sheet/booklet for Sunday, with updated averages. It was an additional amount of work, not in regard to inputting scores, but rather in getting hardcopies made for the entire league. Since it wasn't possible to have Steve Yarmola make copies for Sunday, I would visit the all-night Kinko's copy center on Saturday night. After a few times doing this, it was more convenient and economical to invest in a laser printer, and just produce these duplicate sheets at home. As the late 1990s came around, and the early 2000s, technology advanced, and I was able to upgrade my equipment to handle the printing, not just for Sundays, but for Fridays, as well.
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GETTING HELP
There were various areas in which I got help from the bowlers in the league in successfully performing the job of secretary. As mentioned earlier, Steve Yarmola aided in a big way with the reproduction of the weekly bowling sheets. Several bowlers helped out with selling 50-50 tickets, which included Anthony Anastasi, my brother Ray, Pete Potts, and a host of others. But there were 2 bowlers who always were able to amass a large 50-50 jackpot with their effective styles of salesmanship, and they were Ed Franco and Steve Yarmola. Sometimes the amount of tickets they would sell was jaw-dropping.
My brother Ray was always available to help me out, especially when it came to getting pictures of the bowlers for the weekly highlights part of the bowling sheet/booklet. Ray was very much up-to-date on the latest software used for capturing video, and then transferring the images into a format that I could use on my end of production.
Also, Tony Anastasi Sr, who was president of the league, was another resource and offered a lot of useful advice from experience with the league. He also had no problem keeping things under control and well-governed during the league nights.
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PAYOFF NIGHT/WEEK
The Mens Maryland Suburban Traveling League always had its 'Payoff Night' the week following the last week of bowling, which made for a busy week. Bowlers were constantly alerted 'not to pay by check' on the last week of bowling because of the time it took for a check to clear. There were always a few, however, who would pay with a check anyway. This didn't cause a big problem, since the final league withdrawal wasn't done at the bank until Wednesday or Thursday of 'Payoff Week'.
Payoff NIght was always a challenge. The league paid off its bowlers in cash, and due to the 'shares' system with the '50-50' part of the prize fund, it was necessary that each bowler received his own, custom envelope, with the correct amount of money for his team prize, any individual awards, and the correct allotment for the 50-50 payback. With this system in place, it made it necessary to calculate ahead of time the number of denominations of currency that the bank needed to supply to the league. And with so much cash (around $50,000.00)for a typical year, the bank insisted on being informed of the currency denominations, a week or two in advance. The president and myself would visit the bank on Wednesday, and watch the bank attendant count out the money in a back room, to be sure we were getting the right amount. After this was done, the money would be brought home. The president sometimes would keep it until Thursday evening, when I'd pick it up and start work on stuffing envelopes. Counting the money was time-consuming, but also writing or printing the information for each bowler on each envelope took a lot of time, as well. Once I took possession of the money, I really couldn't leave it alone at my place, even if I had to run out for a sandwich -- it was like a babysitting job until going to the bowling alley on Friday evening. Most of the time, I took off work on Friday, but there were occasions when I had to go in to my job, and I would leave it in the possession of my boss until I was ready to leave for the day.
Another thing that made Payoff Week a challenge was that trophies and plaques had to be ordered at the Lucian's Awards and Trophies in Hyattsville, Maryland. I had to wait until the last night of bowling was completed before knowing who won the team championship, as well as figuring out the individual awards and the appropriate numbers, such as "John Doe", High Average, 142.23, Maryland Traveling League 1994-1995, or something similar. It usually took a few days to get the order filled, and I would then make a trip over to Hyattsville, Maryland no later than Wednesday of Payoff Week.
When the statistics part of the job expanded with the frame-by-frame inputs, simply providing a basic list of names and numbers (games, pinfall, averages, etc.) didn't seem adequate to me for the Final Standings sheet, so I would produce a 'Year in Review' segment of the final book, which the bowlers seemed to like. This also added to the busy Payoff Week's duties., as it was a part of producing the final sets of booklets, which had to be copied and put together.
In the last 10 years of my tenure, we would run the "Big 32" tournament on Payoff Night, as well. My duties on this were a good means of winding down from the stress of the responsibilities of the week. All I had to do was monitor the matches, and pay off the participants after each round of the tournament. When all was completed, the exhausting week had come to an end, but there was a great feeling of accomplishment that followed that made everything seem all worthwhile.
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SNOW CANCELLATIONS
As with any league, inclement weather can affect the league schedule for the entire season. I was probably more apt to cancel bowling than other leagues, mostly due to the distances that a lot of the bowlers had to travel to the bowling centers, and it was difficult to assess the severity of the road conditions for both counties (Prince Georges and Montgomery). Also of consideration was that it wasn't a major problem to produce a weekly sheet for a make-up match on Sundays, if the need arose.
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THE MMSTL SECRETARY JOB WAS BENEFICIAL ON A PERSONAL LEVEL
One of the benefits of going the extra mile for the league, with the addition of the Internet in 1996, was that it helped me land a job close to home in the Rockville, Maryland area in 2003. As luck would have it, I applied for a Computer Specialist job, and the manager was a bowler himself, albeit a tenpin player. But he was fascinated by the website, and the job interview went exceedingly well.
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