This time next month, the 2008 USBC Open Championships will only be a memory. The temporary halls we wandered for 142 consecutive days may have taken two months to put up, but they will have been torn down in about a week. The 60 lanes will have been dismantled and sent on their way to the far corners of the globe. The last of the bowlers will be getting their bowling balls back from Bowling Ball Express. Thousands of bowlers will be online looking for final cash numbers, Super Brackets, Super Side Pots, Century Doubles, etc. Traveling staff members will be spread across America unwinding and waiting for details about their assignments for the 2009 event in Las Vegas.
On a personal level, the last few days of the tournament and the first few days after are spent finalizing everything, but time also is taken to organize supplies and materials for transport, some to the next tournament site, and some to USBC Headquarters. I pack most of my personal work stuff in a two-drawer file cabinet that goes with me every six months, while some things that I need to have on hand just in case, go in my car with me. All furniture, computers and file cabinets get labeled and moved out into crates.
At home, the moving process begins again, too. Right around July 1, our personal crates are brought in from the warehouse, and we start bringing things in. The crates are made of wood and are about nine feet tall and four feet deep. They have been a great convenience in getting our personal belongings from the tournament back to HQ. In my four years doing this, I continue to learn how to pack and travel, and while I don't have a permanent residence anywhere, I've learned to leave the things I don't need this half of the year in storage (mostly bowling balls) in Wisconsin. Once the crates (we each get one) are packed and locked, we don't see them again until we arrive at HQ about two weeks later. It may seem tedious doing this every six months, but we've got it down to a science, and without furniture and excess "stuff," it's gotten easier. This time around will be a little more complicated, however, because I will be headed straight to Arlington for two weeks before heading to the U.S. Women's Open in Chicago and then to Milwaukee for a short while. We haven't heard yet if there will be a truck going to Texas, or if everything is going to Milwaukee first since it will still be a couple of months before departments start moving.
Before leaving town two years ago (after Corpus Christi), I had the pleasure of participating in the teardown process at the Stadium. After writing, posting and sending the final Bowlers Journal and Open Championships releases, I helped post some brackets results on the Web site and then changed out of my suit and tie and into some clothes I didn't mind getting dirty. For two days I helped take down drywall and plywood, knocked down framing, carried endless amounts of materials to the dumpster and packed crates of supplies headed for the next tournament. It's amazing to see this place come together slowly and carefully, but it's something else to see 100 people working together to take it all down in just over a week. Before long, we were peeling the final strips of tape from the convention center floor, and you would've had no idea that there had just been 48 lanes and 60,000 bowlers through there.
I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, though, as we still have 22 days of competition left. And as Wendy Macpherson taught us when she claimed the Regular Singles title on the second to last day of the tournament in 2006, nothing is final until the last ball is thrown. For the record though, even though things will be happening behind the scenes to help us get organized for our departure, the bowlers on the final squad will get the same courtesy and attention that every other bowler received during the tournament. In the venue and on the lanes, no one would be able to guess that we were almost done and gone. Remember, that every day is Opening Day for 96 teams at the Open Championships, even on Day 141.
Just a side note, once the final ball of the 4:40 p.m. doubles and singles squad is thrown, that doesn't mean the competition is over. Sure, by 8 p.m. I will have talked to and congratulated all of the champions, but there's still one title on the line at that point. At 8:30 p.m., more than 100 tournament employees and convention center staff members will take to the lanes for the 51st annual USBC Employee Tournament. Before the teardown begins, we will take a few hours to bowl three games, unwind, say good-bye and battle in out on the tournament lanes for an upside down eagle and bragging rights. Good times.
