It was a simply worded press release several weeks ago. Steve Sanders would not be buying the ailing PWBA. The purchase was contingent on negotiating a TV show package with ESPN. When that fell through, Sanders had to bow out. So now what happens? Perhaps another group will step forward, but as of this edition hits the presses, no new offers are on the table. So now what happens to the PWBA? Your guess is as good as mine.

     Well, well, well. Could we have the second Will County resident as PBA Player of the Year? That possibility came to life as Steve Jaros won the PBA Uniroyal Tire Open in Indianapolis, his tour-leading third title of the season. Going into the PBA World Championship March 15-21, he jumped to the lead of contenders, putting him with Walter Ray Williams, Jr. Pete Weber, and Mika Koivuniemi. Making the TV show would make it the closest P-O-Y race in recent memory. Winning the World Championship would clinch it and could set off a parade from Bolingbrook all the way to J and J Bowling Supply in Wheaton. Next month, we'll have a bird's eye view on that plus the tension on who will and will not make the all-exempt tour next season.

     It started out simply as a quest for knowledge. It really isn't a secret interview, but a verbal photograph at a turning point from one touring players' life. Now twenty years later, a long lost interview has been found and digitally restored to its original form. Just one week after his first PBA Tournament of Champions appearance, South St. Paul, Minnesota resident Charlie Tapp was at the St. Cloud State student union as part of a Big Brothers/Big Sisters with fellow touring pro Joe Hutchinson. Tapp was the only touring pro from Minnesota at the time and had made the step into the champions circle. The student-run television station wanted me to produce a 90 second piece for the its half hour newscast, and later a 3 minute piece for the sports feature show. This would be a slam dunk interview and show the audience and my fellow broadcast students I was just not just the smart-ass weather guy on our tri-weekly half-hour newscast. Thirty two-year -old Charlie Tapp was one of the few PBA bowlers at the time not afraid to speak his mind and knew he would not be shy about voicing opinions on tour life, oil patterns, and life after the tour, even to a college TV reporter. Keep in mind talking about oil patterns at that time was pretty much forbidden, so the comments were a bit surprising. What follows is the transcript from this interview done May 5, 1984.
MARK LONDON: Just two weeks ago, Tapp was in the Professional Bowlers Association's biggest tournament, the Firestone Tournament of Champions. He didn't do as well as he would have liked, but just being there was fun.
CHARLIE TAPP: I finished 40th. The whole week wasn't exactly what I had expected. The treatment that we got by the people from Firestone and the people in Akron at the hotels and the restaurants and everything was terrific.
LONDON: However, Tapp would like a return trip to the Firestone.
TAPP: Yeah, I'd like another crack at it. The first time was kind of disappointing because both my wife and I got sick and, you know, I kind of got caught up in the hoopla of the whole thing, being there the first time, and it's the type of condition where I should do well and I should've done a lot better than I did. But yeah, so I would like another crack at it.
LONDON: Lane conditions on the PBA Tour are saying a lot for who was bowling well, and Charlie explains why he cannot do well every week.
TAPP: I could do it with the help of the lanes, and that's not only my position, but about 70 or 80 other guys. If the condition isn't there, it's pretty hard to play your own style of game. You're playing everybody else's game. Now I can't bowl the way Marshall Holman or Mark Roth bowls, and I can't bowl the way that Ernie Schlegel bowls, so if it's not there for me, it's just that much tougher. So, if I'm lucky enough to, say, grind out a paycheck or finish low in the finals, that's really kind of a bonus.
LONDON: Life on the Tour does not, or cannot, last forever.
TAPP: Well, right now I have nothing definite set up. However, I'm hoping it's only going to last maybe two more years. I'm not going to get stuck being 40 years old with no money and no idea of what the hell I'm doing like some others have. I've been in contact with NBC, I've sent them tapes of some of the things that I've done. I've got some friends that work at radio stations and television stations that have pretty good influence. I'm hoping to get into that area, but right now I'm still pretty much concentrating on what's going on the Tour, but I'm definitely looking ahead to what's going to happen two years from now.
LONDON: Charlie Tapp is one of the few Minnesotans who's seen the Professional Bowlers Association Tour close-up and firsthand and like most other members in their 30s and 40s, he knows that the life of a professional bowler will not last forever. This is Mark London reporting for UTVS Sports Magazine.

     Tapp bowled in several more T of C's after the '84 version until the early 90's and transitioned to the PBA Senior Tour in 2001. He did start a broadcasting career at KSTP-AM in St. Paul, co-hosting a call in sports show in the late 80's with boxer Scott LeDoux, Minnesota North Star hockey player Jack Carlson, and a pro wrestler named Jesse "The Body" Ventura. He later moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1991 to open a pro shop.

     I spent about an hour chatting with Tapp that afternoon and wondered why more Minnesotans didn't try this. There are decent players up there, but they were more inclined to try other avenues. A few of the guys I bowled against in college won an ABC titles and bowled for our country as Team USA members. Two teammates of mine did bowl the national tour for awhile and even won regional titles, but that was it. If time avails this summer, I will ask Tapp to watch and respond to the interview. That may be a bit more interesting than the original.

     Sorry about delaying the top ten of the Top 25 TV Moments list, If Jaros does win the World Championship, we may have a new item to count. So stay tuned.