Defend Your Taste Dick Norwood of Carillon Lakes’ Wii bowling league

Welcome to Defend Your Taste, wherein Chicago’s cultural curators go to bat for the art they love. With Lebowski Fest coming to a close tomorrow night, The A.V. Club decided to take a look at one of The Dude's favorite hobbies: bowling. Sort of. Filling in for the future of the sport is Dick Norwood, founder of the world's first seniors-only league in Joliet dedicated specifically to the bowling portion of Wii Sports. (It's the first of any league of its kind, according to Nintendo.) The A.V. Club took Norwood to task about his preference for virtual bowling over the real kind.

The A.V. Club: So what got you guys started with bowling on Wii Sports?

Dick Norwood: We went to our local mall and saw the Wii on display. I got really enthralled with it. There’s a restaurant here in Joliet called Giovan’s, it’s an Italian restaurant, and I was down there sitting at the bar having a drink, and after we ate, I was telling [the owner] about it and we got to talking. He said, “Well why don’t you find me one and we’ll put it in here and we’ll start a league?” So anyway, to make a long story short, I invited a bunch of my friends over to my house and they all kind of laughed at me over the phone. They didn’t know anything about the Wii. They came over on a Saturday, and I brought them over at 10 a.m., and they didn’t leave until 2 a.m.

AVC: Do you really feel it’s good exercise, like how it's marketed? To a certain point, it’s the equivalent of standing up and swinging your arm.

DN: Well, but you’ve got to remember—we’ve got people that are 65, 70, 80 years old who don’t really get a chance to do anything. So getting up and taking a few steps and swinging the arm is still better than doing nothing. 

AVC: Is there any lazy bowling, where people just sit down and flick their wrist instead of standing and swinging their arm? 

DN: Well, we have a couple people signed up who are in wheelchairs. And that’s great, you know, for them to have something to do.

AVC: Do you bowl?

DN: I’m not a bowler. Three of our couples haven’t bowled before. I can’t bowl 70 on an alley.

AVC: Here’s a hypothetical for you. Let’s say there was a league for another game, like a golf game or another game, and they challenged you guys to their game if you would host them for Wii Sports bowling. Would you take the challenge? 

DN: Yup, because we’re competitive. Oh yeah, my guys would do it. A lot of us are business owners, and you can’t run a business without being competitive.

Some of Norwood's competitors in action: