Pro bowler Kim Adler. (Photo courtesy kimadler.com) | ZOOM |

        There is a word missing from Kim Adler's vocabulary — conventional.

        But that's OK. She likes it that way. Revels in it, in fact. If there is a way people do things, she'll find another.

        There is the mainstream, and then there is the tributary that is Kim Adler.

        She'll get the same results as you, probably even better, but she'll just invent her own way of arriving there.

        “I guess I'm just a unique person. I go about things differently,” she said Monday morning, before heading off to the gym for a rigorous workout, and then an afternoon of biking and hiking in the mountains in Colorado.

        It's part of the Cocoa, Fla., resident's eight-hour-a-day cross-training routine to prepare her for the upcoming Professional Women's Bowling Association Tour.

        Cross-training? For bowling?

        Different, you see.

        If you close your eyes and conjure up in you head an image of a professional women's bowler, you run the risk invoking a nightmare.

        But if you open your eyes and go to www.kimadler.com and check out some of the pictures there, you will know that things have changed.

        Or maybe it's just that Kim Adler is changing things.

        So now the woman who prepares for bowling by snowboarding, scuba diving, hiking, biking and lifting weights — the same women who met her husband after answering a personal ad in Florida Today and then marrying him three months after their first date — is at it again.

        She is selling ad space on her bowling skirt, an eight-inch swatch of prime real estate. This, in and of itself, is no big deal. Pro bowlers sell ad space on their attire all the time. But what's different is that Kim Adler is courting potential suitors on eBay, the popular Internet auction site.

        Minimum bid is $4,000. Current bid is at $5,500. Bidding ends Aug. 31. The reserve is not yet met.

        And what is the reserve, that secret predetermined price required to consummate a deal?

        “I'm not saying,” Adler intoned with a giggle. “But trust me, it'll be met.”

        Traditionally, a bowler goes through an agent to handle such business matters. But, as you may have already guessed, Kim Adler is not very traditional.

        Cutting out the middleman agent, and the commission that goes with it, hasn't been popular.

        “With some of the e-mails I've gotten, and some canceled interviews, I've put two and two together and figured out that some people aren't happy about this,” she said.

        But it is generating publicity. Adler has done more than 50 radio, TV and newspaper interviews since the story of her eBay sales pitch recently broke. Last week, USA TODAY mentioned her in a blurb on the front page of its sports section.

        Adler figures the bidding will heat up during the final hours. It always does on eBay. Plus, it's not like Adler is some slouch on the women's bowling tour. She was Rookie of the Year in 1991 and has earned more than a half million on the tour since. She's been ranked in the top five 10 consecutive years and was ranked No. 1 for the 1993 season and also was No. 1 earlier this year.

        “It's been time-consuming keeping up with this,” she said. “But it's been fun. I like that I have control over what's going on.”

        You can follow the action on your own computer by logging onto eBay (www.ebay.com) and searching item 1853375314.

        Kim Adler has been watching, waiting, seeing what will unfold as she once again travels down an unmarked path.

        “With eBay, things always get pretty crazy in the last hour,” she said.

        It is important to note that, so far, those bidding for ad space on Adler's skirt have not been from your traditional bowling industry sources. They've come from outside the loop — most notably Aaron Rents Furniture, which has been a consistent bidder.

        Nobody had ever gotten a sponsor from outside the bowling industry until one woman broke ranks five years ago and got a computer company to advertise on her attire.

        Who might've that been?

        You guessed it.

        Kim Adler.

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