Bowling figure Daubney dies
Longtime proprietor, retailer was also skilled on the lanes
Bob Daubney, who owned a bowling and recreation equipment business in the Capital Region for 63 years, died Saturday morning at Samaritan Hospital in Troy. He was 86.
“Bob Daubney’s Bowling and Billiards” at 385 Troy- Schenectady Road in Latham, adjacent to the Spare Time-latham bowling center, sold its final inventory Saturday afternoon. That was the last of five locations for Daubney’s business.
“He woke up every day just to go to that store,” Spare TimeLatham general manager Carol Judge said.
Daubney, who owned the Bowlers Club in Latham in the early 1980s, had been hospitalized since suffering a stroke Oct. 28. Still active as a bowler and businessman, Daubney bowled five games at Spare Time the night before his stroke, according to Judge.
A 1954 graduate of La Salle Institute in Troy, Daubney started out as a lane-maintenance man in Albany and was hired two years later as a field supervisor for AMF, his brother Carl said. Daubney introduced his first store in 1959 at 135
Pearl St., selling balls, bags, shoes, and trophies, and in 1961 opened a billiard store on Broadway Street in Albany.
The construction of Interstate 787 caused him in 1968 to move the stores to 4 Fuller Road in Colonie. Daubney’s went to 601 Loudon Road in Latham in 1986 and relocated to its present spot around 2010. At one time Daubney estimated he had drilled more than 200,000 bowling balls.
“One thing about Bob,” said Carl Daubney, one of four siblings, “he never gave up on bowling. He was always thinking down the road that it will come back, it will be strong again.”
Daubney was the oldest of
five children. His youngest brother, Bill, died in January.
His brothers John and Carl and a sister, Linda, survive.
He never married but cared for a foster daughter, Virginia, and her children.
“He took in Virginia at a very young age and always said it was his granddaughter,” Judge said. “He lived for those kids. That was his whole life. He was a very simple person.”
A member of the Albany Bowling Association Hall of Fame, Daubney rolled seven 300 games. In 1974 at Redwood Lanes in Colonie, he produced an 823 series, believed to be a national record at the time.
Judge was Daubney’s general manager at Bowlers Club for five years and took ownership of the 50-lane building in 1986.
The center was closed in 2007.
“He was very giving,” Judge said. “He loved to contribute. He loved to be a part of anything that got ‘Bob Daubney’ out there. He was very much a part of the community. He advertised on every PBA Tour show (at Bowlers Club) on the networks for years. He advertised on our Huck Finn show. Anything that was bowling, he wanted to be a part of.”