Vernon Elliot

I was in Portsmouth Ohio with Burnie, he had been up there with another short stop from Chattanooga Named David Henry, both players were really good. Vernon was the true hustler. I the way both players play. I never saw any action there. Just watch and bought a 600 dollar car.

Wade Crane once told me Vernon was one of the top five bank players in the country.

I will share a couple of local stories about Vernon that were told to me.

A local pool room owner ran out the door on a long game on another pool room owner while he was in the bath room. So the room owner that got stiffed sent Vernon up to the other pool room owner's room to win his money back. I talked to the room owner Vernon played right after they played. And he just went on and on about how "lucky that old man was". He did not know who Vernon was and he said the man just slammed balls around and did not play shape and slopped balls over and over and when he missed he hooked him. I asked him and his brother in law who had witnessed the game if it was possible they got hustled. They both said no way and insisted the guy couldn't play shape and missed a lot and just got lucky over and over. Some months later the stiffed pool room owner told me that he had sent Vernon up there. He must have been a good hustler to beat a really strong B plus player on his own table and convince him that he was just really lucky.

In Vernon's last years he would come down to Kennesaw Billiards and just sit around talking to the older players. One day a C player was talking about how much weight in One Pocket he would give another C player. So Vernon asked him how much weight he would give him. So the C player looks over at this old man offers Vernon 9 to 7 in One Pocket. Vernon accepts and after they start playing someone feels sorry for the C player and goes and tells him who he is playing. He pulled up pretty fast to say the least. Even at his old age he could have given the C player a lot of weight yet he would accept the weight if the C player would give it. That C player will bet a lot and Vernon would have probably kept adjusting the weight and won a lot of money if they had not told who he was.

Hey is nick vida still in Chattanooga? Used to run the same rooms with him in Memphis... Brenner