Excuses, excuses, and more excuses. America doesn't care about pool anymore? Participation costs are too high? Yes, we care as much as we ever did and, to the credit of pool room owners, nearly all of them help promising young players by giving them either free or cheap table time. The fact is that there is and always has been a sizable contingent of very promising young players in the United States and the question we should be asking is why so few of them are blossoming into great world class players.
The question we need to ask is "why are Europe's most promising young players achieving so much more than their American counterparts?" Even if we ignore 25-and-under Europeans that have already won something big (such as a) Moritz Neuhausen, who won the PLP and the Peri, b) Mickey Krause, who won the European Open, c) Jonas Souto, who won in both Seattle and Helsinki this year, and d) Kledio Kaci, winner of this year's Bucharest Open), there is another group of young Europeans already wowing us in Szymon Kural, Yannick Pongers, Mika Van Berkel, and Felix Vogel. Why are so few of the under-25 American players wowing us?
Why is America failing to develop its most promising players? Once we answer that question, we'll have a sense of what to do about it.
