Rocket354 said:

Shane is already losing stamina. He's close to as good as he ever was, but he's not going to get better and age says he will not stay the same. He will regress, just rather slowly compared to athletes in other sports. I'm not sure that point is arguable.

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I don’t know if it’s so much a loss of stamina as it is a loss of desire, he’s not hungry.

What made Shane great was hunger. The guy would be on the practice tables at the US Open at 3 am breaking balls for hours. Known for getting up early, putting in 8-10 hrs. of focused practice day after day. He doesn’t have the best mechanics, tended to hit the ball instead of stroking it early in his career. Yet as a great player once told me, if you’re putting in 8,10,12 hours a day, you can make anything work. Point being, he was hungry, he wanted it more than most, and it led to success.

He’s also unusual as he was smart with his money, invested in a diversified manner and as a result is going to be one of the rare great players that doesn’t die broke. After he got his World Championship finally, I think now, it’s just gravy from here. He’s accomplished amazing feats, the only thing that he truly is hungry for anymore is just 1 more US Open and past that he can just take it easy and do things he wants with the financial security to make that possible.

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Black-Balled said:

Not sure why you continuously trash the usba.

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I've been away from the USBA for many years.
Maybe there's been a change recently but from my experience they place put their money on promoting the top players.
There's no effort money wise or anywise to promote the game.
No youth programs.
No clinics to the pool public.
Nothing outside of funding the costs of sending 2 players to the Worlds and PanAm.

Of course they don't have much money, but how do you get more members if you never try to entice new players to join.

The only reason to join is so you can participate in a Qualifier for the Nationals.

That's their Marketing Plan. Hold a bunch of National Qualifiers in the hope to generate additional income from the Pool Community.
To support Hugo and Pedro or ???

The USBA does very little, like nothing, to bring in new players much less introduce young players to take a look.

I'd say their business plan says nothing about growing the business, if it does somewhere, they don't know how to execute that plan.

There's a few reasons for billiardshot's ire toward the Organization.