OK Dick, here's a Jack Cooney story for you:
In the spring of 1967, I was in Florida with a buddy of mine and ran into Jack at the Congress Bowl (Bowling & Billiards) in Miami Beach. I didn't know him at the time but he was playing 9 ball with several different guys (one at a time) from Jacksonville, I believe) who looked to be pretty decent players. Jack was well dressed but he had a towel hanging out about two feet from his back pants pocket and was carrying his cue (he was using a house cue at the time) around on his shoulder, like a soldier with a rifle. He was playing with a flat hand bridge and I was wondering how long it would take the others to knock him out. He rarely ran over two or three balls at a time and didn't seem to have a particularly good stroke.
At any rate, my buddy, Tom, goes to the bathroom at about the same time Jack did and when he comes back he tells me he put up all our money and we had half of Jack's action (he was low on cash at the time) in a set against one of the three guys. I was stunned. I asked him why he would bet all our money on a guy who could barely make a ball. Tom, who did have good instincts, told me that he was sure he had seen Jack somewhere before and that he just knew that he was a better player than he was showing. I said I hope you are right or else we will be walking back home to North Carolina. Now, with a critical interest in the outcome, I watched the game much more intently. I began to notice that while Jack never ran over two or three balls that he almost never missed on either the eight or the nine and he usually didn't leave much of a shot when there were only a few balls on the table.
At any rate, after several sessions lasting all night, Jack finally ended up a couple of thousand dollars ahead. The three guys were broke and just couldn't believe that they had been beaten by this guy. They all had nice cues and played pretty well. And this other guy was playing flat handed with a house cue and carrying it around like a rifle. After they had left, Jack, Tom and I went to get something to eat and split up our winnings. Boy, was I ever relieved. As I recall, Tom and I ended with a little over a thousand as our share, which was decent money back in those days. Jack introduced himself and told us he was from San Francisco. He was driving a beige colored Pontiac LeMans and was by himself. I'm not sure whether he had met Barbara by that time.
The next night we went back to Congress Bowl and saw Jack practicing with his own cue. After watching for only a few minutes, I realized that this guy was a real player. And to think that the night before I was worried about him being able to beat several average players. At about that time the guys that he had beaten the night before walked in. The look on their faces was priceless when they realized that they had unknowingly taken on a guy who was way better than any of them. At least they didn't say or do anything. Shortly thereafter, they left and never came back.
Anyway, that was almost 40 years ago and Jack may not remember it, but it was certainly a pleasure meeting him under those particular circumstances. He was very nice about everything and even offered us a little more than half his winnings, saying that he really appreciated us backing him when we didn't really know him. We declined and he cheerfully paid the breakfast tab for the three of us.
I hope things are currently going well for him. He was a really nice friendly guy, as well as a hell of a good player.
