The best non-pro player ever?

johnnysd

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In San Diego, I guess back in the late 60s/early 70s was a pool player named Jerry Clark (not his real name) He quit pool and raised a family and came back to it in the late 80s at a pool hall I designed and ran On Cue. He taught pool there for 20 years. He was a great guy. There were a lot of stories (none from Jerry) about how good he was back when he played, And when he was teaching in the 80s he was still a pretty elite shot. I talked to Jay Swanson about him one time and Jay said he was maybe the best player he had ever seen. I doubt anyone else has ever heard of him.

In the apocryphal department another San Diego player Roy the Cook apparently beat Matthews at his peak in like some 25 hour marathon one pocket match, and was definitely at one point a pro level player. He unfortunately got deep into heroin addiction but when I knew him he could still play quite a bit.

My friend and I reference him often. He once made a shot that seemed kinda impossible with the action he got on the cue ball. I asked him how he did it and his answer was " Well I hit the cue ball here and it went over there"
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So... I could have quit my job at General Motors back in the 70's, entered myself into tournaments with the hope of making money to pay my mortgage payments/utilities/food on my family's table, etc.

I would have been a pro???

Yes, I would have sucked at it and not made enough $$$ to pay my debts, but by your definition I WAS doing it as my paid occupation, regardless if I made enough money to survive on, and therefore I would have been a "professional" player.

I have the opinion that there is not a clear definition as to what constitutes a pool player to be labeled a "professional". The gray line is just far to wide.

Maniac
That's exactly what i'm saying. I've known a LOT of really good players that had jobs. I've never considered them to be "pros" when the bulk of their income came from their job. I agree the line is vague but that's my definition of a "professional", one who makes his living from whatever sport/game/skill he so uses.
 

Maniac

2manyQ's
Silver Member
That's exactly what i'm saying. I've known a LOT of really good players that had jobs. I've never considered them to be "pros" when the bulk of their income came from their job. I agree the line is vague but that's my definition of a "professional", one who makes his living from whatever sport/game/skill he so uses.

My name is Tony Metz, and I agree with this post. :thumbup:

Maniac
 

Maniac

2manyQ's
Silver Member
The OP asked for the answer as to "who was the best non-pro player ever?".

I said in post #6 that the list was going to be long and subjective. We're only on page three, but I think my point has been proven to be valid.

And....the list will continue to grow. So evidently, there is no true answer to the OP's question.

Maniac
 

skip100

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In a slightly different formulation, what is the best performance in a large tournament like the World 9 Ball or US Open by a little-known or non-pro player?
 

fastone371

Certifiable
Silver Member
Buttloads of players who are known as "professionals" in the pool circles have daytime jobs.

Maniac

In the racing world you are only considered a professional if you earn your livelihood behind the wheel, if you have a daytime job you are hobbyist.
 

mikemosconi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Mark Tadd comes to mind, but if the player was 35/40 around 1990, the timeline doesn't fit with Tadd, who would have been 25/30 at that time. Tadd was considered one of the very best money players around for a brief period in the mid 1990s, then disappeared from the scene shortly after that.

Thanks- that may be him, hard for me to remember his age, he could have been 25/30. I think he probably did not last long ; so we may in fact have the same guy. He probably looked older anyhow given his lifestyle.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
Thanks- that may be him, hard for me to remember his age, he could have been 25/30. I think he probably did not last long ; so we may in fact have the same guy. He probably looked older anyhow given his lifestyle.

That was Mark Tadd's prime years, the early 90's. He was playing and beating just about everybody......except he wouldn't play Parica. We tried to make that game with him in L.A. and he just shook his head and said No Sir!
 

PRED

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I saw that "farmer guy" one time in Detroit. He beat two or three good players, Pancho among them, and then disappeared. To this day I don't know who he was. He wore overalls like the farmers in the Midwest all wore and had a southern twang to his voice. No one else who was there could tell me his name either. This was 1963 and he looked to be in his 40's. He was maybe six feet tall and had graying hair. I was always curious about him after that and never saw him again. Not in Johnston City and not in Dayton either.

Sounds like a player from the Mid-south - Meathead.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
Sounds like a player from the Mid-south - Meathead.

Maybe so. They just called him The Farmer when I watched him play. He was only there for two days and then disappeared. He probably won a couple of grand in that time, serious money in the early 60's.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
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Maybe the number one choice I could think of as well. Lassiter rated him the best player in the nation at one time. George had a successful career outside of pool so he didn't need to travel around looking for games. He chose not to travel at all, just staying home and waiting for an unsuspecting player to come into his neighborhood.
George Rood gets my vote as well. He told me about a straight pool session he had giving up 50-no-count (no run less than 50 counts for George) going to 100. In the session he ran 100-and-out eleven times. He was also an alternate on the US Olympic swimming/diving team.

He bred and judged show dogs for a living. I saw him in his 80s when he came to DCC and played a few games. Amazingly smooth stroke. And a very nice man.

Here is a "Legends of the Road" article on George by Thomas Shaw from Pool & Billiard Magazine, copied with permission:

http://www.sfbilliards.com/George_Rood_LotR.pdf
 

briankenobi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
It has been said that a number of pro players have "day jobs" as well, therefore changing one's definition. I look at it this way. Someone like Mike Dechaine, who has a full time job, plays at a pro level. I mainly look at the level of play vs where they get their income.
 

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just a diversion from everything, but thought it would be interesting to bring up.

Maybe it doesn't really mean much in the long run, but I've always thought it was an interesting question, especially for those who have been in the pool game for a long time.

I have for years heard that the best player ever was Don Willis, as far as someone that was great and never went professional. Is this true? Do you know or have heard or personally knew amazing players that could have gone pro or in general were just great and never made a name for themselves in the mainstream?
Jimmy Hodges was a strong southpaw from the Greenville / Spartanburg upstate South Carolina area. In the mid 1970s he had made enough $ traveling around poolrooms in NC, that he was able to fund the opening of his poolroom back in SC. I'm not aware if he played in many pro tournaments over the years, as I believe he mainly focused on operating his various relatively successful poolrooms he's owned since then.
 

sjm

Older and Wiser
Silver Member
Wow, what a thread!

What on earth is a pro anyway? If it's someone whose chief source of income is pool, that doesn't cover several of the best pros and gamblers our game has ever seen.

For example, Hall of Famer Joe Balsis surely made his primary living from the meat business, in which he worked full time for several decades. Largely absent from the tournament scene before he turned 40, Joe played in the top tournaments in pool in his 40's and 50's. He wasn't an action player, for the most part, so his only earnings from pool came from tournament play.

What's a pro? Darned if I know.
 

Maniac

2manyQ's
Silver Member
Someone like Mike Dechaine, who has a full time job, plays at a pro level. I mainly look at the level of play vs where they get their income.

Where do you draw the line as a definition of "level of play"? Who do you compare to whom?

Is Fargo rate the best way to make this definition? What I'm getting at is, what is going to be the difference between the last player on the professional list and the first player on the non-professional list?

Like myself and a few others on this thread have said....there's just not a definition of a "pro pool player".

Maniac
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Where do you draw the line as a definition of "level of play"? Who do you compare to whom?

Is Fargo rate the best way to make this definition? What I'm getting at is, what is going to be the difference between the last player on the professional list and the first player on the non-professional list?

Like myself and a few others on this thread have said....there's just not a definition of a "pro pool player".

Maniac
What blurs the line even more is that various places/areas have rating systems with "pro" being the top even though its purely based on skill level. Been to plenty of events where someone is tagged as "pro" even though pool is not their main income but more of a hobby that makes extra $$.
 

rhinobywilhite

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
No one mentioned Bob or Tom Vanover.

Never saw Tom play but many have commented on other threads about his abilities.

Bob, on the other hand, I was able to see play a number of times.

He had a regular job but beat a number of champions on a pool table.

He is the record holder for number of wins of the Texas 9 Ball Championship.
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
No one mentioned Bob or Tom Vanover.

Never saw Tom play but many have commented on other threads about his abilities.

Bob, on the other hand, I was able to see play a number of times.

He had a regular job but beat a number of champions on a pool table.

He is the record holder for number of wins of the Texas 9 Ball Championship.
Good call. Bob would be way up on the non-pro list. Had a regular day gig and played jam up against a bunch of 'em.
 

briankenobi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Where do you draw the line as a definition of "level of play"? Who do you compare to whom?

Is Fargo rate the best way to make this definition? What I'm getting at is, what is going to be the difference between the last player on the professional list and the first player on the non-professional list?

Like myself and a few others on this thread have said....there's just not a definition of a "pro pool player".

Maniac

I guess for me it's the "eye test." Look at who is winning the events and finishing well in those events. Someone mentioned Brian Parks in this thread. Good example. Can play well against league players but doesn't do well in big open tournaments when going up against the likes of Woodward, or Thorpe or anyone like that. I don't know if I would look at fargo as the only system but it helps. But that is just the way I look at it. Someone else's view may differ.
 
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