Everyone involved in the recent CSI " incidents" had a choice. All players, and indeed everyone on earth has a choice. Sometimes you might hear the phrase " choose your battles"...
Rodney had a choice, Ralph had a choice, Oscar, Ray, Skylar, Ozzy....they made their choices and they will live with them. So let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.
That being said, if you look at the bigger picture, there is a pattern forming here. And this pattern is something that many of you may not have ever witnessed before in the pool world, which is accountability and consequences for your actions. Consequences that are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but they are consequences all the same.
An entire generation of pool players, and fans, have grown up in a chaotic world, without authority, where anything can and does happen. Players dump, make savers, sandbag, cheat and lie, quit during events, dis the promoter, dis the sponsors, dis the TD, dress like bums, show up late, show up drunk or high, miss matches altogether, throw their equipment and tantrums, backtalk and freely slander each other - including minorities, women and anyone else they hate, beg for free entries and better seeds, even the promoters have gotten in on the action with late and and skipped payouts, manipulating brackets and draws, even harrassing or leveraging players....and ALL THIS is done without anyone ever paying the price for their wrongdoings.
In a professional world, your ass would be on the street at the first sign of impropriety or damaging the company name, image, or pocketbook. In pro sports your ass would get heavily fined, you would miss games, and your wallet, stats, future eligibility and sponsorships would all be at stake.
Jay made mention of some of the hardcore shit that goes on the world of big business every single day, and you know what? He's right. Even the great and powerful Brunswick corporation, who built the tables we have played on endless times, is guilty of blacklisting players, pulling the rug out from under their own family, and even the industry at large, to satisfy their own bottom lines. And did we turn a blind eye? Don't ask don't tell?
I don't know about you, but I can clearly see that something needs to be done, to bring things back into an orderly, respectable and reliable state, for the benefit of the entire industry, and it needs to start with the public figures of our game, the ambassadors, the heroes and would-be example setters - which is the top players themselves. So if a line needs to be drawn in the sand, if some heads have to be thumped, some toes need to be stepped on and some feelings have to be hurt, then so be it.
I'm not here to tell you that the " right" decisions were or are being made, but I am here to tell you that we need changes now more than ever.
). . .
). . .
