Incredible
Two ordinary guys on a pool forum come up with a quite ambitious idea. They want to stage an event at the biggest and best pool and billiard show in the country that showcases the topic of this forum, straight pool. So, they front what they can of their own cash and volunteer a ton of time, effort and expertise to procure the rest of the financing they think they’ll need through public and private donations. They reach out to every business, inside and outside the billiard industry, which they can think of that would be interested in sponsorships. They receive donations from table manufacturers, production cue makers, custom cue makers, pool table cloth manufacturers, pool rooms, etc. Ultimately, they come up with enough capital to make their idea a reality. They contact Allen Hopkins and earn enough respect and credibility from him to procure not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5 booth spaces to hold their event at his Expo. They take time off from work to show up a day before the Expo starts to set up the arena for the event. They do well enough the first year to allow them to expand from 2 full size table to 3 in just the second year. They pull in over 100 entries, including Hall of Famer Nick Varner, five former US Open Champions (Appleton, Immonen, Pagulayan, Schmidt and Varner) and scores of other amateur and professional players. They sit at their booth manning it, recording scores and playing referee from 11:00 am until 4:00, 5:00 even 6:00 the next morning. Sometimes it’s completely boring, other times there are so many people crowding around the booth that they have to become policemen to avoid their crowd from interfering with neighboring booths. They asked for and received access to the Convention Center’s public address system and make regular announcements to the entire Expo promoting the event. They acquire permission to hold the final match between two former US Open 9 Ball Champions in the Expo’s Main Arena and obtain the go ahead from Inside Pool to use their equipment to stream and provide commentary of the final match live to the world at no cost to anyone who wants to watch.
They’ve done all this not for the pay, as they receive nothing monetary in exchange for their efforts, not for the recognition, but to promote the game of straight pool and for the enjoyment of straight pool players and fans (all of us). And after doing all of this, the only thing one member of this forum can do is criticize them for the commentary of the final match. That’s simply incredible.
