"I haven’t been known to be the best personality when I play pool. I’ve been egotistical and arrogant my whole life," the former pool shark said.
Bravado in a pool player is part of the hustle, said Shane Tyree, communications manager for the Billiard Congress of America, based in Chicago.
Jack Leu, 64, started shooting billiards at age 10. Twenty years later, while still a hot stick in the pool halls of Central Oregon, he started selling, installing and refurbishing pool tables — and made a handsome living at both at Green Felt Billiards.
Billiards as a pastime declined in popularity as states passed laws banning smoking indoors. The Great Recession also put a dent in sales. “When the housing bubble burst, people stopped building houses, and they stopped making billiard rooms and buying new billiard tables. :frown:
To round out the trifecta, Tyree said young people generally prefer video games, so the next generation of would-be pool players is shunted off in another direction.
When Leu was asked when he first started playing: "When I was 10. My sister lived in Portland. My family went up to see her at Christmastime. My dad and my brother-in-law went to shoot some pool; we went down, it was on Powell Boulevard in Portland. There was a pool room there. I remember where it sat. It’s not there anymore. I got hooked. In 1969, I was a senior in high school, I had a ’68 Pontiac GTO that was paid for, and I bought all my gas by my pool playing."
Leu said "The Color of Money," that’s real life, as real as you can get. When Paul Newman was sitting there, at the bar, and Vincent was breaking a 9-ball rack, he said, 'Man, that guy breaks with a sledgehammer.' You don’t even have to know it. You know who can play and who can’t."
Read the interview of the former pool hustler from Oregon --> HERE
Bravado in a pool player is part of the hustle, said Shane Tyree, communications manager for the Billiard Congress of America, based in Chicago.
Jack Leu, 64, started shooting billiards at age 10. Twenty years later, while still a hot stick in the pool halls of Central Oregon, he started selling, installing and refurbishing pool tables — and made a handsome living at both at Green Felt Billiards.
Billiards as a pastime declined in popularity as states passed laws banning smoking indoors. The Great Recession also put a dent in sales. “When the housing bubble burst, people stopped building houses, and they stopped making billiard rooms and buying new billiard tables. :frown:
To round out the trifecta, Tyree said young people generally prefer video games, so the next generation of would-be pool players is shunted off in another direction.
When Leu was asked when he first started playing: "When I was 10. My sister lived in Portland. My family went up to see her at Christmastime. My dad and my brother-in-law went to shoot some pool; we went down, it was on Powell Boulevard in Portland. There was a pool room there. I remember where it sat. It’s not there anymore. I got hooked. In 1969, I was a senior in high school, I had a ’68 Pontiac GTO that was paid for, and I bought all my gas by my pool playing."
Leu said "The Color of Money," that’s real life, as real as you can get. When Paul Newman was sitting there, at the bar, and Vincent was breaking a 9-ball rack, he said, 'Man, that guy breaks with a sledgehammer.' You don’t even have to know it. You know who can play and who can’t."
Read the interview of the former pool hustler from Oregon --> HERE
