Another look at APA
- Thread starter 8up
- Start date
It's really not that rediculous to think that WELL OVER 50% (*** I'd say closer to 90%)of people in the APA were NOT RECRUITED by the APA but rather captains & team members of APA teams that needed to recruit them.
I am a captain of a 9ball team. Just counting people I have DIRECTLY recruited to play on my pool team that are still active (today) and had never played APA pool before meeting me, or knowing someone that I recruited and subsequently recruited them (because of need)... is right around 15. AND that is one 9ball team, one night a week. So I'm 1 person, Im directly responsible for recruiting 15 people. (3 years) That doesnt count the 15 others I recruited that lasted for a session or 2 and are gone now.
I'm not standing on a soap box here, I like my team, generally speaking I like the APA. But it is what it is, and YES at it's core it is a "DIABOLICAL SCHEME" to make money. It's a fuxing business, THATS WHAT THEY DO. and quite well. Im awake here. I have every right (ive earned the right) to disagree or be frustrated with certain aspects of it. Im not "angry" but I have an opinion and I won't follow around blindly without saying what it is.
Doesn't change the fact, I play and I pay. I will continue. Life goes on, and I look forward to my league night next week.
~D4\/\/G~
Dawg, I hear you and you're pretty reasonable about it. But can you honestly say you recruited all those people cuz it was like...
"sigh... what a pain in my ass. I don't even want more people but I need to find some people to fill out the roster all these teams will collapse"
You didn't recruit anyone thinking... "hey, you like pool right? You should come play in our league, you'll have a lot of fun and it's very open to all skill levels."
Is it really such a chore?
I mean, I recognize it's a very "fortunate" coincidence that the cap, in addition to being amateur-friendly, also grabs additional people. And that in turn profits the founders and LOs. But this is a case of two rights making a right. You have incentive to work hard at recruiting. You may not see that as to your advantage, but surely you like SOME of these people you've kidnapped and dragged into your league? So we have people who otherwise might not get recruited are now shooting pool every week. And someone's getting rich. Win-win situation, in my opinion.
If the 23 rule caused people to get forced off their team, and as a result they never found a new team and just quit... their numbers would eventually shrink and the APA would fail. And I'd be forced to say "yes, the cap sucks". But that doesn't seem to be how it's working out and as long as it gets people in pool halls, I'm all for it.
"sigh... what a pain in my ass. I don't even want more people but I need to find some people to fill out the roster all these teams will collapse"
You didn't recruit anyone thinking... "hey, you like pool right? You should come play in our league, you'll have a lot of fun and it's very open to all skill levels."
Is it really such a chore?
I mean, I recognize it's a very "fortunate" coincidence that the cap, in addition to being amateur-friendly, also grabs additional people. And that in turn profits the founders and LOs. But this is a case of two rights making a right. You have incentive to work hard at recruiting. You may not see that as to your advantage, but surely you like SOME of these people you've kidnapped and dragged into your league? So we have people who otherwise might not get recruited are now shooting pool every week. And someone's getting rich. Win-win situation, in my opinion.
If the 23 rule caused people to get forced off their team, and as a result they never found a new team and just quit... their numbers would eventually shrink and the APA would fail. And I'd be forced to say "yes, the cap sucks". But that doesn't seem to be how it's working out and as long as it gets people in pool halls, I'm all for it.
Its not like the APA has a list of players waiting to get on teams. So the captains or other players are doing all the recruiting, not the APA. They are just providing organization (which sometimes i wonder) and rules. Good players are hard to find. They either already played APA and dont dont like the format, or some other reason. The biggest complaint i hear, and i also feel the same way, is not calling pockets. Right now both of my teams are going thru growing pains. Loaded with 3's and 4's. The same teams goto the cities every session in my division. They recently just combined both leagues in my area, going from 10 teams to 16.
There are some stacked teams in my division, the guys play on multiple teams a night, so they are constantly late. In the trenton division, they sign up guys from the pool halls. The team only has 4 people show up on purpose, so they can have 1 person shoot a second game under the other persons name. Yes this is against the rules, but all the teams do it. So when you get to cities, they have a team of pool room players and blow out the honest teams.
There are some stacked teams in my division, the guys play on multiple teams a night, so they are constantly late. In the trenton division, they sign up guys from the pool halls. The team only has 4 people show up on purpose, so they can have 1 person shoot a second game under the other persons name. Yes this is against the rules, but all the teams do it. So when you get to cities, they have a team of pool room players and blow out the honest teams.
And here again we have a reason why many people dislike how the APA runs in their area. When people break the rules, and allow others to break the rules, the balance gets thrown out of whack. A damned shame.
This week my team had two of our lower-level players not show up, so we could only play four matches and stay within the numbers. So we did it. Turns out we won all four, which we don't do some weeks with five people playing. But the fact is we did it right. No one would have thought to do it otherwise, on our team or any of the others.
What's so freaking hard about playing by the rules?
If we get swamped at our state tournament by people cheating, I'm not gonna sweat it too much. After hearing about all this crap, I know we can hold our heads up and that we did it the right way. Yes, I might say something to the LO about it, but I won't get my panties in a bunch. If that's what it takes to go higher, it ain't worth it. I'm having fun doing what I'm doing, and our league is just fine. Kinda reflects on the area I live in and the people we play with, in my opinion.