APA Attitude

poor sport

Everyone has their story where they ran into someone not being a good sport. It has nothing to do with the APA or any other league for that matter. Poor sports are everywhere and everyone playing pool has had their own bad moment where we didn't act the way we should. I have seen some of the worst sportsmanship in the BCA league over the past three years on the local level and at the National championships. It doesn't matter where you play or which league you are in.
 
Let's see.

Take some beer, the opposite sex, competition, a challenging game like pool, different levels of skill, different ideas of what is "polite" or not. Mix throughly and come back in a few hours.

Gee, what a surprise! Sometimes we end up with people acting like jerks.

The alphabet soup of leagues (APA, BCA, TAP, ACS, whatever) has NOTHING to do with it.
 
All great comments everyone. I do agree that there are poor sportsmen in every league, but I'm not convinced that there are not more of them in APA for the simple reason that it is more of an entry level league where players are still cutting their teeth on what the league experience is all about.

Learning to respect the game and respect your opponent comes with time and experience.

I am fortunate to have an opportunity to play in three different league matches this week. A VNEA 8-ball, a ACS 9-ball and an ACS 8-ball on three consecutive nights. I'll be observing and report back what I see this weekend.
 
After talking about POOR sports, I decided to share a GOOD sport moment.

To build the scene, I am playing a house league now with many people who still play in the APA on other nights, but it is many of the better players who need some stiffer competition and a chance for cash.

In this cash league, the format is a bit odd (getting used to it) as it is 8 ball, but only 1 game each person. There are teams of 4, and you play each person on the other team 1 game. I dont want to get into whether the format is good (its not imo) but it does build some tension, as balls potted matter for handicapping.

The gist of it is if you win you get 10 pts, and loser gets pts for balls cleared. Because winner gets 10, and its only one game per pairing, made 8 balls on break are spotted, and scratch on 8 ball is not loss of game (8 ball pocketed early or wrong pocket is a loss). I mention this to underscore the importance of potting some balls in a losing effort.

There, stage is set.

The other team's player shoots at the 8 ball and puts the cue ball in a pocket (foul, not loss). Our player has all 7 balls on the table, but misunderstands and thinks he won, so he rakes one of his balls of the table into a pocket.

Knowing our team only needs 4 more balls to win the round, the other player stops him after raking that ball, respots it in the correct position and allows our guy to take ball in hand. Needless to say, our guy ran 6-7 balls and we won that round.


Knowing it was a mistake on our player's part, we would have expected to concede the loss. For the other player to correct our player on the rules, AND respot the ball and allow him to shoot KNOWING he would easily make the balls for the win took REAL CLASS.

This league is for cash, other leagues are for plaques, AND it is 1 week from end of session for the payout.

Good Job player, and know that I will always take your word for gold.
 
I like good sport stories. I don't have many to share unfortunately. There was an in-house league that a friend of mine was playing in. They pay out like 110% so there was some decent cash in play.

One of the teams was short a guy and the other team is supposed to just take a win. But they said "we don't wanna win like that" and I got volunteered to play for the missing guy. I thought that was pretty classy, they knew my speed, knew I had a good shot at winning, but they handicapped me even with the other guy, put us in a long race, and let the chips fall where they may rather than taking the guaranteed W.
 
beleary said:
All great comments everyone. I do agree that there are poor sportsmen in every league, but I'm not convinced that there are not more of them in APA for the simple reason that it is more of an entry level league where players are still cutting their teeth on what the league experience is all about.

Learning to respect the game and respect your opponent comes with time and experience.

I am fortunate to have an opportunity to play in three different league matches this week. A VNEA 8-ball, a ACS 9-ball and an ACS 8-ball on three consecutive nights. I'll be observing and report back what I see this weekend.
Click to expand...

beleary:

I'm not totally sure of what you are saying here, but it would seem you are saying you think there are more poor sports in the APA because there is something in the APA's rules or structure that is attractive to that type of player. To that, I would disagree.

The APA might be an "entry level" league as you say, but that is not because of their rules or structure, it is because they go out and recruit more new players than any other league in existence. All you have to do to understand that fact is to walk into almost any pool room in the country and see which league has the most posters and fliers all over the place. Or look at any of the billiard publications, both printed and online, and see which league does the most advertising. It is always the APA. And also notice that it is always the NEW players they go after. They don't try to pull players from other leagues; they try to get the social bangers started in league play. And this actually helps the whole industry - particularly the other leagues - because the APA acts as a "training ground" for those players who want to later move on and experience other systems.

And that is MY theory on why you probably see more bad actors in the APA than in any other league; but you'll see more of every other type of person there, too. :thumbup:

Roger
 
Roger,

"but it would seem you are saying you think there are more poor sports in the APA because there is something in the APA's rules or structure that is attractive to that type of player. To that, I would disagree."

No, that is not what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with the rules or structure of the APA. My point is that since it is a league that mainly attracts new players to organized team competition, a few of them may not have grasp the understanding of, let's call it the 'code' of proper pool etiquette. In time they do learn this, and realize that when it's not your turn you sit down and shut up.

Since most of the other leagues (BCA, VNEA, ACS, etc.) have more seasoned players, they simply 'get it' given the years of experience they have had in individual tournaments or organized team pool leagues.

The players in these leagues that still display poor sportsmanship have, in my opinion, more of a personality disorder, rationalizing that their kind of behavior is really acceptable or, they don't really give a hoot what others think of them and are willing to win at any cost (like being ostracized by their fellow players). I do know very talented players like this that play in these more seasoned leagues, and I have just come to accept the fact that they are just jerks, plain and simple.

In reading a few of these earlier comments, it does appear that the players that inevitably 'get it' just didn't realize that what they were doing was unacceptable, until either it dawned on them, someone spoke up, or another player pulled the same routine on them and they didn't like it.

These are just my observations. Again, I'm not trying to be critical of the APA, I'm just trying to understand.
 
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