Enough MC talk. It's irrelevant

Celtic said:
Any coach who goes into the Mosconi Cup thinking they are there to teach their players how to shoot or give them pointers is a lost cause. Do they think that Johan goes into the event telling Mika his elbow is dropping too much, and that Neils needs to straighten his back leg more? No, the LAST thing Johan is there to do is teach his players how to play pool, anything he did to even attempt that would in fact have quite the opposite effect and likely make them shoot worse. The Mosconi Cup is NOT the time to go and try to tweak people strokes or games or tell them they shot the wrong shot.

Coaching is about motivating people, it is about putting the players frame of mind into the right place so that the peak of their own natural abilities are realized and they have the highest chance possible to be victorious. It is about working the proper strategies on who to play when knowing how your players will react to playing early or late in matches, or who might be best to break a losing streak or who might be a good front runner and keep a winning streak alive. It is about reading the moves of the other team and attempting to get the correct matchups for your own team, certain players play better against others and you need to do your best to know this and set up matches so that your guys are playing against people they feel confident and play well against.

A proper coach in the Mosconi Cup can be hugely useful "IF" they know what they are actually there to do. Few if any coaches on the American side of the Cup have had a clue of any of this IMO.
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I actually agree very much with what you have written. I believe that in order for an American coach to be effective in the Mosconi Cup, the coach needs to have the respect of the players he's coaching. This is aside from advice, strategies, practicing, player selection, et cetera.

Good post, Celtic. :smile:
 
Bob Dixon said:
MC became a ridiculous spectacle years ago, in my opinion, before the recent American losing streak. It's one of the silliest things I've ever seen.

The fact that American players aren't going to and winning international tournaments is exactly why someone should be supporting it. That's a selling point.

What's the point of chasing your own tail with "they can't get sponsors to go win until they go win without sponsors"? I don't make a penny off the pool industry. Those who DO need to go out and sell the future if they want one to exist. If they don't have enough money they need to find someone who does. Major corporations sponsor chess. No one is going to convince me that it adds anything significant to their bottom line, dollar wise.
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Best thoughts in the thread! :yes:
 
CJ Wiley said:
It would be pool training, but designed to get them in their best possible team spirit.

The Europeans are simply better team players......this isn't because the USA team "can't" do team play, they're just not used to this specific format.

And you're right, without funds this isn't possible, and no one in the USA would chip in to see this happen, after all it's a Engish event. Maybe if we did it in the USA on ESPN we could raise the money, I know a few guys who would chip in a ten or twenty to help out.
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For a long time, I knew there was something that reminded me of C.J., and I couldn't put my finger on it -- until this morning. :grin-square:

Check out this video, right after Earl and his son Randy, that could be C.J.'s twin ---> HERE :cool:
 
watchez said:
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You should read about Coach K at Duke sometime. Interesting man -- and one of his biggest philosphies is to never criticize one of his players for taking a shot. I feel that Mark would be the same with any pro team he was the captain of. Again, you wouldn't put Keith McCready on the Mosconi Cup team and then try to teach him how to play better safeties.

.
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I believe the Coach K analogy is a good one.

USA basketball got stagnant after international competition was opened up to the pro's. When our country finally got serious about fixing it, they knew they had to get players together for more than a few weeks before the event. But how to motivate multi-millionaire pro players to get together in their off season, even to play for their country. They went to Coach K.

They would play for him. And they did, and they do.

Is Mark Wilson that guy, I don't know. But we need to find "that guy" and he seems to be spoken of highly enough to perhaps indeed be "that guy". Something has to change.
 
leto1776 said:
All this talk about the MC, what we really should be focusing on is American players who can win World Championship titles. At the end of the day, the MC is merely an exhibition for entertainment. The world titles are what really matter. Discuss.
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The fact you feel it's irrelevant is irrelevant. If it doesn't interest you don't post about or read the threads about it. Problem solved. Maybe others find it an interesting topic.
 
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trob said:
The fact you feel it's irrelevant is irrelevant. If it doesn't interest you don't post about or read the threads about it. Problem solved. Maybe others find it an interesting topic.
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Fine, let's keep beating the same dead horse all the way until December again; meanwhile, U.S. Players will continue to play like crap in big international tournies (those who can actually get to the,that is). But hey, we need to keep talking about a single glorified exhibition, and finding the magic pill for the U.S. Team!
 
Bob Dixon said:
So they should start taking Chinese lessons? I don't know . . . I think I'll stick with the getting better American sponsorship idea.
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I don't know why, but your post tickled my funny bone. :rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1:

Thanks! I needed that. :D
 
JAM said:
I don't know why, but your post tickled my funny bone. :rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1:

Thanks! I needed that. :D
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I'm ROTFLMAO at you ROTFLYAO. If you look at some of my posts on here concerning Chinese players, you and I both may have to learn Chinese as well. Good thing I lived in Taiwan for several years and have a head start on a lot of people.

If the pool world continues to evolve in the same manner it is headed at this juncture, the Chinese will RULE pool before too long.

Look at ALL the other sports today and compare them to 20 years ago. There was hardly a Chinese person EVER getting Gold medals in some of the events...most events IN FACT. NOW, the Chinese are competing in and WINNING in LOTS of events that they were completely DOMINATED in years ago.

That is what happens when your pool (no pun intended) of resources are ALMOST unlimited.
 
The money and exposure are both in Asia. Smart players will eventually see this, and follow the money.
 
HawaiianEye said:
I'm ROTFLMAO at you ROTFLYAO. If you look at some of my posts on here concerning Chinese players, you and I both may have to learn Chinese as well. Good thing I lived in Taiwan for several years and have a head start on a lot of people.

If the pool world continues to evolve in the same manner it is headed at this juncture, the Chinese will RULE pool before too long.

Look at ALL the other sports today and compare them to 20 years ago. There was hardly a Chinese person EVER getting Gold medals in some of the events...most events IN FACT. NOW, the Chinese are competing in and WINNING in LOTS of events that they were completely DOMINATED in years ago.

That is what happens when your pool (no pun intended) of resources are ALMOST unlimited.
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If I was to choose a language to learn today, it would be Arabic, not Chinese.

Most Americans are not bilingual and only know English, sad to say. Whereas, other countries, their inhabitants are often multilingual. I blame the American school system for this, mostly.
 
leto1776 said:
The money and exposure are both in Asia. Smart players will eventually see this, and follow the money.
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Or, in the alternative, quit pool altogether and let it die a slow and ugly death, as is happening and will continue to happen -- unless something NEW and INNOVATIVE takes place soon.

There are some on this forum, however, who will be dancing on the grave of American professional pool. In fact, they're already standing at the grave site waiting to bury professional pool as quickly as possible.
 
JAM said:
If I was to choose a language to learn today, it would be Arabic, not Chinese.
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I know and have worked with linguists trained in numerous languages of the world. MOST of these languages were money-makers at the time, because very few people you could TRUST spoke them...so we trained OUR OWN people to learn them. I'm talking languages that were spoken by our "adversaries" at the time of which SOME are NOW considered somewhat more friendly.

Chinese was ONCE a very profitable language to learn and is still profitable, but the Arabic and Middle Eastern languages are now the most sought after.

It ISN'T because they are the GREATEST economy in the world (even though they have oil)...it is because WE (the American government) DON'T trust them....WE MONITOR THEM.

Where is 90% of the turmoil in the WORLD? In the Middle East! What is the common language spoken by many of them? Arabic may be one of the most common in that region.

One of my co-workers when I lived in Taiwan (he was American) spoke four of the hardest languages in the world...Chinese, German, Vietnamese and Arabic...as well as English. He taught me the ONE and ONLY Arabic phrase that I still remember to this day. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, and don't know how to spell it out in English or Arabic, but I can pronounce it. He taught me how to say, "GO F#$K YOURSELF". It is funny that you learn all the good stuff first. :)

If we could get a linguist to understand what in the hell Darren Appleton was saying, maybe we could listen in on him and figure out how to win the Mosconi Cup. :)

True story: I flew from Istanbul, Turkey to Oxford, UK in 1990 to play in a 14-1 pool tournament. I was SPONSORED by the US government, trip, room, and board covered...beer I had to pay for myself (I hate the government for that).

When I landed in Heathrow, a driver picked me up in a van and drove me to Oxford. When I first met him at the airport and we were "trying" to converse, I thought he was speaking a FOREIGN language. It turned out he was speaking English with a Cockney accent. Somebody needs to learn how to speak that.

:)
 
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Bob Dixon said:
But anyone who suggests that moving to China is a career path for American pool players is someone who is just voicing random, disconnected thoughts.
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Not necessarily China, but Asia in general. The big money tournaments are there.the tv exposure is there. Plenty of gambling. Plenty of new sponsorship opportunities.

Hardly random,disconnected thoughts. As I said in my other thread, Asia is the new land of opportunity, and can be for pool,too. Ask Kelly Fisher.
 
Bob Dixon said:
As a matter of fact I have taken Chinese language lessons (hint: speaking is a lot easier than reading and writing)...
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When I was "dealing" with the Chinese language in my "job", I always utilized PinYin and BoPoMoFo. Did you ever learn any of this?

http://www.eng.umd.edu/~nsw/chinese/pinyin.htm

P.S. Sometimes MOFO ain't what you think it is. In Chinese BoPoMOFO is sort of like their ABCs.
 
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.the pool industry doesn't use these tools {anymore}

Bob Dixon said:
And 99% of them don't know who Efren Reyes or Earl Strickland are and they wouldn't watch pool on television. Is that an exaggeration or relatively accurate? You tell me.

I'm still waiting to hear some better suggestions for getting American players prepared to participate in international competitions. I don't think the local bar league is going to help them.
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But 100% of them know who Tiger Woods is....it's all about TV exposure and marketing/advertising dollars.....the pool industry doesn't use these tools {anymore} for some reason. :confused:
 
CJ Wiley said:
But 100% of them know who Tiger Woods is....it's all about TV exposure and marketing/advertising dollars.....the pool industry doesn't use these tools {anymore} for some reason. :confused:
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The industry in Asia seems to use them now.
 
"trying to save money by cutting advertising is like".........

leto1776 said:
The industry in Asia seems to use them now.
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We have a saying in the bar business "trying to save money by pulling advertising is like trying to save time by unplugging the clock"

The billiard industry seems to have "unplugged the clock" about 14 years ago (the BCA used to advertise Pool on ESPN in the 90s)......it needs to be plugged back in or there will not be any "electricity" for the Game to run on. 'The Game is the Teacher' ;)
 
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