great idea

john schmidt

john schmidt

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
i must say good job to the bef foundation.

can you imagine how much it could help pool if i could go and talk to every high school and tell them they can get a scholarship to college.

while im there i would tell them to join the high school pool team and if they are good enough they could come play for me as i coach the college team against all the other colleges.

oh well maybe someday
 
I've never understood why Pool is not an interscholastic sport. It would be very inexpensive for a school to support. Any unused classroom could be the playing field, with two 7' or 8' tables (used are fine). The team needs no special clothing or gear, just a few straight house cues. Or of course, players could buy their own cue. And I'm sure many students would love to be on the school team.

Why hasn't the BCA done more in this direction to support pool. It seems like a natural to me, to grow the sport.
 
jay helfert said:
I've never understood why Pool is not an interscholastic sport. It would be very inexpensive for a school to support. Any unused classroom could be the playing field, with two 7' or 8' tables (used are fine). The team needs no special clothing or gear, just a few straight house cues. Or of course, players could buy their own cue. And I'm sure many students would love to be on the school team.

Why hasn't the BCA done more in this direction to support pool. It seems like a natural to me, to grow the sport.
Click to expand...
It would be a good idea and just on this forum alone we could get many volunteers if not some good BCA instructors in there to teach.The only thing that makes my belly rumble besides all the leftover turkey is thinking about a pool hustler teaching,this is the dump,the double dump,bird dogging,railbird,the lock artist,lol,it just makes me laugh to think about but they need to be smartened up before they head out into a real pool room. :D
 
Deleted my negative and worthless post. Sorry I put it up. It served no worthwhile purpose.
 
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jay helfert said:
I've never understood why Pool is not an interscholastic sport. It would be very inexpensive for a school to support. Any unused classroom could be the playing field, with two 7' or 8' tables (used are fine). The team needs no special clothing or gear, just a few straight house cues. Or of course, players could buy their own cue. And I'm sure many students would love to be on the school team.

Why hasn't the BCA done more in this direction to support pool. It seems like a natural to me, to grow the sport.
Click to expand...
And to educate the masses that pool isn't a dark smoky hall filled with lowlife hustlers. I'm amazed at the fact this perception is still with us.
 
Jims,

The BCA does care! They started the Billiard Education Foundation!

It is now a seperate entity that is currently supported by the BCA. Unfortunately, I believe that the support will come to an end, and the BEF will need to find another means of support.

We have high school teams here in Dallas! It is a great program, but it is very difficult to convince the schools that it is a good thing for the students. They all have that smokey, shady image of pool and are very skeptical of getting involved.

One way to get it going is for the parents of high school aged kids to ask their school about it. Let's face it, it is politics. When more parents are interested, then more schools will put in the programs.

Jay, you are right that it doesn't take much space! I believe that there is only one school here that has a room with tables. All the other competitions are held at a bowling alley pool room. This is one of the things that makes it hard! It is a school sponsored activity and cannot be held in a bar. All the pool rooms in Dallas can't even have allow kids under 21 in the building, even with their parents!

In the long run, the future of pool rides in bringing more players to the game, and this is where it can happen.

Royce Bunnell
 
I think the idea of school competitions are great. Only thing I'd hope for is they learn to play on full size tables. I say this for two reasons. 1. They learn the game the way it should be learned, 2. It steers them away from practice time at the local 7' table at the bar.

This may even evolve into pool room participation and table time donations, which would solve the problem of table purchases as well. As a former room owner, I know for sure pool rooms would love to fill empty tables (even for free) with family oriented and supervised team play. Doing so would certainly cultivate a larger customer base.
 
Craig Fales said:
And to educate the masses that pool isn't a dark smoky hall filled with lowlife hustlers. I'm amazed at the fact this perception is still with us.
Click to expand...
I guess I still go to the old school rooms,old men during the day,college kids at night,and in the late night and wee hours of the morning you have gamblers,hustlers and thieves.I do think that most pool rooms these days are catering to college kids and are pretty friendly but alot of one of a kind people still hang out in these places and seedy characters too. :cool:
 
Hmmmmmm....

Craig Fales said:
And to educate the masses that pool isn't a dark smoky hall filled with lowlife hustlers. I'm amazed at the fact this perception is still with us.
Click to expand...


Does perception = reality
or does reality = perception?

My reality says that in the k-12 schools if one smidgeon of a wif of the word gambling gets into the air, I can see it all come to a grinding, screeching halt.............
or maybe that's just MY "perception" :wink:

td
 
hi

i for one wouldnt mind being the guy who goes to high schools and lets them know about scholarships and college teams . if all the schools knew about high school teams, college teams, scholarships etc i think things could take off.

believe me if i could spend a day with 500 high school kids i could make many of them want to join team,get cue, go to tourneys ,get college scholarship etc.

they just dont know about it and the little they do know they see in commercials and movies where every poolhall has drugs,murders,criminals etc .its a joke

if i can tell them look i have made a living ,got to see the world, made my family proud, represented my country on live tv in front of a million or so,won us open
etc.many of them would take an interest. yes it doesnt pay alot but the goal is to get a scholarship which will lead to a job that does.

this could be done for sure. you just have to send in the right players to talk to the schools and try to reverse this ridiculously bad image pool has.

the one thing poolplaying has got going for it is that its viewed as cool to play.

that will help with the high school kids.


if you sent mika,corey rodney ,tony robles,tony crosby, gabe owen,allen hopkins etc you could get the schools to see we are not a bunch of thugs.
actually these guys are very marketable and could be very good at turning things around from the ground up with kids parent etc.
 
john schmidt said:
i for one wouldnt mind being the guy who goes to high schools and lets them know about scholarships and college teams . if all the schools knew about high school teams, college teams, scholarships etc i think things could take off.

believe me if i could spend a day with 500 high school kids i could make many of them want to join team,get cue, go to tourneys ,get college scholarship etc.

they just dont know about it and the little they do know they see in commercials and movies where every poolhall has drugs,murders,criminals etc .its a joke

if i can tell them look i have made a living ,got to see the world, made my family proud, represented my country on live tv in front of a million or so,won us open
etc.many of them would take an interest. yes it doesnt pay alot but the goal is to get a scholarship which will lead to a job that does.

this could be done for sure. you just have to send in the right players to talk to the schools and try to reverse this ridiculously bad image pool has.

the one thing poolplaying has got going for it is that its viewed as cool to play.

that will help with the high school kids.


if you sent mika,corey rodney ,tony robles,tony crosby, gabe owen,allen hopkins etc you could get the schools to see we are not a bunch of thugs.
actually these guys are very marketable and could be very good at turning things around from the ground up with kids parent etc.
Click to expand...

John,

This is a great idea. I am PMing you an email address to get in contact with the person in charge of the BCA sponsored billiard education foundation that is in charge of the junior nationals and all or most of the junior educational programs. You should talk directly to someone who might be able to help make this happen.

Dave gross
 
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john schmidt said:
i for one wouldnt mind being the guy who goes to high schools and lets them know about scholarships and college teams . if all the schools knew about high school teams, college teams, scholarships etc i think things could take off.

believe me if i could spend a day with 500 high school kids i could make many of them want to join team,get cue, go to tourneys ,get college scholarship etc.

they just dont know about it and the little they do know they see in commercials and movies where every poolhall has drugs,murders,criminals etc .its a joke

if i can tell them look i have made a living ,got to see the world, made my family proud, represented my country on live tv in front of a million or so,won us open
etc.many of them would take an interest. yes it doesnt pay alot but the goal is to get a scholarship which will lead to a job that does.

this could be done for sure. you just have to send in the right players to talk to the schools and try to reverse this ridiculously bad image pool has.

the one thing poolplaying has got going for it is that its viewed as cool to play.

that will help with the high school kids.


if you sent mika,corey rodney ,tony robles,tony crosby, gabe owen,allen hopkins etc you could get the schools to see we are not a bunch of thugs.
actually these guys are very marketable and could be very good at turning things around from the ground up with kids parent etc.
Click to expand...


You going to speak to the high schools and college students would be great. The one thing we need first is a fund for scholarships. The schools and colleges would buy into the idea more quickly if a fund was in place. Or a fund to buy two used tables for each school or college that wanted to get involved.

I'm sure that some local table mechanics would donate theit time to set them up and recover them as long as the fund paid for the cloth and supplies, just for advertisment purposes. I for one would be happy to donate to either or both of the above. I also think that as this takes off it will pick-up mainstream sponsors, which would crossover to pro and amature tournament mainstream sponsorships. This could be a win for everybody ib pool. Johnnyt
 
It IS, Jay, but it's a feeble competition, mostly sponsored by the Association of College Unions or whatever it's titled today. There was actually a time when intercollegiate pool competition was accomplished by mail! There was a format roughly similar to Jerry Briesath's "Equal Offense", and schools mailed in the scores of their best players; the best two in the nation then played off an actual game of 14.1 for the collegiate title. John's idea would be a fine one in another economy. GF
 
jay helfert said:
I've never understood why Pool is not an interscholastic sport. It would be very inexpensive for a school to support. Any unused classroom could be the playing field, with two 7' or 8' tables (used are fine). The team needs no special clothing or gear, just a few straight house cues. Or of course, players could buy their own cue. And I'm sure many students would love to be on the school team.

Why hasn't the BCA done more in this direction to support pool. It seems like a natural to me, to grow the sport.
Click to expand...


Well -

As I understand it, Nick Varner was a college player at Perdue, and top player from Terre Haute, Bob Dickerson, was at Indiana University at the same time.

Bob and Nick have been friends forever, so at least at one time pool was a collegeict sport.

Ken
 
RBC said:
Jims,

The BCA does care! They started the Billiard Education Foundation!

It is now a seperate entity that is currently supported by the BCA. Unfortunately, I believe that the support will come to an end, and the BEF will need to find another means of support.

We have high school teams here in Dallas! It is a great program, but it is very difficult to convince the schools that it is a good thing for the students. They all have that smokey, shady image of pool and are very skeptical of getting involved.

One way to get it going is for the parents of high school aged kids to ask their school about it. Let's face it, it is politics. When more parents are interested, then more schools will put in the programs.

Jay, you are right that it doesn't take much space! I believe that there is only one school here that has a room with tables. All the other competitions are held at a bowling alley pool room. This is one of the things that makes it hard! It is a school sponsored activity and cannot be held in a bar. All the pool rooms in Dallas can't even have allow kids under 21 in the building, even with their parents!

In the long run, the future of pool rides in bringing more players to the game, and this is where it can happen.

Royce Bunnell
Click to expand...

They have a great bunch up there too. While in Dallas it was something we talked aout, but my stay was cut shoret and it was something I really wanted to get involved in.

Ownership at Fast Eddies here in San Antonio has expressed real intrest in this program and something I have given thought to here for the school kids. It seems the obvious place to start.
 
I hope Terry Anderson from Miller Time Billiards (iapoolguy on AZB) weighs in on this topic. He has a HS PE class visit his pool hall on occasion.

It's a small leap from there to establish a competitive system. With that in place, business would increase because the students will show up at your PH to practice.

I've long thought it was in every PH's interest to establish such a program for the future of their own business...let alone the industry as a whole. Get them plugged in while they're young and you will enjoy a fruitful future.
 
john schmidt said:
i for one wouldnt mind being the guy who goes to high schools and lets them know about scholarships and college teams . if all the schools knew about high school teams, college teams, scholarships etc i think things could take off.

believe me if i could spend a day with 500 high school kids i could make many of them want to join team,get cue, go to tourneys ,get college scholarship etc.

they just dont know about it and the little they do know they see in commercials and movies where every poolhall has drugs,murders,criminals etc .its a joke

if i can tell them look i have made a living ,got to see the world, made my family proud, represented my country on live tv in front of a million or so,won us open
etc.many of them would take an interest. yes it doesnt pay alot but the goal is to get a scholarship which will lead to a job that does.

this could be done for sure. you just have to send in the right players to talk to the schools and try to reverse this ridiculously bad image pool has.

the one thing poolplaying has got going for it is that its viewed as cool to play.

that will help with the high school kids.


if you sent mika,corey rodney ,tony robles,tony crosby, gabe owen,allen hopkins etc you could get the schools to see we are not a bunch of thugs.
actually these guys are very marketable and could be very good at turning things around from the ground up with kids parent etc.
Click to expand...

Believe me, John is on to something here. If the BCA (and the manufacturers) would support a group of guys like this (or even three or four of them) making appearances at High Schools across the country, pool might start to boom again. The players could do an exhibition and actually serve as representatives for the sport, and explain how easy it is to set up a couple of tables in an unused classroom (P.S. They aren't hard to move either). It would make good after school recreation for the kids and they could then form teams, leagues, whatever.

But why would they want to do something that makes sense? That would take a total paradigm shift for the BCA honchos. Better to play it safe and put on one Junior tourney a year and leave it up room owners and player/parents to get their kids involved in the game.
 
john schmidt said:
i for one wouldnt mind being the guy who goes to high schools and lets them know about scholarships and college teams . if all the schools knew about high school teams, college teams, scholarships etc i think things could take off.

believe me if i could spend a day with 500 high school kids i could make many of them want to join team,get cue, go to tourneys ,get college scholarship etc.

they just dont know about it and the little they do know they see in commercials and movies where every poolhall has drugs,murders,criminals etc .its a joke

if i can tell them look i have made a living ,got to see the world, made my family proud, represented my country on live tv in front of a million or so,won us open
etc.many of them would take an interest. yes it doesnt pay alot but the goal is to get a scholarship which will lead to a job that does.

this could be done for sure. you just have to send in the right players to talk to the schools and try to reverse this ridiculously bad image pool has.

the one thing poolplaying has got going for it is that its viewed as cool to play.

that will help with the high school kids.


if you sent mika,corey rodney ,tony robles,tony crosby, gabe owen,allen hopkins etc you could get the schools to see we are not a bunch of thugs.
actually these guys are very marketable and could be very good at turning things around from the ground up with kids parent etc.
Click to expand...

SO YOU DONT THINK WE SHOULD SEND DANNY TO TEACH??? :wink:
 
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