Jay/Demetrius:
You are not just two valued friends, but I view both of you as gurus of pool and the pool scene.
I'm not so sure that I agree with you guys that the eager students aren't out there. On a theoretical level, it's easy for those who teach anything to brush off a failure to turn out high-achieving students to a lack of able and willing students. I just don't like the sound of it when it comes to pool, and it doesn't jive with my own observations, and I have made hundreds of trips to Europe in my life and have been around many of the poolrooms of Europe.
Some of our most knowledgeable European posters have opined that there are ten nine ball players in America for every one nine ball player in Europe. The emergence of European pool over the past twenty-five years, they say, is a result of better training and better leagues. No doubt, the league systems of Europe, most notably the German Bundesliga, are a potential training ground for youthful players that America lacks, and there's no doubt that this has been a springboard for at least some youthful players to get both excited and serious about pool. As we know, one such player is the recent hall of fame inductee Thorsten Hohmann, who won the World Championship in his early twenties, and there are others.
So, yes, some vehicles do exist in Europe to gather more young talent and develop it than in the United States, but let's not pretend that if you walk into a European pool room that young players are all over the place much more than it is true here in America.
Whatever view one takes, one must still ask why Americans that HAVE chosen to try to excel at pool and have put in the work are achieving so little. Better yet, one must ponder why America has produced just one player (Van Boening) whose career began after 2000 that looks like a sure bet for the BCA Hall of Fame. Surely, you're not saying that the "participation problem" is over twenty years old? Not saying it isn't, but I'm not inclined to believe it.
On another level, it is easier to develop one's professional pedigree here in America, where the number of regional and national tournaments is vast. Many European based players understood this and moved here, including Immonen, Appleton, and Shaw. Others, such as Souquet, simply travelled to every big event in America for decades.
I'm not as fast as you guys to give a pass to the pool instruction profession. Of course, they are just one part of the equation in why American players haven't accomplished more. I think it's a problem we need to own rather than deny if we are to turn things around.
All that said, I see a few promising young Americans out there in like Shane Wolford, Eric Roberts, Nathan Childress, and Landon Hollingsworth. The even younger Lucas Fracasso-Verner of Connecticut just won a Joss event. Fifteen-year-old Kashton Keaton recently beat both Billy Thorpe and Can Salim in a tournament in Ohio, so that looks promising, too. Maybe one or more of these guys, all 21 and under (I think), will deliver America from its doldrums. I know I'll be rooting hard for all of them.
