Nick Van Den Berg Vs. Earl Strickland

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THE SILENCER

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anyone catch this on espn yesterday. it was the 2003 mosconi cup. two points i want to make. first, if you noticed, nick van den berg never missed! this is true!!!! what a player! secondly, earl had the last break, and broke and ran out for the win, and here is my second point, he did this obnoxious, elblows on hip dance, that really made me sick. earl strickland is an ASSHOLE! during his interview, he said the crowd was awful, and left the interviewer standing there! earl is a schmuck, unfortunatly, he's good for the sport, if the major networks, ever took a chance on pool, he would stand out like a sore thumb! so to sum up #1. nick van den berg never missed! and earl is an asshole!
 
Earl's not an a--hole, he told me in Vegas a couple of years ago that he considered me his buddy. of course he called someone in the crowd a piece of sh-t, and told them to go be Efren's fans. but at least he wasnt talking to me.

i remember talking to Tom Rossman about Earl once. Dr. Cue said Earl has an absolute tremendous skill level.

M
 
earl is a total asshole in every aspect of the word......he pulled a sissy ass stunt when he walked out on corey duel and i saw the match of the mosconi cup you speak of......no matter what the crowd does gives him no right to act like the little assine child he is.....i wish i had a chance to tell him how much of a jerk i think he is.......im in augusta,ga and if my health permitted i would go to every tourny to get the chance to call him the bastard he is.....he might be a great player but that doesnt give hime the right to be a shit......his ego is over loading his narrow ass.....thats what i think of the punk.......juston coleman
 
Sum It Up

I heard someone once say, " It's nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice ". I think it was at an Orioles game.
Don P. :cool:
 
CueJizz

Your a mighty brave fellow! I'll tell you what, call Earl a punk to his face, then check and see how your 'health' is. Cause I guarantee ya' it won't be as good as it was before you said it! Like him or not....he's NO punk

Rick S.
 
you see, he IS an asshole! everyone agrees, and as far as fighting him, yeah, he's tall, but, someone has to bring him down.
 
THE SILENCER said:
you see, he IS an asshole! everyone agrees, and as far as fighting him, yeah, he's tall, but, someone has to bring him down.
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I'd hesitate to call Earl Strickland an a-hole. Like John McEnroe of tennis, Earl is an incredibly talented player. Perhaps you will not see the likes of Earl for next few decades. And like J. McEnroe, Strickland's antics at the table is resprensible, at times... But away from the table, Earl actually seems quite genuine and even polite. There is nothing "fake" about Earl, which is saying volumes considering the shady characters that lurks the pooldom. You can attribute Earl's childish behavior to many things. You can accuse Earl of not thinking before he acts or his inability to control his emotions but that is a far cry from saying he is an a-hole. I don't know of any a-holes(and I know quite a few) who has a backbone. Earl does. He may express it in less than desirable ways but like McEnroe, you need to look past his outbursts. I wouldn't invite him over for a Christmas party but that doesn't make him an a-hole either...
 
I agree with condor. If Earl is called an a-hole, let's call him an honest and genuine a-hole, because he doesn't seem to hide any side of his character. If he doesn't like you/table/audience, he sure let's anyone hear his opinion, instead of stabbing you in the back as some of the mentioned "shady characters" would do. I admire Pearl's desire to play the game well and he must have maybe the biggest desire to win as well. He works so much on the emotional level that his antics aren't always nice. Though, he can be a jerk sometimes but just a hip dance after a succesful match doesn't make him one. There is a difference between dancing and celebrating in front of the audience, and dancing in front of your opponent and "rubbing it in". I guess Earl wasn't targeting his celebrations directly to Nick ?
 
Earl makes pool fun to watch, I love watching pool anyway but watching Earl makes it so much more fun, I think it's funny when Earl fights with the crowd or makes comments about his opponents, as much as he would piss me off in real life it's still entertaining. It's like watching Jerry Springer, it fun to watch the show but you couldn't pay me enough to be a participant, and I hope my lifes not jacked up enough to qualify for the show. ;)
 
Sometimes it seems that Earl needs a good argument before he can get going with his game... Getting mad is step one in process of winning the title(s) :D

Admitted, sometimes Earl criticizes his opponent with comments like "be a man" or "why don't you break like a man". These comments to the opponent are the ones I don't like. When your opponent is at the table, you should shut your noisehole.
 
I was at the last Viking Nationals that Earl won and had the chance to observe him quite a bit. His game is nothing short of phenomenal, and his stroke is something else in person. What was interesting was that he seemed to be a completely different person before and after the tourney ended. Before one of his matches a friend of mine asked him a question about Reyes and Strickland gave an offbeat answer with a kind of glazed intense stare that freaked me out a bit. After the tourney he was all smiles chatting it up with the other pros.

I really think part of his success is his focus at the table. His mind seems to be so completely directed at the game that he is not entirely aware of the way he is acting. That is the impression I got from him, and after watching him act like an "asshole" in person as well as win a tournament, I walked away with more, not less, respect for the guy.
 
From what I hear the statements should go more like this:

Earl at a pool table, is competitive and abrassive and obnoxious.

Earl away from a pool table, is a gentleman and a true friend to many.

I'm sure we've all known and played against people who are much more obnoxious...just not nearly as good.
 
If Nick played me and he never missed a ball, and I still beat him...I'd do a hell-of-a-lot more than a little hip dance.
 
mjantti said:
If he doesn't like you/table/audience, he sure let's anyone ... but just a hip dance after a succesful match doesn't make him one. There is a difference between dancing and celebrating in front of the audience, and dancing in front of your opponent and "rubbing it in". I guess Earl wasn't targeting his celebrations directly to Nick ?
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I have an Earl story from the 2001 Nov. Tokyo 9-ball event Efren snagged.

Before the match I talked to Earl, he had never heard of Nils Fiejen, said "Good! a nobody... blah blah about seeding needed to protect the top players." Nervous. During the match, Earl plays strategic safety, Nils pulls out the gimmick stick and jumps to freedom each time, driving Earl bananas. I'm sitting in a front-row seat, and he's yakking to me/crowd about it. I felt like telling him to just glue the cue up to the backside of a ball and see if he can kick too, instead of leaving the cue a foot or so away from the blockers, but who am I to advise Earl in the middle of a knock-out match? I stay quiet, and don't stay the whole set even because he is focusing his energies/fears/complaints etc. too much towards me, not the table nor opponent.

Anyway, what is the protocol for "celebrating" a great shot against a pro? Once in a small match I shot the 1-ball and had perfect speed, me cheering the CB past a small OB noodge of an OB to get perfect shape on the 2-9 combo which I made, Johnny Archer gave me a bit of a funny look.
 
A little more Earl

Earl is great, one of the pool gods (note lower case), acknowledged by peers since early age of at least 16 or so, but now he is over 40, probably feeling nervous as hell about downstairs coups from the youngsters who can now come with the shots that may be falling off a bit for him, perhaps. He likes the old-world order and in his view, he should get byes, be seeded, not have to prove himself against every new young gun coming into town. Ulcers? Mid-life crisis? Time for a new career? Too much stress to stay on top? No money in pool? Everybody hates me? Can't say I know what stress demons lurk inside that wound-up feline.

When it is working for him, he is simply awesome, concentration, etc. He KNOWS exactly where the cue ball is going, it must give him fits when it doesn't, and he lives and dies on confidence in himself and his abilities.

Saw a great Mosconi or WPL play from him, easy cut in the corner, the hard part was 4-rail position to get back down for the next ball. up by the first diamond catty-corner, two balls blocking the cue route with about 6" at most between them, and Earl eyes his tangent line, spin, settles himself that it is doable, strokes and sends the cueball off the ball, into the longrail, between the two blockers 8feet away, two-rails it out of the corner then kills the cue off the 4th rail back where he started from. Don't tell me he was not absolutely CERTAIN the cue was going through that gap before he shot.
 
Bernie, it seems like the reason why Earl pissed you off by celebrating that way is because you are such a big fan of Nick. Am I right?
 
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