Poy
Can't believe I've been thrown under the bus again after all these years! The answer to the trivia question is, of course, STEVE Varner! I had arrived at Billiards Digest in August 1980. One of my suggestions to then-publisher and owner Mort Luby was to have an annual player of the year. We chose Nick Varner and Billie Billing as the first honorees. Mind you, I had only been there four months, and at the time Mort was designing all the covers.
Mort was very good friends with the Varners...Nick, his brother Steve and his dad. So it wasn't all that unfamiliar for him to think of the name Steve Varner. (Steve was Nick's press agent of sorts!) So Mort sets the type and lays out the cover.
In those days, the first issues were sent to our office and I would slide a copy in an envelope with the bills to the advertisers. The January/February (we were bi-monthly then) issue comes in and I'm sitting at my desk stuffing the new issue into the envelopes.
All of a sudden I'm sliding them in at a slower pace, looking more closely at the covers before they disappear into the envelopes. I see "Steve Varner" and I'm thinking...naw. Eventually it became apparent that EVERY copy indeed said, "Players of the Year: Steve Varner and Billie Billing."
I turned white. Now I had to walk into my new boss' office and break the news. Mort, while laid back and understanding in his retirement, was nowhere near that back then. Not a good meeting. He managed to infer that I had made the mistake (he never let me near covers for the first year!), and I took it like a man. For a journalism major, it was a low moment!
If you know Nick, you'll know he shrugged it off with a smile, and said, "Thing like that happen" in that slow Kentucky drawl of his.
Of course Steve was ecstatic! And Nick got his revenge, playfully calling me out in front of 400 guests at his BCA Hall of Fame induction banquet!
Thanks for bringing it up!!!
everyone just reads the articles....
