Scotty Townsend Rumor

M HOUSE said:
Given the number of viewers on this thread, it's obvious there are a lot of Scotty fans out there so I'm going to share a true story with you.

It was the early seventies and Scotty and I were on the road looking for action. We drove into Vicksburg, Ms. with the hope of finding a black player by the name of "Red" who was reported to be good action. After several stops we found someone who said that Red would likely be down at the Monte Carlo, but warned us not to go there. He explained that no "white folks" went into that part of town. Scotty thanked him for the advice and then asked him for directions to the Monte Carlo.

It was still daylight as we neared our destination. It was starting to look like we had been given good advice. I hadn't seen any other "white folks" for a while now. ( Keep in mind that this was a period of time when racial tensions were very high in this area.) When we pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car, we couldn't have drawn more attention if we had landed in a spaceship. Everyone on the street froze in position and stared at us in amazement.

Scotty grabbed his cue and we headed to the front door. We could tell from the noise coming from the building that the place was already packed. What happened next was like a scene out of a movie. We had gotten no more than four steps inside and the whole place had gone deadly silent. I had been through a lot with Scotty, but even I wasn't prepared for what he did next. In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear Scotty asked, "Do any of you ni--ers play nine-ball for money?" To this day I remember my exact thought at that moment, "Oh Sh-t, we're dead".

The silence was only broken when the bartender started laughing and said "You boys gotta be crazy, come over here and let me buy you a drink". Looking back, I don't know if the bartender really thought we were crazy, or was just trying to do whatever he could to prevent a double homocide from occuring in his establishment. Either way, it was a hugh relief to see everyone gradually return to what they were doing before we came in.

We learned that Red was out of town and there were no other players around. Despite Scotty's desire to stick around for another drink, I convinced him we had pushed our luck enough and it was time to go. When we stepped outside I was surprised to see some of the people on street still in the same position as they were when we went in. Obviously, they had been waiting to see if we would make it out alive.
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That's the funniest story I've read in a while--- GOOD POST!
 
A little bump.....

SpiderWebComm said:
I spent a lot of time w/ Scotty in Reno and the stories he told me were the most entertaining I've ever heard in the pool room. I can't vouch for the snake biting story - although the theme of that falls right into his quirkiness.

NOTE: All of these stories are directly from his mouth - and verified by Hopkins - as we were all drinking beer at the local pool room, after the IPT event.

- Scotty used to pull alligators out of the bayou swamp by the tail, and throw them into the trunk of his car (obviously, ones that would fit). He would then drive for hours selling them to farmers with ponds on their land. Why, I have no idea.... but apparently farmers wanted them for SOME reason back then. Scotty would then use that money to put himself into pool action. He once sold 3 alligators for $100 (something like that) and flipped that into $3000 playing 9-ball. Not a bad trade-route / system.

- Scotty used to jump off bridges for money. Not a small bridge, mind you, but bridges that spanned the Mississippi River. Not sure how the "barking began," but after Scotty beat some guys out of pool, they wanted to win their money back.

Scotty said something like, "I'll go double or nothing by jumping off the *WHATEVER THE NAME IS* bridge over Route *WHATEVER* that goes over the Mississippi River. Appalled and shocked, the guy said there's no way you'd jump off that. Instigated, the mark had to get multiple people together as a corporation to put up the money.

As a large group, everyone drove to the middle of the suspension bridge (which, I was told was EASILY over 150ft off the water - maybe 200. Scotty made the guy give the money to someone (gf, Hopkins, McCready, not sure who) before he went. Once the money was handed over, he climbed to the edge... and WHOOOOP. There he went, plummeting into the Mississippi River. He swam (a ways from I heard) to a river-side restaurant and climbed out to meet the group--- and rattling the shit out of the restaurant patrons, I'm sure. Everyone who had put up money was shocked, awed, and pissed that they just lost all of the money - which they thought was a locked-bet.

While everyone was crying to death, Scotty told him he'd go double-or-nothing again, and this time climb up the cable on the bridge another 50 feet (above the street level) before jumping. This time, the group shut up and dispersed. I asked Keith McCready at a later time about this and when he was done laughing, he said "Damn right that's true. Scotty will do ANYTHING for money."

- Scotty learned how to play position well by playing in his fathers tavern. The tavern was swamp-side, and may flies would begin to land and congregate on the table during the hotter summer days. If you swatted them away, they'd just land again and keep congregating. He figured out that if he went into the swamp and caught a bull frog and put it on the table, the frog would start tonguing-up the may flies so he wouldn't have to keep swatting them away. Wherever the frog went, he just played around the frog. If the frog was sitting on his tangent line, he'd twist the cue ball around the frog to get to where he needed to go. After a long time doing this, his frog-avoiding-accuracy was super-high, which translated over time to accurate position play.

- He sleeps in trees (w/out a tree house). Yes, on a branch. I've seen it.

- He used to make money swimming tremendous lengths under water, without taking a breath. Not through pool water, through swamp water and bayou water.

- He is without a doubt the nicest and most entertaining guy I've ever met. He's the only guy that told non-stop stories the entire night, and when the night ended, it was frustrating that the stories stopped. I had some pool questions for him and before I knew it, he grabbed a table and stood there answering questions until I couldn't think of anything anymore. After that, gave me his # in case I thought of any more pool questions on the way home.

He's one-of-a-kind, a GENTLEMAN, and Crocodile Dundee is a wannabe Scotty Townsend without a doubt.
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I was watching a Scotty Townsend match on tape today and remembered
this thread and specifically, this post (#50). SpiderWebComm authored one of the top 5 posts I ever read here! This is time capsule material! :D

Here is a photo of the bridge......http://images.google.com/imgres?img.../images?q=huey+p+long+bridge&gbv=2&hl=en&sa=G
***Click on the small photo in the upper left corner to see a bigger pic.
 
smokeandapancak said:
Well God Damnit Walt!!! Why would you go and say something like that....this is some old shit and nobody cares about what VIP would say to playboy...get real......

thereI go thinking that people would leave well enough alone.....


I said to you on your very first thread here.....and I think it more true now... you really are playboy arent you ???
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Dude... did I call that shit or what!?

This was a good thread.. lotsa old names on here that I miss... Not Walt, mind you.. that dude still owes me money...and he was playing around here as cannonball 55 also..... (you heard it here first)
 
JoeyA said:
I would love to have that picture of Scotty in his cowboy boots, cowboy hat and non-matching off colored short pants. You had to see it to believe it. :D
JoeyA
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Hell I've met scotty quite a few times...and it weirded me out to see what he looks like without that hat, thanks for the pic! My buddy Shane McMinn is the same...your never going to see the guy without a hat on.

G.G.
 
Terry Ardeno said:
I was watching a Scotty Townsend match on tape today and remembered
this thread and specifically, this post (#50). SpiderWebComm authored one of the top 5 posts I ever read here! This is time capsule material! :D

Here is a photo of the bridge......http://images.google.com/imgres?img.../images?q=huey+p+long+bridge&gbv=2&hl=en&sa=G
***Click on the small photo in the upper left corner to see a bigger pic.
Click to expand...

That's one high bridge. I couldn't imaging jumping from that. Thanks for the compliment, Terry. Scotty is THE MOST interesting player to talk about. There's no one like him - no one.

Dave
 
My buddy told me a story about Scotty on the way back from Mobile. He said they were at a tournament in Alexandria ,LA and Scotty was playing a match and needed quarters. He stumbled to the bar and got to the bar in which he forgot what he needed so he ordered a bottle of vodka (not a shot the whole bottle). He returned to the table forgetting the quarters soon realizing that he remembered now what he needed and he went back to the bar told the bartender to put the bottle of vodka in the freezer and he got a roll of quarters. He comes back to the table finally with the quarters wins the tournament then drinks the whole bottle of vodka. As my buddy would say playing motherf*cker drunk or sober.
 
wow....

Awesome read, first time that I've seen it and the posts by Spider and MHOUSE rate as some of the best that I've ever read here. Thanks for sharing.
 
I have known Scotty his whole life and 99.44% of the stories about him are correct. At Mobile this weekend, I bet him a 100 he wouldn't jump off the bridge in our hometown, he didn't know the span was locked in the open position and after telling him that, he wanted to double the bet! that's Scotty! see ya'll in Lafayette.
 
jay helfert said:
Here's the scoop on the Golden Gate Bridge. It's 220 feet from the roadway to the water. It takes only four seconds to fall and you hit the water at 75 mph. To date nearly 1,400 have jumped and only 26 are known to have survived. On average one person jumps every 15 days.

The two towers that hold the bridge up are over 500 feet high. Only one person jumped from there (Steve Brody), and he lost his bet.

There was a controversial documentary made in 2006 entitled The Bridge, made by Eric Steel. It chronicled 23 or 24 suicides and actually showed footage of 19 of them. I'm sure it's available somewhere. There is also a New Yorker Magazine article written by Tad Friend in 2003 entitled Jumpers, about the same phenomenon.
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The new yorker? lol, no not in this house. lol
 
Bump

I wanted to blow the cobwebs off of this thread. Perhaps some of the newer members here may have missed it.

It was a super entertaining, except for the bickering that went on at times from some people.

***READ Post #50 by SpiderWebComm. It's one of the top 2 or 3 posts ever written on these hallowed forums!

I saved a copy of it in a file of pool related material and still laugh at it everytime I read it.

(You should start with page 4, as the first 3 were had a lot of hissy-fits)
 
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Good thread to bump. Scotty is a legendary figure in the pool world, especially down south. I've had the pleasure of meeting him, but did not get to hear any stories :frown:,. Hope he is doing well.

It seems that these interesting characters of pool are becoming a thing of the past, but maybe it's just me and my generation getting older. But guys like Puckett, Jersey Red, Danny Jones, Flyboy, etc. seemed to be larger than life when I visited the poolrooms of Houston and Austin, TX, as a much younger man.
 
Terry Ardeno said:
I wanted to blow the cobwebs off of this thread. Perhaps some of the newer members here may have missed it.

It was a super entertaining, except for the bickering that went on at times from some people.

***READ Post #50 by SpiderWebComm. It's one of the top 2 or 3 posts ever written on these hallowed forums!

I saved a copy of it in a file of pool related material and still laugh at it everytime I read it.

(You should start with page 4, as the first 3 were had a lot of hissy-fits)
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Thanx for bringing this one up, Terry...I just read the whole thread.

One thing I don't understand is the OP mentioning snake bites like it
was unusual or something......
...what poolplayer who has bet his cash hasn't been snakebit?:eek::)
 
hes missed more than 1

TheHole said:
You can always catch Scotty T. @ The Hole Thang, www.theholethang.com , in Macon Ga every 3rd Saturday of the month for our $1000 added $25 entry 9-ball tournament that includes a FREE buffet spread for everyone in attendance. He has only missed one since we opened in early 2006. This monthly tournament is thrown just for the love of pool and to give back to so many good players that entertain us every month. This month's final results are:
8.Scotty Townsend $25
7. Bruce Berogne $25
6. Chad Royal $75
5. Edwin Merwin $75
4. Bryan White $200
3. Jessie Middlebrooks $300
2. Chuck Dorsett $450
1. Doug Young $850
Player auction paid $900 (first) $450 (second) $150 (third)
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a lot of people dont show up when tommy k runs the tourny and doubles the entry just to pocket half of it
 
How about an update on Scotty from someone. I haven't seen his name much lately. Is he still playing some?
 
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