A few months ago a fairly popular guy on this forum, Smokey, was banned. I have no knowledge about the circumstances around his banning other than that he does take full responsibility for what happened, but I do know he's a first class individual.
Around the time of his banning, he did an incredible thing. However, he told me not to tell anyone about it. To this point I've respected his request, even in private one-on-one conversations. But now he's decided I can share what he did. So here it is.
You may remember this thread from January:
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=86418
That thread certainly caught my eye. I'm a volunteer for one of the local Boys and Girls clubs here in Las Vegas. I do two things--first and most importantly, I help a lot of kids with their homework. Many of these kids don't have dads, or have relatively inattentive parents, or don't have parents at all and live with foster parents or relatives. A lot of these kids come from households that do not stress education. That is why I started there, to give back some to the community.
The second thing I do there is I beat all their little butts at pool. Ok, only the older kids. But all of them I coach, and in my time there the three pool tables have gone from sporadic use to constant use from open to close, always with a line. And some of the kids seem to have a real talent, talent that I'm trying my best (as a B- player) to cultivate.
But this isn't about me. That, however, was my situation when I opened the above thread, and saw that some guy who lives here in Las Vegas wants to donate cues to kids who can't otherwise afford them.
So I sent him an email, explaining much of what I just did above, figuring there's no way this guy could say no. Well, he did. He said the cues simply would not be a good fit for the club.
What a *****! Couldn't he see that these talented kids who are the future of the game, who sometimes barely have adequate school supplies, would absolutely love to have their own cues? Who else is more deserving?
That's when Smokey shared with me some of his wisdom:
"You have hundreds of kids who go there, many of whom play pool. You easily have dozens who would love their own cue. I only two cues to gives. What your kids need is something they all can enjoy. I have something else in mind for your club."
He told me his idea. First, he had to stop by and check the place out. So a week or so after we first communicated by email, the first I met him was at the Boys and Girls Club, looking exactly like his avatar, that is to say he looked completely different from the type of person you'd expect to be doing a generous and selfless deed. Isn't he the type of bad influence we're trying to keep the kids away from?
He was polite, gracious, and funny from the start. His heart and sincerity shown through immediately.
He looked at our pool tables. One Olhausen that used to be nice, but now was well worn, with holes, tears and wear all over the felt. Plus two other nameless tables with rock-hard bumpers, felt literally coming up or stapled down in places, and pockets that would occasionally just fall out onto the floor, or allow the balls to do so.
His idea was this:
"I will donate to have all these tables refinished. You talk to A1 billiards and find out what you need, and I'll write the check."
We needed new rubber, new felt, new pockets, all the tables needed to be leveled...and he was going to foot the entire bill.
I'm a guy who never, ever, counts his chickens until they've hatched, so every step of the way I expected this guy to just disappear. No one is this generous. But he never did disappear, and all of a sudden there he was in the club writing out a four-figure check to people he's never met before, to pay to have three pool tables completely refinished so a bunch of kids he's never met before, and many more he will never meet, will have proper equipment to play on.
What do you say to a guy like that? I couldn't think of anything, besides just, "thank you" over and over.
Within a week the guys from A1 billiards were over, ripping the worn, dilapidated tables apart, and putting them back together looking nearly brand new.
That one act sparked even more interest in pool, as now the tables were the nicest looking and playing equipment in the game room. Ping pong, bumper pool, board games, all took a backseat to the shiny new pool tables.
Kids as young as five beg to play me, and others as old as 18 challenge me. Some of these kids used to look at the pool tables and roll their eyes; now they clamor for just one more game.
I wish I could play more of them, but usually there's so many kids playing, and so many more waiting, that I can't get in any table time anyways. I'm definitely not complaining.
In my eyes, Smokey is the exact type of person the pool world needs to have. Many other sports have outreach programs, where through the specific sport, be it tennis or basketball or football or whatever, kids are taught, for free, how to play and excel at the sport, but more importantly how to work and achieve their own goals, and to develop self esteem, and to learn how to win or lose properly. Most importantly, the kids are given productive, alternative activities to just sitting around watching TV, or smoking pot, or getting into fights or gangs.
Thanks to his generous donation, and thanks to a few others from this board who have also very generously donated to the club, Las Vegas now has a small community of young kids who love the game and love to get better at the game. If we had people like Smokey in every city, pool could experience a drastic rebirth in less than a generation.
He is truly an asset to our community. All I can do is say, once again,
"Thank you, Smokey."
!!!!!
But, all is well that ends well!!!!!!