Who were the most talented junior players, who disappeared from competition?

J

justinb386

Banned
I was just watching an old Billy Thorpe match on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l-GlZi68yo), and it made me wonder about all of the very talented junior players who seemed to have disappeared from competition (maybe due to the need to study as hard as possible in college, and not have time for pool competition any longer, or maybe for other unknown reasons).

It makes me think that if pool were as popular as baseball, or golf for example (and paid big bucks to the pro's, like in those sports), and many of these very talented junior players would not have disappeared, and who knows how great they could have become (by playing pool full time).

It makes me think that in another world (where pool was as popular as baseball or Hockey), there might be many (who knows how many) players here in the US that play even stronger then SVB.

Landon Shuffett comes to mind (even though I understand that he did not really quit, and still plays, and loves the game, but he did not try to turn pro and play full time, and decided to go to college instead), but I do not know about any others.

Thanks for any thoughts about this, or info about junior players who you knew of, who may not even have been that well known before they seemed to have quit, but you thought of them to have incredible talent on the pool table, and may have grew up to become a world champion (if we lived in a different world, where pool was a national mainstream popular sport, among the general public, and major non pool related sponsors).
 
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I'm sure there are many very talented junior players who still play but just aren't in the spotlight because they have lives and jobs outside of pool.

I saw both Justin Bergman and John Morra play in the BCA Junior Nationals, and someone who impressed me about as much as they did at that level was Austin Murphy.
 
PoolBum said:
I'm sure there are many very talented junior players who still play but just aren't in the spotlight because they have lives and jobs outside of pool.

I saw both Justin Bergman and John Morra play in the BCA Junior Nationals, and someone who impressed me about as much as they did at that level was Austin Murphy.
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I wish there were some video to be found on Austin Murphy playing pool. I can only find 1 short video of him playing Reyes in an exhibition, and it was a very short video. He was only 14 at the time.

How good was he the last time you seen him compete?
 
One of the greatest juniors ever was legendary player Joe Balsis, who walked away from the pro game for close to twenty years to join the family business, which was meat. He came back to pool with a vengeance at the age of about 40 and won enough titles from that point forward to earn a spot in the BCA Hall of Fame.

Of course, we must now count former junior champion John Morra, a DCC banks champion and a Super Billiards Expo 10 ball champion, as a fine young player that has left the game.
 
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justinb386 said:
I wish there were some video to be found on Austin Murphy playing pool. I can only find 1 short video of him playing Reyes in an exhibition, and it was a very short video. He was only 14 at the time.

How good was he the last time you seen him compete?
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The only time I saw him play was in the BCA Junior Nationals, around 2006. I thought he was about as impressive at that age as Bergman and Morra were. Very smooth player with solid fundamentals who could move the cueball around effortlessly.
 
Mark Beilfuss (just quit on top at a young age) and Chan Witt (died in a car accident) are the first two that come to mind. A few years ago there was the Engel kid from Minnesota, another great young player who just disappeared. A little further back we had Jon Kucharo from Iowa who was a world beater at 20-21 and out of competition by age 24.
 
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Their is a gentleman that pops up at the local pool hall in Houston whenever one of his old buddies is in town.I happened to be playing Buddy Hall a couple of years ago and he showed up to say hi to his old friend.His name is Keith Thompson.He won the Johnson city all round when he was 18 or 19 I believe.He is a super nice guy and though I don't know how well he played I know he had to play pretty sporty to do that.He said when he got back to Houston he quit playing.Like literally won the event and gave it up and worked ever since.Said quitting pool was the best thing he ever did and he had just won a world championship when he did.I would put him on the list.
 
jay helfert said:
Mark Beilfuss (just quit on top at a young age) and Chan Witt (died in a car accident) are the first two that come to mind. A few years ago there was the Engle kid from Minnesota, another great young player who just disappeared. A little further back we had Jon Kucharo from Iowa who was a world beater at 20-21 and out of competition by age 24.
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Funny, Mark Beilfus was the first name I thought of.
I always thought Troy Frank would be a top player, guess he just lost the desire.
 
Put_upor_shutup said:
Their is a gentleman that pops up at the local pool hall in Houston whenever one of his old buddies is in town.I happened to be playing Buddy Hall a couple of years ago and he showed up to say hi to his old friend.His name is Keith Thompson.He won the Johnson city all round when he was 18 or 19 I believe.He is a super nice guy and though I don't know how well he played I know he had to play pretty sporty to do that.He said when he got back to Houston he quit playing.Like literally won the event and gave it up and worked ever since.Said quitting pool was the best thing he ever did and he had just won a world championship when he did.I would put him on the list.
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Yep, Keith Thompson won the Johnston City All-Around title in 1970.
 
NO Young Talent Today

Very simple answer, in 2002 my son was arguably one of the best five 16 year old player in the U.S. Only names like Josh Brothers, Shane Winters could beat him. He had a super stroke, 20-15 eyesight, and hand eye coordination that was evidenced by strong performances in other athletic sports in high school. He was natural for pool in every sense, but we never pushed any career future in pool beyond that point- he is now a very successful 30 year old college grad living single in NYC, paying his own way and earning above $200,000K per year in a business field. any doubts that pool would have been a dead end compared to the future that now lies in front of him- NONE whatsoever! In some ways I wish that it were different, but there is no longer the prospect of living a nice life under Brunswick sponsorship or any other corporate backing.
 
justinb386 said:
I was just watching an old Billy Thorpe match on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l-GlZi68yo), and it made me wonder about all of the very talented junior players who seemed to have disappeared from competition (maybe due to the need to study as hard as possible in college, and not have time for pool competition any longer, or maybe for other unknown reasons).

It makes me think that if pool were as popular as baseball, or golf for example (and paid big bucks to the pro's, like in those sports), and many of these very talented junior players would not have disappeared, and who knows how great they could have become (by playing pool full time).

It makes me think that in another world (where pool was as popular as baseball or Hockey), there might be many (who knows how many) players here in the US that play even stronger then SVB.

Landon Shuffett comes to mind (even though I understand that he did not really quit, and still plays, and loves the game, but he did not try to turn pro and play full time, and decided to go to college instead), but I do not know about any others.

Thanks for any thoughts about this, or info about junior players who you knew of, who may not even have been that well known before they seemed to have quit, but you thought of them to have incredible talent on the pool table, and may have grew up to become a world champion (if we lived in a different world, where pool was a national mainstream popular sport, among the general public, and major non pool related sponsors).
Click to expand...
Justin Bryson comes to mind, IIRC !!!
 
jay helfert said:
Mark Beilfuss (just quit on top at a young age) and Chan Witt (died in a car accident) are the first two that come to mind. A few years ago there was the Engel kid from Minnesota, another great young player who just disappeared. A little further back we had Jon Kucharo from Iowa who was a world beater at 20-21 and out of competition by age 24.
Click to expand...

I watched Mark play at the Velvet Rail in Lansing MI many times in the mid/70's. During one 14.1 event he beat both Joe Balsis and Irving Crane running more than 90 and out on each of them. He was 16 at the time. Quite the 14.1 machine was he.
 
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