Why do people from Ohio think Ohio is the epicenter of Pool?

Xenia is near Akron/ Canton, isn't it? Any decent pool tourneys in your area?

Xenia is about 10 miles from Dayton going East. We are about 3 maybe 3 1/2 hours from Canton. Airway Billiards in Dayton has a Monday Night 9-ball tournament and a tournament every Saturday with a different game each week. The first Saturday of the month it is bank pool, the second Saturday 9-ball, third Saturday 8-ball and the fourth Saturday is a one pocket tournament.

They do have some good players in the Monday tournament with Ryan Stone, Frank Ruby, Joe Brown, Mike Grooms and sometimes Jason Miller. I'm sure I've forgotten a couple of others that are good too, but it only cost five dollars to enter so I figure that's good entertainment for the price.
 
This thread is heading in an unfortunate direction...

I love it!

Keep em coming.

Best,
Brian kc
p.s. the legend of Don Willis; was he a real person? :wink:


WTF? yes of course he was a real person.........and was a very high level player at table tennis also..........uhhhh and he ran with Lassiter.........ohio is too plain to just make up his story lol ( i had to bust the states nuts at least a little :)

harold worst is the only guy that ever really beat him in 9 ball...........thats why lassiter didn't show up when they both barked at each other because willis was lassiters main man and if worst slayed that dragon, you got to think that luther was pondering about all that real hard

4 dead in ohio,
-Grey Ghost
 
Id have to agree with this, I was at Action Billiards in Akron once just trying out the Diamond tables they have there. I played for about 10 minutes before I realized I was sharing a room with Corey Deuel, Kenny K. and Dave Brown.

You could go to 10 different pool halls here in SoCal and never see one guy with that talent. I think it may have something to do with the cold weather possibly the economic conditions of a rust belt state.

Ohio for one reason or another also produces the most dominant HighSchool and Collegiate Wrestlers. According to a friend at the University of Iowa, Ohio is on every college coaches recruiting itinerary.


So far as wrestling is concerned you are very right. If you watch the NCAA Finals in wrestling you will see that anywhere between 50-75% of the kids in the finals went to high school in NE Ohio. I know because I wrestled against those monsters. Saint Edwards was #1 in the country for over a decade when I was in school and they are still in the top 5 in the country 18 years later.

Heck even the public schools there get in school clinics with Olympic wrestlers. The difference is the private schools get gold medalists. I remember when the All Star Japanese wrestling team came over to wrestle our schools. They won exactly one match (not meet) during the time they were here going from school to school.
 
Why do they call Cleveland "The Mistake By The Lake?"

Because our sports teams have suffered miserably over the course of all mankind. We haven't won a World Series since 1948, a football championship since 1964 and as of never in the NBA. On the other hand Clevelanders drink like it's a major league sport and would definitely be in the playoffs every year if that were a sport.
 
Ohio is the 7 largest state in population plus it borders Penn, Illinois and Michigan and those rank 5, 6, and 8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

There are many great players from Toledo and I am sure that it helped by being close to Detroit where there were also a lot of great players. Cornbread being one

Plus they have a lot of large cites. It just becomes a number thing. Plus pool being a inside thing is more of a winter sport. People in warmer areas tend to play more outside. Ever notice how pool tends to drop off when summer comes?

I am sure that players from other cities visited to try and hustle the locals and may have ended up staying because of the easy pickings. This then in turn help create the pool interest and skill.

They also have Tom Simpson with his Pool School. :rolleyes:

As for the way they talk depends on what part of Ohio they are from. If it is from the southern part they have some of that southern accent.
 
Ohio is the 7 largest state in population plus it borders Penn, Illinois and Michigan and those rank 5, 6, and 8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

There are many great players from Toledo and I am sure that it helped by being close to Detroit where there were also a lot of great players. Cornbread being one

Plus they have a lot of large cites. It just becomes a number thing. Plus pool being a inside thing is more of a winter sport. People in warmer areas tend to play more outside. Ever notice how pool tends to drop off when summer comes?

I am sure that players from other cities visited to try and hustle the locals and may have ended up staying because of the easy pickings. This then in turn help create the pool interest and skill.

They also have Tom Simpson with his Pool School. :rolleyes:

As for the way they talk depends on what part of Ohio they are from. If it is from the southern part they have some of that southern accent.

Your post made me laugh at a memories of pulling up to the pool hall late at night during a blizzard to find that my truck was the only vehicle among a dozen or so snow mobiles parked in front.
 
You can answer that question with one name: Don Willis

Maybe not
How about George Rood
Joey Spaeth
Gary Spaeth
Donny Anderson
Kenny the Truck Driver
Troy Frank
some kid by the name of Duell

Promoters who could play...
Joe Burns
Russ Maddox
Joe Kerr

And I'd like to have a dollar for every time Chris Bartrum bet serious cash..
..I'd high-roll the Dipster giving ?? to 4

Middletown Whitey could play some also..and have a good time doing it..
..once he was getting buried at 1-pocket but his opponent messed up a
take-out and left the ball over Whitey's hole.Whitey starts laughing and
says "I might lose all my money but I WILL make this ball"
 
There seems to be a high number of cue makers from Ohio as well. I'm sure I've only noticed since I'm from Ohio but it's probably above the national average per state.
 
Sure there's been a couple of good players from there but...... :wink:

Okay, make your case.

Best,
Brian kc

Where did you get this impression?

Ther are something like 11 million people who live in Ohio.

Exactly how many of them have you heard express this opinion?
Perhaps it is you who is the dufus.

You could make a case for Ohio being very high in the rankings for
Bank Pool.

Dale
 
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Maybe not
How about George Rood
Joey Spaeth
Gary Spaeth
Donny Anderson
Kenny the Truck Driver
Troy Frank
some kid by the name of Cory Deuel............

ADD: Jr Gay (the Indian), Steve "the Mechanic" McAnnish, Ralf Carnes, Dee
Adkins, Chris Szuter and Jason Miller....

The Ohio State Open, Shamrock Shootout, The Akron Open and the Glass City Open not to mention Fiddlestix barbox tournaments (Canton/Chris Szuter) and the Viking Cue tour (Mike Janis)

In the 80's and the early 90's Ohio was the place to be for pool. It was a gateway to the east and west. Sadly, It dwindled to a mute point around the mid 90's and its still that way today, just like alot of places around the country....when we were young.....
 
Maybe not
How about George Rood
Joey Spaeth
Gary Spaeth
Donny Anderson
Kenny the Truck Driver
Troy Frank
some kid by the name of Cory Deuel............

ADD: Jr Gay (the Indian), Steve "the Mechanic" McAnnish, Ralf Carnes, Dee
Adkins, Chris Szuter and Jason Miller....

The Ohio State Open, Shamrock Shootout, The Akron Open and the Glass City Open not to mention Fiddlestix barbox tournaments (Canton/Chris Szuter) and the Viking Cue tour (Mike Janis)

In the 80's and the early 90's Ohio was the place to be for pool. It was a gateway to the east and west. Sadly, It dwindled to a mute point around the mid 90's and its still that way today, just like alot of places around the country....when we were young.....

Oh, man, how could we forget Jay Helfert???
 
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