Young U.S. 9 Ball players?
- Thread starter Ak Guy
- Start date
Jin of Team SLO. He beat the Lion.
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Haha. Yes!!
I don’t think Bergman is under 30.
Correct. He turned 31 on April 20th.
Yeah, my hunch is that based on how they have continued to improve, once you give Woodward (26) another 5 years of experience and Thorpe (21) another 10 years of experience, they both may likely be better than Bergman is at age 31. Without question, all three should be cementing our Mosconi Cup teams for the foreseeable future.
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The AzB database has Justin's date of birth as 8/20/1987. Is that incorrect?
Chris Robinson, in his early 20's, reached, if my memory serves, Round 10 in the Derby City Nine Ball event, and beat Justin Bergman along the way.
I see April 20, 1987, listed on the internet.
Here's a CSI news release from Aug. 25, 2016, during a tournament, saying Bergman "celebrated his 29th birthday on Friday...". http://www.playcsipool.com/uploads/7/3/5/9/7359673/pr160825.pdf
So this sort of confirms that his birthday is in August rather than April. However, the Friday prior to Aug. 25 that year was Aug. 19 rather than the 20th, so CSI may have gotten the day of the week wrong, saying Friday (which was the 19th) rather than Saturday (which was the 20th).
I've got a listing that says 8-20-87 as well
Tyler Styer... Danny Olson
Landon Shuffett
Landon Shuffett
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Forgot about Olson. Landon will be a weekend warrior once he starts working. Been told he's going to teach school. Never heard of Styer. Where's he from? Wisconsin kid?
youth players
Internationally some of the best players in the world are or achieved their success fairly young:
Wu was a world champ at 16.
Kaci just turned 19 and has been winning international events.
Aranas
Filler
Sanchez
Albin
Ruslan
Chen
It does feel like we don't have the same representation of junior players. It would be nice to have a few 16 and 17 year olds that are 770-780 fargo out of the chute, then as they become seasoned they grow super strong at 800+. Instead it seems our youth players are strong but stall out in the 750-780 range. This is obviously an extremely high level of pool, but it is the price of admission in the international events. It's enough to be competitive but not win.
To be fair, we don't need many 800 players to have our fair share of representation at the top. Before we say "We just have SVB" we have to remember that Dechaine is ranked 15th at 799 and Bergman is ranked 23rd at 793. So we have 3 players in the top 25. Taiwan has 5. Philippines have 7. Great Britain has 2. Many countries have one, and many others aren't on this list. We have to remember this isn't the 80s. Now that this game is world wide we can't expect the same market share.
The rewards for pool in the US may be an issue. I know Berg has said this. So has Dechaine. From this vantage it looks like we have the resources in terms of talent but not in terms of incentive.
Still, when kids are teenagers they should be able to put everything into pool. What I think I'm coming to believe is that for the US to turn out world champions, it helps a lot to get to the highest levels by the time they are 18. It seems like the costs of continuing to work on an international pool education beyond that is too high in the US compared to alternatives, and progress slows down once you've been at the same level too long. Chip Compton and Joey Gray have been in the 740-750 range for a few years now, it would take a lot for them to push through to 800+. I'd love to see it, but it's a hard road.
This thread started by asking about junior players. I think this is a good focus. I'm thinking if pool needs to improve in the US it isn't with our 20 and 25 year olds, it's with our 15 year olds. What needs to happen for us to produce 16 year old 200 ball runners?
Internationally some of the best players in the world are or achieved their success fairly young:
Wu was a world champ at 16.
Kaci just turned 19 and has been winning international events.
Aranas
Filler
Sanchez
Albin
Ruslan
Chen
It does feel like we don't have the same representation of junior players. It would be nice to have a few 16 and 17 year olds that are 770-780 fargo out of the chute, then as they become seasoned they grow super strong at 800+. Instead it seems our youth players are strong but stall out in the 750-780 range. This is obviously an extremely high level of pool, but it is the price of admission in the international events. It's enough to be competitive but not win.
To be fair, we don't need many 800 players to have our fair share of representation at the top. Before we say "We just have SVB" we have to remember that Dechaine is ranked 15th at 799 and Bergman is ranked 23rd at 793. So we have 3 players in the top 25. Taiwan has 5. Philippines have 7. Great Britain has 2. Many countries have one, and many others aren't on this list. We have to remember this isn't the 80s. Now that this game is world wide we can't expect the same market share.
The rewards for pool in the US may be an issue. I know Berg has said this. So has Dechaine. From this vantage it looks like we have the resources in terms of talent but not in terms of incentive.
Still, when kids are teenagers they should be able to put everything into pool. What I think I'm coming to believe is that for the US to turn out world champions, it helps a lot to get to the highest levels by the time they are 18. It seems like the costs of continuing to work on an international pool education beyond that is too high in the US compared to alternatives, and progress slows down once you've been at the same level too long. Chip Compton and Joey Gray have been in the 740-750 range for a few years now, it would take a lot for them to push through to 800+. I'd love to see it, but it's a hard road.
This thread started by asking about junior players. I think this is a good focus. I'm thinking if pool needs to improve in the US it isn't with our 20 and 25 year olds, it's with our 15 year olds. What needs to happen for us to produce 16 year old 200 ball runners?
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Just based on my observations regarding our poolroom, kids just aren't getting exposed to and hooked on pool at an early age nearly as much as they were just 15-20 years ago. I attended the BCA Junior Nationals with my son for two consecutive years around 2001-2002. The young US talent we had at one time back then was impressive - McMinn, Straun, Gray, Bergman, Hall, Occoa, just to name some of those I recall playing there. I would be shocked if you have that kind of young talent continuing to be developed from this country any more, with so little incentive for them to be able to make a decent living as a pro pool player. I don't know what's different in Europe or the Asian countries, but they seem to have no trouble producing numerous highly trained and talented players starting at a very young age - which is what it takes to become a great player by the time they reach 30.
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Sky, berg then thorpe