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01-03-2005, 03:34 AM
Amateur leagues offer pool competition in Acadiana
By STEVEN K. LANDRY
Special to The Advocate
LAFAYETTE -- "I'm stumped, I'm stumped," says a distraught Wallace Boutin, his baseball cap askew, his cue stick in hand on a recent league night at The Wagon Wheel along Cameron Street.
He looks toward his captain, Huey Myers, who calls "time" and discusses the next move for his eight-member team, Tryin' to Make It.
On this late-December Wednesday, they're playing The Hard Eights, considered the "visiting" team.
This time, on their "home" table, Myers' advice goes unheeded, and Boutin misses his next shot. He loses to Hard Eights captain Pat Hoyem.
Myers' team would eventually win its match, three games to two.
"I was trying to look for my run," the 26-year-old Boutin sighs. "But I can't find it."
Hundreds around Acadiana find their "run," however, each week in little-known amateur pool leagues. They compete weekly on the rectangular, generally 5-by-10-foot tables for fun, but most are vying for a trip to Las Vegas four tournaments in August, when thousands of dollars are at stake.
A late-1980s Erath-Delcambre ladies team won $25,000.
About 300 teams and more than 2,500 Acadiana-area men and women are members of the American Poolplayers Association, which unites lovers of a sport that is still, in some circles, misunderstood.
Pool -- actually a form of billiards -- has historically been viewed as an endeavor played in smoky barrooms, where shady bookmakers gather and even-shadier players hustle for money.
Think of a brash, disingenuous Paul Newman in "The Hustler," or arrogant, self-absorbed Tom Cruise in "The Color Of Money."
"Well, we can't do anything about the smoky barrooms," laughs American Poolplayers Association President Renee Poehlman of St. Louis, Mo. "But we encourage sportsmanship. We expect a certain level of behavior."
Fistfights, arguments and cheating can get you kicked out of the association. "It happens, but not very often," says local franchise co-owner Lisa Granger, who quit her job to make a living with her husband, Preston, by organizing the leagues. They're known as league operators.
"There's still a little bit of that (questionable pool-playing), but a lot of that has changed through the years," Preston Granger says. "If anybody is shady, we try to stop all of that."
"If we have to, yes, we discipline," his wife says. "Cheating can get you two weeks suspension. If we hear of it again, then you're out the whole session."
The American Poolplayers Association, founded by professional pool players Terry Bell and Larry Hubbart in 1979 as the National Pool League, changed its name in 1981.
The Grangers have had their business, as franchisees for a multiparish area under American Poolplayers Association guidelines, for 15 years.
At the national level, the association guarantees more than $1 million in national tournament prize money, including the $500,000 APA 8-Ball National Team Championships, the $200,000 APA 8-Ball Classic, the $100,000 APA 9-Ball National Team Championship and the $100,000 APA 9-Ball Shootout.
Locally, Lisa Granger league play is geared toward slower nights at bars or lounges, to rake in business. Bar owners furnish the home players with T-shirts.
There are about 100 locations around Acadiana. The pool leagues are similar to bowling leagues or golf, in which "handicapping" -- that is, allowing less-talented players to compete against more-talented ones -- is used to even the green-felted playing field.
The American Poolplayers Association uses The Equalizer system, a registered handicapping and scoring guide.
"It allows, on any night, anyone a chance to win," she says. "If you're a better player than I am, you may have to win more games than I do."
The basic rules of pool are simple, and most everyone knows them.
In the game of "8-ball," for example, you would want to tap in every ball of your own stripe- or solid-colored hue, while avoiding hitting the black 8-ball into a pocket until the last shot.
Billiards itself morphed over centuries, probably beginning as a lawn game similar to croquet. The green felt of indoor billiard tables simulate grass.
Back at The Wagon Wheel, Lisa Granger shouts above Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" blasting out of a karaoke group on the other end of the bar.
In another moment, Chris White, a 30-year-old Hard Eights member who awaits his turn to play, tries his vocals on Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel."
Some nights, in fact, players show up but are not needed against that particular team.
"Remember," Granger says, "it's not always the best of the best who go to Vegas. Out of our nearly 3,000 members, we have maybe 50 '7s'. We have about 600 '6s'. Most of the times, people come out for fun, like their 'fun night out'. That's probably the only time they play pool."
A "7" is the highest skill level, a "2" the lowest. Generally, a player must win one less game than his ranking. A "5," for example, may have to win four games against a "3" level. "In other words," explains Hard Eights "5" player Emile Fourcade, "I could win four straight, but it might get down to three games to two and the next game decides who wins."
As Hard Eights scorekeeper Mona Guidry says from her scorer's table a few feet away from the main table, the games are closely monitored, so suspect play is rarely successful.
"There's too many people watching," the Breaux Bridge resident says, keeping her eye on the game in front of her. "Sometimes they'll have arguments about the rules. But we've got the rule books right here. A few weeks back, on a break, the rule book was unclear, so we called Preston and Lisa to clear it up."
Lisa Granger says each team's score sheet is checked by opposing teams, then signed and turned in to "runners," who later bring the sheets to the Grangers for computer processing.
Basically, a team has three chances, summer, fall and spring, to qualify for the Vegas trip.
The Grangers hope to send five 8-ball teams in August, three 9-ball teams and one ladies team.
Last year, an Acadiana team came out 64th, competing against 600 teams. They took home about $3,000.
Poehlman, 41, says she's been with the business since 1987 and has been president since the late 1990s. "We franchise in all but four states," Poehlman says. "Alaska is coming on in January. We don't have APA in Hawaii, Utah, or North Dakota."
She says the association founders developed a set of nationally sanctioned rules and used the association as sort of a "farm system" to cull and lure great players into the professional ranks.
In 1987, the American Poolplayers Association boasted 70,000 members. It's now up to more than 250,000 across North America.
The Grangers say they do make money on the league, which requires yearly dues and a token amount each week to play, and that they've grown since the late 1980s and are now financially able to send teams to Las Vegas.
Any night in the Abbeville-Erath-Kaplan area, 30 teams may be competing in leagues, and even more nearer to Lafayette. Preston Granger -- whose brother is pro bowler Purvis Granger -- echoes his wife, in that the association is seen as an amateur league and anyone can play.
"Out of the entire league, even though there are good pool players, and some of them are really good, I don't think they'd have much of a chance in the professional league."
Yet you can't tell anything is "amateur" by the players' focused demeanors at The Wagon Wheel.
Hoyem complains about the lights flickering as he bends down to shoot. It's a psychological tactic called "sharking," meant to disrupt concentration. But that, too, is illegal in American Poolplayers Association play. "Stop that!" he says testily. "We're not doing anything," the opposing team rejoins in unison.
Satisfied, Hoyem makes his shot and grins. And what about the occasional foul player?
"They're not going to pool heaven," jokes Fourcade. "Maybe they're going to pool purgatory, where they never make the 8-ball."
Click here to return to story:
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/010305/new_pool001.shtml
By STEVEN K. LANDRY
Special to The Advocate
LAFAYETTE -- "I'm stumped, I'm stumped," says a distraught Wallace Boutin, his baseball cap askew, his cue stick in hand on a recent league night at The Wagon Wheel along Cameron Street.
He looks toward his captain, Huey Myers, who calls "time" and discusses the next move for his eight-member team, Tryin' to Make It.
On this late-December Wednesday, they're playing The Hard Eights, considered the "visiting" team.
This time, on their "home" table, Myers' advice goes unheeded, and Boutin misses his next shot. He loses to Hard Eights captain Pat Hoyem.
Myers' team would eventually win its match, three games to two.
"I was trying to look for my run," the 26-year-old Boutin sighs. "But I can't find it."
Hundreds around Acadiana find their "run," however, each week in little-known amateur pool leagues. They compete weekly on the rectangular, generally 5-by-10-foot tables for fun, but most are vying for a trip to Las Vegas four tournaments in August, when thousands of dollars are at stake.
A late-1980s Erath-Delcambre ladies team won $25,000.
About 300 teams and more than 2,500 Acadiana-area men and women are members of the American Poolplayers Association, which unites lovers of a sport that is still, in some circles, misunderstood.
Pool -- actually a form of billiards -- has historically been viewed as an endeavor played in smoky barrooms, where shady bookmakers gather and even-shadier players hustle for money.
Think of a brash, disingenuous Paul Newman in "The Hustler," or arrogant, self-absorbed Tom Cruise in "The Color Of Money."
"Well, we can't do anything about the smoky barrooms," laughs American Poolplayers Association President Renee Poehlman of St. Louis, Mo. "But we encourage sportsmanship. We expect a certain level of behavior."
Fistfights, arguments and cheating can get you kicked out of the association. "It happens, but not very often," says local franchise co-owner Lisa Granger, who quit her job to make a living with her husband, Preston, by organizing the leagues. They're known as league operators.
"There's still a little bit of that (questionable pool-playing), but a lot of that has changed through the years," Preston Granger says. "If anybody is shady, we try to stop all of that."
"If we have to, yes, we discipline," his wife says. "Cheating can get you two weeks suspension. If we hear of it again, then you're out the whole session."
The American Poolplayers Association, founded by professional pool players Terry Bell and Larry Hubbart in 1979 as the National Pool League, changed its name in 1981.
The Grangers have had their business, as franchisees for a multiparish area under American Poolplayers Association guidelines, for 15 years.
At the national level, the association guarantees more than $1 million in national tournament prize money, including the $500,000 APA 8-Ball National Team Championships, the $200,000 APA 8-Ball Classic, the $100,000 APA 9-Ball National Team Championship and the $100,000 APA 9-Ball Shootout.
Locally, Lisa Granger league play is geared toward slower nights at bars or lounges, to rake in business. Bar owners furnish the home players with T-shirts.
There are about 100 locations around Acadiana. The pool leagues are similar to bowling leagues or golf, in which "handicapping" -- that is, allowing less-talented players to compete against more-talented ones -- is used to even the green-felted playing field.
The American Poolplayers Association uses The Equalizer system, a registered handicapping and scoring guide.
"It allows, on any night, anyone a chance to win," she says. "If you're a better player than I am, you may have to win more games than I do."
The basic rules of pool are simple, and most everyone knows them.
In the game of "8-ball," for example, you would want to tap in every ball of your own stripe- or solid-colored hue, while avoiding hitting the black 8-ball into a pocket until the last shot.
Billiards itself morphed over centuries, probably beginning as a lawn game similar to croquet. The green felt of indoor billiard tables simulate grass.
Back at The Wagon Wheel, Lisa Granger shouts above Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" blasting out of a karaoke group on the other end of the bar.
In another moment, Chris White, a 30-year-old Hard Eights member who awaits his turn to play, tries his vocals on Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel."
Some nights, in fact, players show up but are not needed against that particular team.
"Remember," Granger says, "it's not always the best of the best who go to Vegas. Out of our nearly 3,000 members, we have maybe 50 '7s'. We have about 600 '6s'. Most of the times, people come out for fun, like their 'fun night out'. That's probably the only time they play pool."
A "7" is the highest skill level, a "2" the lowest. Generally, a player must win one less game than his ranking. A "5," for example, may have to win four games against a "3" level. "In other words," explains Hard Eights "5" player Emile Fourcade, "I could win four straight, but it might get down to three games to two and the next game decides who wins."
As Hard Eights scorekeeper Mona Guidry says from her scorer's table a few feet away from the main table, the games are closely monitored, so suspect play is rarely successful.
"There's too many people watching," the Breaux Bridge resident says, keeping her eye on the game in front of her. "Sometimes they'll have arguments about the rules. But we've got the rule books right here. A few weeks back, on a break, the rule book was unclear, so we called Preston and Lisa to clear it up."
Lisa Granger says each team's score sheet is checked by opposing teams, then signed and turned in to "runners," who later bring the sheets to the Grangers for computer processing.
Basically, a team has three chances, summer, fall and spring, to qualify for the Vegas trip.
The Grangers hope to send five 8-ball teams in August, three 9-ball teams and one ladies team.
Last year, an Acadiana team came out 64th, competing against 600 teams. They took home about $3,000.
Poehlman, 41, says she's been with the business since 1987 and has been president since the late 1990s. "We franchise in all but four states," Poehlman says. "Alaska is coming on in January. We don't have APA in Hawaii, Utah, or North Dakota."
She says the association founders developed a set of nationally sanctioned rules and used the association as sort of a "farm system" to cull and lure great players into the professional ranks.
In 1987, the American Poolplayers Association boasted 70,000 members. It's now up to more than 250,000 across North America.
The Grangers say they do make money on the league, which requires yearly dues and a token amount each week to play, and that they've grown since the late 1980s and are now financially able to send teams to Las Vegas.
Any night in the Abbeville-Erath-Kaplan area, 30 teams may be competing in leagues, and even more nearer to Lafayette. Preston Granger -- whose brother is pro bowler Purvis Granger -- echoes his wife, in that the association is seen as an amateur league and anyone can play.
"Out of the entire league, even though there are good pool players, and some of them are really good, I don't think they'd have much of a chance in the professional league."
Yet you can't tell anything is "amateur" by the players' focused demeanors at The Wagon Wheel.
Hoyem complains about the lights flickering as he bends down to shoot. It's a psychological tactic called "sharking," meant to disrupt concentration. But that, too, is illegal in American Poolplayers Association play. "Stop that!" he says testily. "We're not doing anything," the opposing team rejoins in unison.
Satisfied, Hoyem makes his shot and grins. And what about the occasional foul player?
"They're not going to pool heaven," jokes Fourcade. "Maybe they're going to pool purgatory, where they never make the 8-ball."
Click here to return to story:
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/010305/new_pool001.shtml