Dominic Esposito became a Professional Pool Player at 19 years old, after 5 years of lessons with Straight Pool Champion, Thomas P. Parker, in Cleveland, Ohio. He married at age 21, but, his wife didn’t want to be married to a professional pool player. With that, he agreed to stop playing pool altogether.
Some 25 years later, after the loss of his first wife, he married Linda. On the way home from a visit to his daughter’s college union hall, Linda commented about his having played pool with the students. “I didn’t know you liked playing pool and I think it’s great if you wanted to play pool.” That’s all Esposito needed to hear that summer night in 2000.
While also finishing his doctoral studies at the time, he connected with the well-accomplished pool instructor, Tom Ross, to start a new coaching relation and practice regimen. By 2003, Esposito turned his practicing into a book and DVD called, Pro Skill Drills, volume No. 1. 54 Practice Drills for Cue Ball Speed and Position Control. This and other products that followed were endorsed by pool greats such as 8 Time World Champion and BAC Hall of Famer, Nick Varner.
All Esposito’s drill books are a tribute to his pool teacher Tom Parker. By 2005, Esposito had won his 3rd consecutive BCA 10 Ball Ring Game Championship, while continuing to play in many small local events. That same year to date, Esposito is a Columnist for POOL & BILLIARD Magazine.
For nine years he was endorsed and sponsored by Predator while continuing to produce more Pro Skill Drills books and DVDs and other pool training products. In 2006, he and his wife Linda owned and operated the Pool Hall of the Year, Fastbreak Billiards, in Orlando, Florida.
Esposito’s decision at the prime age of 50 was to make focus his number two passion for his future contribution to the billiard industry, namely as a PBIA Master Instructor and pool industry training product innovator. Certainly, his background as a businessman, teacher, published author and national public speaker contributed, but really, there is a greater reason than all that. Players started referring to Esposito as “The Drill Instructor” after he first nervously showed up to perform in the Predator booth, for the 2006 BCA National Pool Tournament, at the Riviera, in Las Vegas. From the moment he first walked onto the tournament floor, fully dressed out as a Drill Instructor with a cue in hand, the crowds were drawn and he never looked back.
Today the cartoon caricature of “The Drill Instructor” is how he dressed that first day of the BCA Nationals, at the Riviera, and today is the identifying brand trademark, that players quickly recognize. Esposito admits his return to the industry is larger than life and beyond anything he expected or envisioned back in 2000.
Every Tuesday night at 8:00 ET on Facebook Live, he reaches thousands of players around the world while teaching with his passion and pool drills learned from his youth by his teacher, Tom Parker. When asked, Esposito said, “My number one passion of all is for what God has provided me, namely, a worldwide platform to reach pool players that allows me to win some to God, through the message I share while doing something on a pool table. You could say, ‘I’m a man of the cloth and my cue stick is my staff to call, lead, and guide both sheep and goats through their game of pool and life.'”
Author: Dominic Esposito
Editor: Chris Freeman
Sponsored by Jacoby Custom Cues
