I cannot even begin to elaborate on how much playing pool has changed my life.
As a league operator in a small North Central Ohio area (Richland & Crawford Counties) I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people in the two years since I became an operator and the eight years since I started playing pool.
Playing this game has enabled me to meet people whom I never would have that have a love of the game as I do, and others who are in it just for the money.
For me, one of the best things that I have been blessed to do in this last year is to be involved in a junior league of sorts. I talked to one of the local players (Carl Davis), who runs one of our area tournaments to see if he would be interested in running a small Junior League over the summer. This way kids that dont participate in other sports would have something to do that they enjoy and could be involved in learning.
These are our future players.
I was never into the other sports growing up, but I could sit and watch games of pool for hours.
Photo: Rosanna Ramirez
I would like to congratualte all of the kids that participated in these summer tournaments and took the time to learn how to play BCAPL rules. The first tournament only had three kids show up, we still played—two weeks later when we held the second tournament, we had seven players.
For the rest of the summer, we played every two weeks.
The kids were allowed to pick an adult coach for the first two times they played, after that they could ask their opponent or the tournament director if they were unsure of something.
Each of the kids were given a rulebook.
I have to say that I absolutely enjoyed watching them learn and play and the excitment they showed to learn the game 🙂
I would like to thank all of the kids that participated and thank their parents for allowing them to: Noah Hall, Colton Eckard, Mariah Gambill, Heather Newman, Chelsie Betancourt, Desiny Valdez, Quinten Scott, Breona Scott, Nick Johnston, Rebecca Vance and Korrey Vance, Jr.
I am so proud of them all. This year it was started quickly after a conversation just to see if there was an interest. We will do this again next year but with better planning involved.
Hopefully we can get donations of trophies and such to give to the kids. Even some of the other adult players that would like to give an half-hour of their time to work with them.
Rosanna Ramirez is the graphic artist for Sneaky Pete Mafia.
Photo: Rosanna Ramirez
Editor: Dana Gornall