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Billiards a game of love for some
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The Fruit Loops pool team is sponsored by Jack’s Bar & Grill in Warren. Team members, from left, are (front row) Tami Harned, Sherrie Jenkins, Kathy Burke; (back row) Chad Dailey, Chris Littell, Jack Harned and Dave Everett. They will be competing in an amateur tournament in Las Vegas.
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Members of the Rally Monkeys pool team will be heading to Las Vegas to compete in a 8 ball tournament. Lining up a shot is Linda Brickley. Looking on and giving advice are other members from left: John Samulka, Robert Hamilton, George Hamilton Jr., Charlie Brown Jr. Jim Wagner and John Ferraton.
By ADAM LITTMAN
Special to The Vindicator
Pool might not be known as the sport of love, but it made a nice aphrodisiac for at least two Valley couples.
Ericka and Kirk Flaherty have been dating for five years after meeting 10 years ago while playing for opposite pool teams, and Tami and Jack Harned have been married for more than 10 years after meeting while playing pool in 1990.
“I saw her [at] a pool table and said to myself, ‘I’m going to fall in love with that girl,’” said Jack Harned, of Vienna.
And now both couples, along with many other Valley pool players, are heading to the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas for the biggest amateur pool competition in North America. The Flahertys are competing in the 2010 APA 9-Ball National Team Championship, which runs through Monday, and the Harneds are competing in the 2010 APA 8-Ball National Team Championships, which is Sunday through Aug. 28.
All teams are comprised of eight members, with the winners of the 9-ball tournament getting $15,000 and the winning 8-ball team earning $25,000. More than 700 teams from around the country compete in the Vegas tournaments.
The Flahertys, of Youngstown, compete for The Wascals, a team from the Budapest Tavern in Austintown, while the Harneds play for the Fruit Loops from Jack’s Bar & Grill in Warren.
In total, 11 teams are heading to Las Vegas from the eastern Ohio franchise of the American Poolplayers Association, which is the 10th largest in the country, according to Bernie Pavlock, the league’s operator along with Nouhad Pavlock.
Pavlock has played pool for 40 years, and started the eastern Ohio portion of the APA 28 years ago.
“My No. 1 favorite thing about pool is that anyone can play,” he said. “I didn’t play football, baseball or basketball. But I wanted to compete in something. Everyone has that instinct to compete, but not everyone has the ability to play those other sports. In pool, you could be the best player in your town, go somewhere else and get beat by someone’s next door neighbor or mother-in-law.”
The 11 teams going are the second most in the franchise’s history, Pavlock said, with the 12 that went in 2008 being the most. The best finish from an Eastern Ohio team was a third-place finish by a team from McDonald back in the 1980s, Pavlock said.
Harned, who owns Jack’s Bar & Grill, is in the tournament for the second straight year, and is coming off his personal best in the roughly six times he’s competed. His team last year, the Sandbaggers, finished 33rd out of the 711 competing teams. Even though he’s been to the tournament before, and has been playing pool since 1972, Harned is still excited to compete.
“The only word to explain it is ‘wow,’” he said. “When you walk into that big banquet room and see those 160 tables lined up, one after another after another, it’s just ‘wow.’”
But once you get past the biggest pool hall you’ve ever seen, the competition can be quite cut-throat.
“Everybody’s friendly, but they’re your enemy too,” said Youngstown’s Ericka Flaherty, who competed in the 9-ball tournament in 1999. “It’s not nearly as laid back as it is here. They need to see your ID and [APA] membership card or else you’re disqualified, and you have to know all the rules really well. People try to nitpick and call you out on rules violations, and do anything they can to win.”
This is the first time the Flahertys will go to the Vegas tournaments on the same team. Kirk competed in the solo competition back in 2000 or 2001.
The Flahertys are co-captains of the team they started about three years ago, and Kirk said they practice against one another on occasion.
One of Harned’s favorite things about pool is that men and women can play together.
“It’s equal for everyone,” he said. “It’s not as physical a sport as bowling or golf, where if you’re stronger you can roll the ball faster or hit the ball farther.”