Good break: Lynchburg area pool players now in a league of their own
By Liz Barry on Jan. 18, 2008
Megan Lutz, 22, watches the game from her barstool perch, cigarette in hand and pool stick propped by her side. She munches from a basket of cheese fries.
Her boyfriend, Shawn Ashley, 22, leans over the pool table at the Moose Lodge, body still except for the flick of his eyeballs. He gauges his shot and shoots. A miss. He grabs a cheese fry from the basket.
Lutz and Ashley are two of the youngest and newest players of the Lynchburg chapter of the American Poolplayers Association (APA) league, which sports 300 members from the area. On a recent Tuesday night, Lutz and Ashley were recruited to play by Lutz’s father, Robbie Lutz, who has been with the league for three years.
With more than 250,000 members nationwide, APA is the governing body of amateur pool. The Lynchburg chapter has grown threefold since its inception five years ago, says Susan Kinsinger, managing partner of the local chapter.
The APA’s spring session kicked off this month, bringing together pool players from Appomattox to Bedford. In the past, Lynchburg was part of a regional league that spanned western and central Virginia.
When Kinsinger and her partner, Bruce Northrop, took over three months ago, they established a chapter just for the greater Lynchburg area. They went bar to bar recruiting players. The result: for the first time in five years, a local team will be guaranteed a spot at the national tournament in Las Vegas this summer.
THE MOOSE LODGE
The Moose Lodge on Waterlick Road is packed with pool players. On the tables lie sleek brown and black leather cases containing pool sticks, some costing over $1,000. The smell of cigarette smoke lingers in the air.
The pool league meets at sites throughout the area, including Cattle Annie’s and Rubs in Lynchburg, Billiard Parlor in Madison Heights and Tanner’s in Bedford. With six tables, the Moose is one of the league’s bigger sites.
The eight- and nine-ball teams have names like Mixed Nuts, and Rack ’Em and Crack ’Em. They are composed of between five and eight players. It costs $20 a year to be a member of the league, and each team pays $30 a week to play, which averages $6 per player. Each player is given a ranking according to ability, and the scores are adjusted accordingly. The handicap gives less-experienced players a chance to rack up points for their team, even against more seasoned opponents.
Kinsinger estimates that the average player is about 35 years old, but age runs the gamut from 18 to upwards of 75. The league’s about 85 percent men, but the number of women has been increasing.
Belinda Plymak from Amherst is one of the newest female players. She came to Amherst from Richmond last spring and joined the league, in part, to meet people.
“Pool is not sexist at all,” Plymak says. “It goes completely by skill. They don’t rank you because you’re a man or a woman. It’s true there’s more men than women who play pool, but I think that’s just
culture.”
VEGAS BOUND
All of the Lynchburg teams are competing for a chance to play in APA’s national tournament in Las Vegas. Last August, the team captained by Vinnie Lipscomb, 49, made it to Sin City. That was before the Lynchburg-only chapter was created, so the team had to defeat opponents from as far away as Roanoke and Christiansburg.
Lipscomb is from Madison Heights and runs a machine at O’Neal Steel. He has been with the APA for five years and has been playing for about 30 years.
“Matter of fact,” he says, “I used to skip school to play pool.”
For Lipscomb, playing in Las Vegas was one of the greatest honors of his pool-playing career. Lipscomb finds it hard to articulate what exactly it is about the game that keeps him shooting.
“I just love playing pool,” he says. “But I don’t play as much as I’d like to.”
How much would that be?
“Everyday,” he says.
But other responsibilities beckon: a family and job, to name a few.
“The grandbabies are more important than pool,” he says.
Lynchburg native Jeep Jones, 49, was also on the Vegas team. He joined the pool league two years ago and shoots with a pool stick that set him back $1,300: a handmade German Schon.
Jones’ wife Sue is a regular at his games, but won’t join the league herself.
“I’m a cheerleader,” Sue Jones says. “The biggest cheerleader.”
FRIENDLY COMPETITION
David Watson has been playing pool for 48 years. He’s known as one of the area’s best players. But for Watson, pool is not all about the game; it’s also social.
For example, Watson, 63, has formed a friendship outside of APA with Gregg Tibbs, 29, despite the age difference. They play golf together and shoot pool at Watson’s home.
“You have riff-raff like him,” Watson jokes, pointing to Tibbs, “and pillars of the community like me.”
Watson may joke, but he emphasizes that league’s diversity of ages and backgrounds is one of its strengths.
Back to Robbie Lutz, the single parent who recruited his daughter and her boyfriend to play. Even when games get tense, he says team members offer words of encouragement.
“The really nice thing about the league is that it’s a bunch of people who would work with you and try to improve you,” Lutz says.
Ashley lines up for another shot.
“Alright Shawn,” Lipscomb says from the other table. “Get these last three points,”
Shawn sinks the last two balls on the table and wins the rack.
COMMENTS