By Jim Parker

      “Of any and all games offering such wholesome physical and mental benefits, in the infinite recorded history of humankind there has never been one with a history as long and enduring that has “consistently”; managed for more than the past 50 years  ... to merely eke out such an existence of professional mediocrity, and provided so little for the children of the world, as the public-side of billiards.”;

      “This year, 2002, and long overdue, its come time to overcome this inscrutable tradition, and at long last, within a wholesome environment, give the children of the world an opportunity to learn and enjoy the age-old game of billiards. ... And to do so, by them teaming-up with a man that by evolution and love, will be their partner for life ... their father.”;

“The Federation of Fathers and Sons of American Billiards”;

      Never before as in the 20th century, has any century ended with such profound improvement and greater distance from when it first began. As we entered the 1900s, we were a society that traveled by foot, train, horseback and boat. We had yet learned to fly and seen but precious few automobiles. As a nation, we were much closer to the civil war, than to civil rights. Modern forms of communications were only beginning to emerge with some 18 telephones for every 1,000 Americans, most of which were used in business.

      At the close of this century, we could now by air, transverse our entire nation in less than 6 hours. We’ve long since watched as John Glenn soared into the heavens to establish our nations first extraterrestrial flight around the world. ... Or watched as Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon. Through the sheer wonder of cyberspace, we’ve seen this miracle-like technology benefit the entire human race.

      While all the knowledge of the universe that came before this 20th century, could now be both enhanced and dwarfed by the technology brought about within these passed 100 years, there’s one thing that remains unchanged and constant. ... Man’s profound interest and unquenchable thirst for sports. Sports are today, and have always been in fact, a universal language that despite the color of a man’s skin, his dialect, place of birth, or station in life, sports, acts as a common denominator that brings us all together. Of what other subject could a Wall Street banker and a man on welfare discuss intelligently, than the results of yesterdays basketball game, or tomorrows Super Bowl champions?

      To a large extent, it was sports that first launched our nations 20th century’s civil rights movement as early as 1913. ...When a stunned nation learned of the insanely unjust racial humiliation put-upon Olympian Jim Thorpe. ...Simply as the result of his overwhelming athletic achievements and world recognition that far exceeded his peer’s depiction of an Indians station in life. When Joe Louis’s punch brought down Nazi Germany’s, Max Schmeling, in 1938 ... suddenly, proud Americans no longer saw their new heavyweight champion as a black man, but rather as their fellow man. Never more openly was racial prejudice challenged than when Jackie Robinson first broke baseballs colored barrier in 1947. Robinson, as a black man in a social test-tube, came some 8 years before Rosa Parks bus trip and 16 years ahead of Dr. Martin Luther King’s march on Washington.

      Unlike any other segment of our 20th century, sports, no mater how much it changed, it remained the same. Boxing hero Jack Johnson, eventually became Jack Dempsey, Dempsey became Joe Louis and Louis became Muhammad Ali. In baseball, Babe Ruth became Lou Gehrig, Gehrig became Roger Maris and Maris became Mark McGwire. In the Olympics Jim Thorpe became Jesse Owens, Owens became Carl Lewis. In golf, Bobby Jones became Ben Hogan, Hogan became Jack Nicholas who today became Tiger Woods.

      In the last-quarter of the 1800s organized sports in America were in their early and primitive stages, as well as any national media culture that might have recorded and promoted them. The first radio station wasn't chartered until 1920. National news and picture magazines followed that. The news, like the country, was overwhelmingly local and to a large extent passed-on primarily by word-of-mouth.

      Billiards first governing body came somewhat earlier than most sports in America when its Billiard Congress (no affiliation to today’s BCA) was founded the same year as the games first organized professional public tournament in 1863. Soccer’s London organization, founded the Football Association (FA) also in 1863. Baseball saw its first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869 and its first organized National league in 1876. Hockey founded its first amateur governing body in 1881 and first professional league in 1904. Tennis organized in 1881 with its U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, later shortened to U.S. Tennis Association.. Golf was officially established in America in 1888 with the founding of The St. Andrew Golf Club of Yonkers. Bowling realized its first successful governing body, The American Bowling Congress, in 1885. Basketball, perhaps the only sport with an origin of certainty, and American born, came into existence in 1891. Our modern Olympic games began in 1896. Football’s first professional game was played in 1895 and organized The National Football League in 1921.

      By man’s gift of free-will, we all have the ability to choose not only a sport that by our independent thinking stands out above all others, but also, we inevitability select its heroes that for various reasons in each of our minds surpasses all others in their respective field.

      My first choice as to the greatest, professional sports figure of the 20th century was a man born in 1887, the same year as my second-favorite sports hero, Olympian Jim Thorpe, the All-American Natural. During a period from the late 19th century through the first-third of the 20th century, the game of billiards was front-page news and society considered it a professional competitive-sport, not simply a social or amateur tavern-pastime as today’s billiards. The National Billiard Association of America (NBAA) was founded in 1878. For the following 60 some years, the NBAA led American billiards to the pinnacle of its professional popularity and maintained its integrity as a professional sport longer and more effectively than any governing body in the history of American billiards, either before or since their existence.

      My hero was so profoundly outstanding at his sport of billiards, his life’s story borders on that of a fable, and he, rather than a real-live person, is believed to be more a mythical figure ... like Paul Bunyan, Johnny Apple-seed or Pecos Bill. During his professional career he gained more world titles than 10 of the earlier mentioned icons of American sports ... combined! Even more amazing was the length of this king’s reign. He won his first professional world title in 1906 when baseball’s Ty Cobb was only a rookie  ... and he watched as the American League’s three-time most valuable player, Joe DiMaggio, retired in 1952. ... The same year this behemoth of American billiards won his 52nd world title!

     His name was Mr. William (Willie) Frederick Hoppe. Hoppe’s early sports career began much like that of Jim Thorpe’s. Born a child prodigy and barely in his teens, at the age of 15 and without one single loss, Hoppe, by wide margins solidly secured his first amateur world title after winning the prestigious Young French Masters in 1902. ...Two full years even before the Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk, and man’s first aero-flight. Forty-six years later and after outlasting all of his serious competition, and even the games he dominated, in 1952 after winning his 52nd world title, William Frederick Hoppe put away his billiard cue, and retired from his illustrious career the same way he began. ...At the billiard table, as professional billiards, “Champion of the World.”;

     History is humankind’s recording of his yesterdays, to be used as a guide for his tomorrows. ...A subject that acts as the quicksilver in man’s thermometer of evolution. While billiards was one of our nations first games to become organized and recognized as a professional sport, it was also one of our nations first games to loose its reputation as a professional sport. Abusive use by those lacking concern for the games integrity and its future, combined with gross mismanagement by its own industry eventually led the public-side of billiards to a national collapse by the mid 20th century.

      Since, billiards has yet been one with the reputation of learning from its past, and therefore, to any noticeable degree, effectively marketed and rebuilt its future as a professional sport. Even to this day, this industry’s self-proclaimed governing body subjects itself to questions of leadership responsibility. What other game with a history as long and enduring has ever displayed such little sensitivity to their own historical champions, by no longer within their “Official Rule Book,”; publish and promote the official historical records that reflect billiards heritage? ...The names, games and records that since 1863, were established by the very carom-billiard champions and entrepreneurs that first organized, hosted and fathered professional billiards in America. Even in the dawn of billiards collapse and darkest years that began some 50 years ago, this act of not acknowledging billiards pioneers would have been considered inexcusable, and today, insanely so.

      Billiards, by its unique attraction to such an enormous variety of man’s interests, ranging from competitive-games to social-activities, has to a large extent created its own worst enemy ... the games convenience itself. What other game of such amateur popularity could be played within environments of such an enormous range of social and physical difference ... and played with an equal variety of indifference? A range of environmental difference so huge, it spans from back-alley pool halls and dilapidated taverns ... to the finest homes, mansions, hotels, and upscale private and public clubs in the land.

      Whether the game of billiards in America remains only a social and amateur pass-time, or if by some remote chance, it one day becomes aware of its own gross mismanagement, and regains even one-tenth of its professional sports status, is all uncertain. Yet with absolute certainty, the public-side of billiards will never even begin its climb back into the ring of organized professional sports, until it learns to first function ... as an organized professional sport.

       Baseball, football, tennis, golf, hockey, boxing, basketball and every other prominent sport in the world is successful because they are games enjoyed and supported by an enormous, wholesomely generative division of society. The riches and success of any sport is most certainly the result of the very people they represent. It’s their champions and would-be champions. Their organizers, sponsors, spectators and most clearly, it’s the spirit of wholesome and organized competition that ultimately brings all of these people together. All of which, to an overwhelming extent has been lacking within the game of billiards.

      Nearly 30 years have passed since the founding of our private Illinois Billiard Club. With every passing year the public and professional side of billiards has never ceased to amazingly remain a disappointment. Of any and all games offering such wholesome physical and mental benefits, in the infinite recorded history of humankind there has never been one with a history as long and enduring that has “consistently”; managed for more than the past 50 years ... to merely eke-out such and existence of professional mediocrity, and provided so little for the children of the world, as the public side of billiards.

      Tracing the evolution of other games and their various forms of profoundly wholesome competition, history continually proves that champions in most all sports begin their training as children. Thus, by their late teens are ready to emerge into their final grooming and preparation for professional competition.

       In complete contrast, the public-side of American billiards has for generations provided little or nothing of proven and consistently maintained educational programs for children. Further, billiards negative history complicates any hope for a child to even begin learning the game, when without a legal guardian, shutting them out of public billiard facilities. Even the courts minimum age requirements for these public facilities was prompted by the repeatedly proven counterproductive practices by the very billiard facilities that all too often are those professing purity, and acting as concerned promoters of the game itself.

      To boost their own self-serving image and popularity, a variety of both past and present organizations and assorted public facilities boasting claims of responsibility to billiards future ... to any major significance, have unsuccessfully proclaimed action in this direction for more than the passed 50 years.

      If  the public-side of American billiards is ever going to establish itself as more than a social and amateur pass-time, the leaders and promoters of this industry have to begin doing something unlike they’ve ever successfully done in the past. ... Think and act with determination beyond the limits of yesterdays ideas and concepts and, step into an arena of genuine professionalism, when through the eyes of society, moving on to produce an industry of professional character ... not unprofessional characters.

      When through integrity, social responsibility and, operating as a professional organized sport, this industry can gain the attention of the wholesomely generative masses of society, that can then in turn, successfully support upscale billiard facilities accommodating the youth of our nation. ...For the first time in the history of this great land, the game of billiards could evolve into an internationally prominent sport that would forever change its worldly insignificant image, and the infinite future of this profoundly wholesome game.

     The Illinois Billiard Club is setting-out to over the following years help reinstate American billiards as a professional sport. ...While at the same time provide an opportunity for the children of the world to learn and enjoy the game of billiards (all cue games) in the same upscale fashion as it was intended, and first introduced by the fashionable side of society hundreds of years ago. To any significant degree, for all too many years our country has lacked upscale public billiard facilities that have properly accommodated and watched over the youth of our nation. However, we as a nation, have never lacked the ability for these two actions of family idealism and sports professionalism to come together as one.

      In my mind, the public-side of billiards has lacked the visionary perception and understanding the concept of bringing educational, entertaining and competitive billiards to the youth of our nation, through the help of the very men that by evolution and love, are most sensitive to their welfare ... their fathers.

      What possibly in a young person’s life is more important, caring or permanent, than their own family? Public billiard facilities are to a large extent not even required as part of the following well-organized and thought-out equation of servicing these two subjects. ...The American family and the game of billiards. Why, because today more than ever billiard tables are as commonplace in the homes of Americans as computers and televisions, and more importantly, their located within the same building as a young Americans lifetime partner ... their dad! The only thing lacking to launch the IBC’s promising concept, is organized local and national competition. To service this need, this June 2002, the private Illinois Billiard Club is determined to create billiards finest year by opening its doors to all fathers and their sons across the entire nation.

      In an effort to reinstate the game of billiards to its lost professional sports status, for nearly 30 years the Illinois Billiard Club has presented billiards to society as an organized professional sport ... not simply a gaming pass-time. Over those years the IBC has organized and launched some of America’s most proven by success, progressive campaigns directed at boosting billiards popularity as both a professional sport and an upscale social entertainment. While not a public facility, but rather an affluent private billiard club, the IBC shall nonetheless continue its crusade to popularize billiards in both of these areas to all positive, public and private sectors of society.

      This June of 2002, the Illinois Billiard Club shall set-into-motion, three positive actions never before seen or practiced in the entire 150-year history of American billiards....

         First ... The IBC shall underwrite a new national organization to be known as: “The Federation of Fathers and Sons of American Billiards”; (FFSAB.)

         Second ... The IBC shall begin hosting a perennial series of five annual, “Father and Son,”; national team tournaments. In an effort to extend and promote this family concept to our neighbors across the oceans, each respective tournament shall be hosted in honor of one, of each of the world’s five continents. Conceptually, by the universal game of billiards acting as a catalyst in helping build and maintain family unity ... it is intended that fathers and sons of all worldly cultures might one-day come together as one. Thereby, this Father and Son action essentially becomes societies potential of future understanding, appreciation and the spiritual and physical bonding of all global cultures.

       Symbolizing the five continents, the FFSAB’s logo shall display five overlapping billiard balls, all contained within one white circle. The balls shall display the colors blue, black, red, green, and yellow. At least one of these colors appears in the national flag of every country in the world.

       The first three, of the five national tournaments shall be hosted exclusively for fathers with sons still enrolled in high school. The remaining two tournaments shall be hosted for fathers and sons of all ages. Membership to the IBC or any other billiard organization is not required. The only membership required to enter any of the five national tournaments is that each of the two teammates are members of the same family. In cases where sons are without or have for various reasons lost their fathers, another adult family member, such as an older brother or uncle may act as a young mans family teammate.

      With equal enthusiasm, the IBC shall after it has proven its father and son concept successful, shall pending request, add another division of national events that shall include both mothers and daughters.

        Third ... Beginning September 2002, the IBC shall further extent this concept when beginning its first annual, four-season series of “Father and Son,”; nine-week billiard leagues.

Most appropriately, the IBC’s premier “Father and Son”; national tournament shall be hosted the weekend following  “Father’s Day,”; June 22nd & 23rd, 2002. For further details and tournament registration

please contact ....Jim Parker at The Illinois Billiard Club ... 708.839.1331… www.IllinoisBilliardClub.com

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“A Father’s Dream”;

By Jim Parker

To dream is for everyone, we’re all born with this precious gift.

Yet the dreams that seem to come true are those that give others a lift.

A father gives his son, much more than just his name.

He gives him memories of childhood pleasures, like sharing hockey, baseball, or a billiard game.

When a son learns from his father, life’s most precious gift is that of giving.

Is when a boy becomes a man, and life in-turn, gives to him, all the riches and wonder of living.