August 2002
"History, with all of its dust covered words and pictures, is most often appreciated more by those that contribute to its notable pages. Historical documentation of billiards (all cue games) in American culture, reflects little evidence of it ever reaching and maintaining its pinnacle of social benefit. Nor does its industry display the cleverness to understand it. Aside from marketing ploys, once turned over to public enterprise hundreds of years ago, billiards has since been given little recognition of elegance and even less consideration as a viable contributor to America's more fashionable social culture".
"To see billiards as the social hub of an elegant Wedding Reception or entertaining the guests attending Christenings to Retirement Parties would be as uncommon to billiards, as would the paintings of Raphael or Rembrandt hanging on the walls of pool halls. Why has this level of billiards social enhancement never been encouraged and more importantly, never achieved with any longevity? Aloofness seldom breeds invention and precious few visionaries. Billiards promoters are to a large extent its only media and public managers, and they themselves emerged from its historically limited social background. With this as fact it becomes easy to understand why billiards social status remains stagnated and its marketing contained within its historically limited parameters of pool halls, billiard balls and alcohols ".
"The following is a summary of some three decades of recorded historical disclosures of one private clubs efforts to bring together both the best of society and the more fashionable social and competitive entertainment divisions of the game of billiards. This story has been written as a gift, to enlighten and stimulate the thoughts of betterment for the American billiard industry. An industry that already has the perfect product, yet by lack of accomplishment is without the knowledge and / or ability to embrace and refine it to humankinds highest level of social evolution".
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"Intelligent people say the nicest things" By Jim Parker
If one city in the United States were considered synonymous with the game of billiards it's Chicago Illinois. Unlike billiards of today there was a time in America, billiards (all cue games) was considered a professional sport in addition to today's status as an amateur and social pass-time. The person largely responsible for the initial growth of billiards in the third largest city in the nation was an energetic young man by the name of Mr. Thomas Foley, the father and dean of Chicago billiards.
In 1865 Foley won the first recorded billiard championship in Illinois. The money-stake in all matches was $250 a side. The following year Foley invested his winnings in the opening of his own Chicago billiard room. He didn't get his moneys worth. For two scorching days beginning on October 8, 1871, Tom and the rest of Chicago watched as the "fire devils" and their whirling pockets of gas, hot air and flames, took their buildings and dreams in the Great Chicago fire.
This didn't stop Foley he simply reopened in another location. Again, he was later rousted by another inferno. This time it was believed the fire was caused by a malfunction in the buildings central heating system ... an unattended potbelly stove! Tom, as any great professional billiard player would, saw these set backs merely as bad rolls. When Foley opened his next room however, he insisted on something he hadn't considered in the past, a brick building!
And so it was. A new sign was hung at 423-429 S. Wabash Avenue. It read: "Thomas Foley-The Dean of Billiards, est. 1866." Up to and including this day, Thomas Foley went on to become the longest surviving champion billiard proprietor in the recorded history of Chicago billiards. While the eruption of a potbelly stove and the inferno flames of the great Chicago fire couldn't stop Tom's yearly high run ... our nation's great depression did. Foley's closed in the late 1920's.
For some 25 years after Foley's closing the windy city maintained billiards reputation as a professional sport. While national and world tournaments were beginning to fall-off, billiards, nonetheless managed to hold the attention of Chicago sports writers. By the mid 1950's with both the passing and retirement of the games professional heroes, this one-time game of kings fell into a tailspin and crashed into obscurity. Various new organizations sprung up to aid in building the games popularity and all failed. By the close of the 1960's billiards popularity in America had fallen into the bedrock depths of its own slate quarries. A game that for its first 75 years in America kept pace with other sports, now realized popularity and financial despair to the point of a car-wash during a thunderstorm.
By 1973 the mighty mid-west billiard metropolis that at one time actively supported some 600 billiard tables in its downtown area alone, now had less than two dozen carom billiard tables still in use within the entire city and outlying suburbs. I know this as fact because I researched all of this in 1974. After relocating twice to avoid extinction, by the close of the 1970's some 14 of the remaining tables also disappeared with the closing of Bob Siegel's, Bensingers Billiards. Both a man and a billiard room with hearts and personalities as big and friendly as the city they once served.
An entirely new concept to American billiards was introduced in the mid 1970's with the founding of what has proven to be the oldest, individually owned, actively operated private billiard club in the United States. The Illinois Billiard Club was founded in 1975 and with it began a perennial flow of fresh billiard boosting ideas along with the inner energy and self-financing to support both.
The IBC shunned the traditional operational habits of failing billiard facilities. The club made it known it had set-out to put fashionable character into the game by keeping the unfashionable characters out. Its focus was on promoting to the general public, a more professional, historical, social and elegant side of billiards. The club believed billiards is first and above all, a people's game, all people. Not simply those associated with its blemished past, but rather the thousands avoiding it, because of its negative past. If the public side of billiards in America were to ever begin redeeming itself in the eyes of society, it had to first take a bath, clean behind its ears, get a haircut and grow-up. Grow-up to the point of showing respect for both itself and the public's more positive social cultures that had hundreds of years earlier, given birth to the game in the first place.
The clubs next step in popularizing the game was through the mass media, not billiards inner media. Even today, what limited circulation the inner billiard media has is profoundly important to the games current fans. Yet in terms of developing new recruits and expanding billiards borders, this minuscule link of communication is near meaningless. To reestablish the games rating as even a minor sport, which it had long since lost, the club began hosting both local and national tournaments. In 1976 after establishing a line of contacts within the news media, the efforts of the IBC encouraged the re-listing of billiard tournament results in the sports section of Chicago newspapers. On February 2, 1981 the club made a major marketing breakthrough. By its invitation to an IBC tournament, Chicago's legendary sports writer, Bill Gleason, reported his inspiring billiard related story on the front page of the sports section in the Chicago Sun Times. …The first major Chicago newspaper in over 35 years to list billiards on the front-page of the sports section.
The private clubs trend setting efforts proven contagious. By the close of the IBC's second year others began following its lead with the opening of new rooms within the Chicago land area. While not private or tastefully decorated, nonetheless, the few that opened appeared to have serious intentions of helping reestablish billiards as a front line source of competitive and social entertainment.
The next billiard first and major breakthrough came in 1983. This time in the form of social interest to the readers of the fashionable Chicago Magazine. In celebration of Chicago's 150th birthday, the Chicago Magazine published a commemorative issue. After the magazine selected the best 150 various businesses in Chicago, The Illinois Billiard Club was named the best of the best and given first listing. Now, at long last the game of billiards was able to stand up, shake the dirt off its trousers and be recognized by society as more than just the all too-typical back alley pool hall.
The following years brought a long series of first-time concepts to Chicago and the game of billiards. Chicago land newspapers and magazines began speaking out loud and clear, year after year. They continually sang praises regarding the little Southside club and its ever-blooming variety of upscale billiard activities. On January 12, 1986, the front page of the Sunday edition of the Chicago Southtown Economist blasted news of Hollywood's return to the IBC. This time by request of film director Martin Scorsese. With its background in professional billiards and championship tournaments, the club was the logical choice to recruit players, host auditions, train actors and provide a home for the director to study and map-out his Chicago film, "The Color of Money." The motion picture that launched the longest running explosion of amateur popularity in the history of American billiards. The next series of first-time for billiards in Chicago came in 1987. The Chicago Review Press and their "Sweet Home Chicago" guidebook, listed The Illinois Billiard Club after deciding it was time that billiards should be included within the pages of Chicago's most sought out locations. Again in 1988 the IBC found itself in a second Chicago guide to the city, the "I Love Chicago Guide. " Published by Collier Books. Then in 1989 came the release of Chicago Magazine's third guide to Chicago. Their revised an updated edition for 1989, "Guide to Chicago," began listing billiards in their sports section for the first time with their introduction of The Illinois Billiard Club.
On February 5, 1989, the series of first-time for billiards continued when the club found itself in full living color covering the entire front-page of the Chicago Daily Southtown's magazine section. Again on February 22, 1989, another full front-page colored photo of the IBC reached an additional 500,000 readers. This time the club was featured in the "Extra," magazine section of the daily Southtown Economist. Both cases were followed with some 2,000-word stories regarding the IBC and billiards popularity upswing in the Chicago land area.
By 1990 all of the mid-west saw billiards reach its unprecedented social peak. For the first time ever in the recorded history of Chicago, billiards was featured alongside both Chicago's and the State of Illinois' most prominent public and private organizations, businesses, cultural and historical facilities. Authored by Catherine Cox, Reader Books published the first edition of the Chicago Special Occasion Sourcebook. The Illinois Billiard Club was asked for permission to be included along with other prominent Chicago facilities ranging from the Art Institute of Chicago to the cities luxurious Whitehall Hotel. The book was republished in 1992 and again in 1994 it traced the IBC to its new home in the ever-blooming village of Willow Springs IL.
On Sunday May 2, 1993 The Chicago Tribune published Anna Marie Kukec's some 2,500-word front-page story and colored pictorial documentation. A story that not only reported the IBC's past impact on the growth of upscale billiards in America, but its futuristic gift to society as well. …Bonnie's Dining & Banquet's million-dollar banquet facility. A fashionable one-of-a kind facility that while celebrating life's most memorable and precious moments ranging from wedding receptions to retirement parties, also offers its guests the optional use of the private Illinois Billiard Clubs antique billiard room. …A room that reeks with elegance and the historical presence of its 15th century game that now while attending private functions at Bonnie's can benefit the social needs of today's affluent 21st century society.
With the private clubs relocation to its present home in Willow Springs some 12 years ago, one might imagine the writers, reporters and journalists that record and report the events of their third largest city in the United States, would surely have forgotten about their little billiard club once located on West 71st Street. Yet recently when visiting one of this authors favorite places, a Borders bookstore, he happened across a recent addition to the stores collection of literary treasures. A 2001 publication recording the history of his endeared Chicago. Titled: Images of America, Chicago Lawn / Marquette Manor, authored by Kathleen J. Headley. Settled back in a plush chair with a fresh cup of coffee, he began reading each and every page that by text and pictorial documentation traced his families Chicago heritage back to the 19th century.
Mid-way through his memories of a time gone-by, he was overwhelmed when discovering what prompted him to write this little story. Ever so neatly published on the center pages of this new journal of Chicago history, was a story and photograph historically documenting his Illinois Billiard Club. How ironic. The final analysis of the labors of his wife Bonnie and he had been carried into the new millennium. Now, to be an indelible page of Chicago's history through the efforts of the very writers, journalists and news reporters he's long since admired. …A tribute of such enormous measure by the public documentation of his and his wife's relationship to the betterment of the very city that provided a home, education, friends, and the financial and spiritual benefits to their families five generations of Chicago's children.
During our journeys through life, we most all come to learn that one person alone can only labor at their dreams with hopes of success. While in the proof of reality, the level of success is through those we also learn to call our friends. Knowing this as fact, with my most heartfelt intentions I would like to tell the world: "To all the legions of friends responsible for the beautiful words and pictures you've so graciously extended for all too many years to remember, my wife Bonnie "Thanks You," our families "Thank You"… and I "Thank You".
Jim Parker, president The Illinois Billiard Club