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'Paul Gerni "The Ambassador of Pool"'

PAUL GERNI, Pool's Elegant Ambassador (from The Best Times magazine, May 2009)

It's about the hand and the eye. The geometry and the physics. The focus and the fun. That's true for most pool and billiards players. But for pool trick shot legend Paul Gerni, it's also about traveling more than six million miles to promote the sport wherever it is played, visiting Europe 66 times, and presenting demonstrations in 53 countries. That's because Gerni, of Shawnee, Kansas, is the 22-time world champion of trick shots in pool, pocket billiards, and is known worldwide as the sport's ambassador and their Grandmaster of Trick Shots.

Just what is a trick shot? Would 12 balls going into six pockets with one smooth stroke of the cue do for a start? The way Gerni puts it, trick shooting is "an artistic means of making special-looking shots. It is the best way to showcase the myriad of skills required in the sport. It's something dazzling, something that is intricate, or something that excites people. It is really 'the sizzle that sells the steak' of pool."

If that is the case, then Gerni is one great chef. In the game room of his Shawnee condo-apartment clubhouse on a sunny morning, we got to watch him ply the tools of his trade. Those include a custom-made hand-tooled leather case decorated with reticulated python, and his custom-made Pechauer cues, the butt section of the one we saw was made of Mercasser Ebony, with inlays of Cocobolo (an exotic Nicaraguan wood), Curly Maple, Birdseye Maple, and Sudanese Ivory. Truly tasteful and understated elegance.

Because Gerni is such a pro at showmanship, he is always known to be able to stay with his audiences, keeping up a smooth patter while also focusing with exacting scrutiny on his cue and the object balls. He taps multi-ball shots lightly into the cloth. He calls the impossible-looking shot he's about to make. You think "No way", and then he somehow makes it. Three at a time, four at a time, six at a time, and even more. You are aghast!

You gasp. You watched it, but you don't believe you saw it! And you are now thinking, "That is championship caliber." Well, it is also science. "Of course, it is a lot of geometry, and a lot of theory, until you put the balls in motion," Gerni says. "When you do put the balls in motion, then the physics of Sir Isaac Newton kicks in." Well, there you have it, perhaps that explains why he has framed and displayed in his office, among his other college degrees, an honorary diploma proclaiming him "Doctor of Spherical Impact Physics."

EARLY EXPERIENCES
Gerni has been playing pool since he was 6 years old. His fascination began when he went to a social event at the St. James Lutheran church parish building in Logansport, Indiana, where his father was the new minister. He remembers wearing a little shorts suit, and escaping after dinner, down the hallway, past a room that featured a cakewalk, and a room with a popcorn machine, and into the room that was the recreation room. In it were two pool tables, one that was covered, the other surrounded by several older men from the congregation, and the cloud of smoke. Young Paul just stood there, his wide eyes peering over the rail of the table, and watched carefully as they rolled the balls around the table, and puffed away merrily on their cigars.

One of the men picked Paul up, and held him up so he could see the table. They even handed him a cue, and showed him how to hold it and let him take a few swipes at the balls. That was it -- he was hooked! He spent much of the next hour, until he was "found", staring at the balls as they crashed and danced, and were eventually pocketed.

About two years later, one of those church men gave young Paul a small stapled booklet that discussed the fundamentals of pool. It showed how to stand properly, how to hold the cue, what bridges to make, and where to hit the ball, and so much more. He still has that booklet, in one of his big scrapbooks.

"I never took formal pool lessons, like all players should do these days," says Gerni. "I just learned from my older brother, Charles, who was only two years older. The two of us would walk down the street to the old YMCA building, just two blocks north of the parsonage. At the Y, we would watch the Mickey Mouse Club on the television (of course, in black and white), and drink grape Nehi sodas we had laced with a bag of Planter's Peanuts. Then we would practice our pool, and sometimes some ping-pong. That is where I first remember working on angles, and the speed of the shots, and what level of finesse and accuracy it would take to be a winner."

And that Y, where a complete set of pool balls was hard to find, is where young Paul fell into his first tournament, a city-wide event for boys in three divisions, grade school, junior high, and high school divisions. The tournament director at the Y, recognizing the abilities of Paul and Charles, put them in different divisions, 7-year-old Paul in the high school division, and 9-year-old Charles in the junior high division. They both won, and Paul still has the YMCA patch he received for that achievement, for his first tournament, with many more yet to come. Paul could never imagine the worldwide fame that lay in store for him.

Paul and Charles did not tell their parents about that Saturday's tournament, because they did not think it was something they should be doing, especially as the minister's kids. But the secret came out the following Tuesday when their mother, their local Cub Scout den mother, along with the other den mother, Carolyn Moore, took their den on a field trip to the local newspaper office, to learn how papers were produced and printed. In the press room, the editor wanted to show the kids a section that was just being printed, so he grabbed the closest paper off a nearby press, and it happened to be part of the sports section, and it featured the photo of the Y's tournament winners, Paul and Charles, holding their prize patches.

THE GAME
Back in the clubhouse in Shawnee, Gerni revels in every opportunity to teach a novice about his chosen sport. He is a natural teacher.

Pool Cues? They can be pretty expensive (hundreds of dollars, even thousands of dollars), or you can get a simple cue from a discount store, but what matters most on a cue is the tip, which is normally leather, and now many leather tips are also stacked or laminated, and more intricate and involved, with tips for jump cues, for break cues, and for game cues.

More on tips: "One of the best pool players on the planet, Efren Reyes, from Manila, Philippines, used to play with what always looked like a clunker, a very average cue, but it always had a good tip," Gerni recalls.

Cue Shafts? Good cue shafts are kiln-dried, and when finished, are tested for straightness, strength, and flexibility (like our lives, Gerni points out). To go with his custom Pechauer cues, Gerni has added the dimension of an OB Laminated Cue Shaft, to dampen any vibration, and to increase accuracy, and to also reduce deflection and cue ball "squirt".

What about pool balls? Gerni quickly adds a few more factoids, "They were once made with boxwood roots, then ivory, but the celluloid billiard ball, the first product in history made with plastic, was invented in Albany, NY in 1868. Most pool balls made these days are manufactured in Belgium, the Aramith balls are part of the Saluc company.

Billiard cloth? Great billiard cloth, like those made by Iwan Simonis of Belgium, and their competitors like Gorina, from Spain, and Hainsworth, from England, are not made of felt, but of a blend of fine-combed, woven wool and nylon to provide strength.

And Gerni is consistent in referring to the "sport" of pool, rather than the "game" of pool.

"My job is to promote the sport - and it's worthy of the respect given to any sport," he says.

To make that sports classification official, Gerni has worked with, first, Andre Gagnaux of Basel, Switzerland, and others since 1968 to attain Olympic recognition for cue sports, and eventually having it named as an official Olympic medal sport. At this point, the sport is now a discipline in the World Games, a popular subsidiary of the IOC.

"Getting Olympic recognition is a very political process," Gerni explains. "And complicating our efforts is the fact that there are so many types of cue sports: billiards, snooker, carom billiards, pyramids, bocette, pool, and so on. They all have different rules, and geographical areas of influence. And then there will need to be categories for men's division, women's division, wheelchair division, juniors division, etc. That alone makes it difficult for the IOC committees to view and approve."