On Monday afternoon, a lithe man with a blond mustache and a Southern twang leaned over a pool table under a pair of hanging lamps atSteinway Billiards Cafe in Astoria, Queens.
The man, the house professional at Steinway, discussed his student’s pool cue technique, and how to think several steps ahead of the “ball-bangers,” a term for players of lesser ability.
The teacher looked like a garden-variety house pro, at least until he picked up a cue and began draining one impossible shot after another, drawing a crowd who wanted a glimpse of him: Earl Strickland, the professional pool legend.
Mr. Strickland, 52, is considered one of the best nine-ball players of all time. He has won a slew of national and world titles and in 2006 was inducted into the Billiards Hall of Fame. “Every time he’s at the table, it’s a performance, it’s theater,” said the student, Ross Lacy, 32, a web designer from Astoria who is an expert player himself. “He’s a living legend.”
Asked how one of pool’s biggest earners wound up teaching at a Queens pool hall, Mr. Strickland nodded and compared it to Tiger Woods teaching at a public nine-hole golf course. It came partly from the game’s decline, and partly from his own, he said.
“The money is gone from pool; the public treats the game like Tiddlywinks,” he said, adding that he bottomed out a decade ago, after playing his way into the high life.
He was playing badly and losing endorsements. Then his marriage failed, and so did his health. “Once my game suffered, my whole life went with it,” said Mr. Strickland, who was helped several years ago by a longtime friend, Larry Ross.
Mr. Ross, 79, asked Steinway’s manager, Manny Stamatakis, to hire Mr. Strickland as the house pro. The club lets him practice and eat for free, and puts him up at a nearby apartment.
Mr. Strickland walks over to Steinway every afternoon for his practice sessions, which have become daily spectacles, thanks to his skill as well as his hilarious narration.
“People fly to New York just to get their picture taken with me,” he said.
Mr. Stamatakis said he liked the idea of having “the Michael Jordan of pool” represent the hall.
To that, Mr. Strickland, who occasionally sprinkles his braggadocio with a dash of self-effacement, said, “Aw, I’m just the mascot of the place.”
Of course, he emphasized, the Michael Jordan analogy is correct.
“Guys like me don’t come around but every 50 or 100 years,” he said.
He has begun winning tournaments again, both on the pro circuit and on Wednesday nights at Steinway for $300 purses.
“I got my game back from the dead,” said Mr. Strickland, who draws well-known players to Steinway to play him in exhibition matches, includingShane Van Boening and Efren Reyes. “They said Earl Strickland was finished, but I’m going to prove them wrong.”
Growing up on a farm in Roseboro, N.C., Mr. Strickland began hanging around the local pool hall at 9 and quickly learned the basics of hustling. By 11, he was beating the town’s best players, and at 12 was being taken around as a “road player” and child phenom.
His family moved to Houston, where he found “suckers by the dozens” in its pool halls, he said. He dropped out of high school in 10th grade and began pool hustling full-time. He avoided professional tournaments, though, to hide his prowess.
“That’s the code of the road: If you win tournaments, you get your picture in the pool magazines and blow your cover,” said Mr. Strickland, who nevertheless entered a tournament at 19 and found that he liked applause even more than hustling.
“People enjoyed my playing — you don’t get that in gambling,” he said. “Gambling made me the player I am today, but I had to quit.”
He was circling the table now at Steinway like a predator, talking trash and drilling home shots. Some wizened old Greek men watched from the cafe and began ribbing him.
He began executing trick shots — draining eight balls simultaneously with one shot, and firing the cue ball off the bumper to send it flying back into his hand. He then began knocking in moving balls with the cue ball, calling it “shooting skeet.”
He learned shots like these from the pool champions Willie Mosconi, Steve Mizerak and Mike Massey, he said.
Players in the room were now watching and one challenged Mr. Strickland, yelling, “Let’s do it for money.”
“Yeah, you’re going to lose yours,” Mr. Strickland snapped back, laughing and loving to still be in the spotlight.
“The worst feeling,” he said, “is not to be a factor.”
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