National Checkers'
" < ' ' J ?
Tournament Returns to Winston for First Time Since 1979
J
The room was as quiet as an
empty church despite the presence
of 50 or so men. Facing each other
in pairs at long wooden tables, they
easily could have been mistaken for
a prayer group with their heatfs
bowed in concentration and their
shoulders hunched forward over the
table. The clue that this was not a
devotional service was the large
green and white mat in front ot
each pair of men.
The 64- square mat was just one
item being used at the 29th annual
American Pool Checker
Association national championship
at the Holiday Inn North last week.
The others, besides the round
checkers, were cunning, guile, guts,
intense concentration, and mental
toughness. J
"It is a veiy tiring game. I'm
mentally drained after a match,"
William Smalls of the host
Piedmont Pool Checker Association
in Winston-Salem said. "To play
well against a good player you are
under stress the entire time, espe
cially mental stress because this is a
game of move, countermove and
strategy, counterstrategy. You have
to always be thinking and concen
trating. 1 relate to checkers like
football wit!; ihc ufftuaw) trying to
score and the defense trying to stop
them."
Pool checkers is a hybrid of
straight checkers and chess. In
straight checkers a checker can't
jump until the piece is kinged. In
pool checkers a single piece can
jump one square in any direction,
provided there is a an open landing
space, before being kinged. Once
kinged in pool checkers, the king
has power simitar to the queen in
chess in that it can move unhin
dered forw ard, backw ard and diag
onally. The game is very popular ifn
? foreign. countries, most notably.
Russia and Brazil, and has been a
staple among blacks dating back to
the 1920s.
"We. as blacks, have been
accostumed to playing pool check
ers in the streets, under the shade
trees and in barber shops," said
Smalls, a serious checker player for
40 years, who began playing with
1 his father and brothers as a young
ster using pop yops and a hand
drawn checker board.
"We were too poor to afford
- anything else," he said, causing
APCA public relations director
Wardell Moore of Flint. Mich, to
nod in agreement, saying. "We used
turn the pop tops up for one player
and down for the other so we could
tell them apart." J .
Playing in a barber shop was
the inspiration for the birth of
APCA said Dr. Nathaniel Leach of
Detroit, one of the founders of the
organization and this year's
Tournament Director.
"We had a spot in a barber
shop' in Detroit where we played
and we wanted to get out of there
and become organized," he said of
the early 1940s. "1 feel we have
made progress, but I would like to
see the game spread more. We hope
to have a world championship in "
two yeaYs." Echoing Smalls' com
ments, APCA president Dr. Ervin
Smith said. "Pool checkers is pri
marily an African-American game
because of the difference with
straight checkers. It is a cultural dif
ference in our society." "
"We think our game is a little
more exciting than regular checkers^
because there is more strategy."
said Smalls, who plays in the Junior
Masters Division, the middle rung
on the five-tier pool checker ladder.
The highest. rung is Top Masters,
followed by" Masters, Junior
Masters. Gold- Bar and Blue
Ribbon. ?
Pool checkers consists of three
games within a game - the opening
game, middle game and end game -
each requiring mental strategy Says
Moore, noting that pool checkers
"is an intellectual past time that
develops skill, calculation, foresight
and discipline. It's like algebra - it
challenges and disciplines the
mind." ?
A player doesn't just plop
down at a board and start playing
checkers if he expects to be any
good.
. "If you want to be good you
better study the game and your
opponent," SmaJls said. "In our
game, you go as far as the oppo
nent c defense allows you to go and
if you can use your'offense to break
his defense, you'll have a go6d
chance of winning. Most of the
good players in pool checkers are
defensive players. The good players
realize their opponent's mistakes
and never let them recover."
< Vladimir'Kaplan, a six-time
world champion from Russia and
an American and European Grand
Master, nvho has written four books
about checker strategy, says the key
to succeeding at pool checkers is
starting youn^; because of the strate
gies and intellect involved in the ,
game. And that is the rub for further
growth of the sport.
"Young people don't like to sit
down and use their brain," Leach
said. "Mental concentration is not
advocated as a sport.'*
Four Inducted Into Black Golf Hall of Fame
*- . ;?? ? ? : ? ?? ; ?? ? ? I ? ???" ?? ' - - -
By JEROME RICHARD
Chronicle Sports Writer
Four new members were
1 inducted into the National Black
Golf Hall of Fame Saturday during
Enshrined during a dinner ban
quet at the Holiday Inn Airport in
' Greensboro were Maggie Hathaway
of Los Angeles; Billy Gardenhight
of Asheville; David Gibson of
Atlanta; and Wiley Williams of
, East Orange, N.J. The Pete Brown
* Physical Achievement Award was
presented to Charles Owens of
" Tampa.
Hathaway has been a civil
rights activist for over three
decades, starting in 1960 when she
petitioned Los Angeles County to
hire black golf starters. She helped
golfer Charles Sifford to become
the first black professional golfer to
play in the Bing Crosby Pebble
Beach Open and assisted Harold
Dunovant Of Winston-Salem, the
- founder and director of the Black
Golf Hall of Fame, to become one
of the first black assistant pros at a
Los Angeles golf course.
Gardenhight had an outstand^
ing amateur golf career and is
known as a pioneer in black golf.
He has had a long association with
the Skyview Open Golf
Tournament and has been a member
of the Skyview Golf Association
since 1961. He now serves as its
president and tournament director.
(T?ihr.nn_wj>g the fint hlack^tor-^
qualify for the National Public
Links J3olf Tournament -from ?
Georgia, doing so in 1967. In 1970,
he was the first black to win the
Atlanta Army Depot Tournament.
He won the U.S. Postal Service
Tournament 24 consecutive years.
In 1986. he won the inaugural
National Black Golf Hall of Fame
Tournament (senior pro division).
Williams has won over 50 tour
9
naments in a career spanning fbur
^decades. His first tournament victo
ry came in 1967 at the Wessex
County Golf Championship. His
most recent win was in .1992 at the
Nat Moore/Joe Reich Open^
? ' A 36-hule golf tournament ^as
held as part of the weekend indue
tion ceremonies. The tournament
was played at the Bel-Aire Golf
Course in Greensboro July 16-17
where Jay Hoover beat Robert
Walker in playoff to win the pro
division. Botft golfers were tied at
*139 at Thg" end of regulation, play.
Harry Dillard claimed the Senior
Amateur Division with a 149.
won the
Championship Flight at j 42. the
First Flight was won by Billy
Thanos with a 151. Clifton Watson
's 158 took the Second Flight and
Chris Ingram claimed the Third
Flight with a 167.
'Tee off at Maui"
\ Leo Rucker, artist,
is seeking models for
his next painting
"Breaking Bread -
The Last Suppe*-"
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