DON WILLIS - POOLDOM'S GREATEST UNKNOWN"

by John Grissom

I first saw Don Willis sitting along the wall in the practice room at Fred Whalen’s World Invitation Tourney in 1973. He was a short paunchy rather nondescript man in his early sixties, wearing a brown suit over a surgical green polyester sport shirt. He had meaty hands, wore an old gold watch with a thick expansion wrist band, spoke with a Midwestern drawl and for all appearances looked like your friendly neighborhood butcher on vacation. Yet there wasn’t a contestant there who didn’t know him and have at least one outrageous story to tell about him. Don Willis is pooldom’s greatest unknown player.

Aw, I’m too old, fellas, he groaned. I can’t make a ball anymore. But one afternoon he stepped up to the table and made 11 wing shots in a row before he missed, then performed the trick that made him famous: He put the cue ball a few inches away from the three ball, then caromed the cue ball off the three and off the table where it bounced on the floor, rolled out of the practice room and into the middle of the hallway about 60 feet away where it hit the four ball. Johnny Ervolino swears he once saw Willis do that same shot in New York, only the cue ball went down two flights of stairs, rolled under a steam radiator and then kissed the four next to a hallway trash bin - for MONEY!

I’ve seen Don run over 40 racks in nine ball, says Fred Whalen. I don’t mean pocketing something on the break every time but if the other fellow missed a shot, he’d run out every time. Now Don played for the cash and nobody ever beat him. He’s one of the great, great players of all time.

Don Willis is practically unknown to the public. He never entered a tournament, never got his picture in the paper, and in fact insists most of his career earnings have been from card games. He’s retired now and claims he spends a lot of time drinking whiskey and watching pool tournaments. Though he’s spent a rough and tumble life on the road he has a marriage that’s lasted, has raised six kids and sent them through school, paid his taxes, lived comfortably and enjoyed a solid reputation as a man of his word. Such a bizarre combination of Ozzie Nelson at home and Sun Dance Kid on the road is almost inconceivable. No less so is the fact that every top player during the past half century (including Minnesota Fats, bless him) appears willing to vouch for the validity of Willis' apochryphal tales. Don himself is not an arrogant person yet he knows some of his accomplishments stretch his credibility. But let him tell it:

I was thirteen when I started playing pool at the YMCA in my home town of Canton, Ohio. That was in 1923. By the time the Depression hit I was pretty good. I was also married and had a set of twin daughters so I began playing pool for money out of necessity. There wasn’t much else to do. And with three mouths to feed I couldn’t afford to lose. You couldn’t tell the gas company you overcut the fourteen ball and you’d pay’ em next week. So what I did was I actually played for the groceries. I’d imagine I was shooting the milk in the corner, playing position on the potatoes, then I’d put the bread in the side and end up with a break shot on the hamburgers. That’s about the truth.

You might miss the seven ball but if you imagine it’s a pound of hamburger for twin daughters at the height of the Depression, you’re gonna make the shot. I had a set of twin girls, then two more girls - in 1935 and ‘38 - and a boy in ‘41. Five straight girls, finally a boy and I quit.

Actually it wasn’t too bad during the Depression because the pool halls were crowded and the players always had betting money. But pool was always a sideline to me. I was a card player most of the time, have been all my life. I’ve never had any kind of a job but I’ve spent a lot of time on the road, often traveling with top players, guys like Johnny Irish, Ray Dickerson, Cowboy Jimmy Moore, Luther Lassiter. See, you got to choose well. You have to trust the person you travel with. Coupla players, I never knew if I went to the toilet whether I’d be broke when I came back out.

I was at my best when I was 34 years old and had just got out of the Army. While in the service I did very well at cards and pool and I came out pretty well fixed. Maybe it was the combination of financial security and getting back in physical condition. I dunno, but my game jelled. For about a ten-year stretch there I beat everybody. I’m not trying to brag but it got so nobody ever came to Canton to play me. I had to go somewhere else.

I never showed my face in places like Hot Springs, Arkansas and Norfolk, Virginia when all the top players would get together but I did go to Louisville during the Kentucky Derby. It was like a ritual. Everybody went there to make money but I still stayed out of sight. I’d go to a colored pool room across the river and slip a twenty to the cop on the beat and let him know I wasn’t there to sell dope. Then friends around the Derby would steer guys over to me and I’d beat ‘em all.

My specialty was nine ball. Luther Lassiter and I went on the road for, oh, thirteen years straight from 1947 to 1960. I guess Wimpy and I were the best players the time we was on the road together. No doubt about it. We went everywhere in the country and never lost a match, either one of us. Oh, we might lose twenty or thirty dollars to some guy who quit on us, but I mean a regular match where you could win some money.

Wimpy’s exactly ten years younger than me. He got his nickname from eating a lot of hamburgers, like Wimpy in the funny papers. To tell you the truth he’s not the same fella he used to be. Used to be a high-priced boy. I’m not knockin’ him at all but I don’t get along with him any more at all. Personal reasons. But the boy’s a good player. He’s all right. There’s nuthin’ the matter with Lassiter.

Not to brag but I lived higher than any pool player I ever knew. No ‘probably’ about it. I had a couple of homes, cars, everything. I pay taxes as a professional pool player, about five to six thousand every year. See, that’s why these tournaments are a joke. Like in 1966 Lassiter won five major tournaments and finished second in a sixth and he earned something like $10,600. That wouldn’t even keep me in whiskey, that’s on the square. So the game as an occupation is not good yet.

See back in the thirties I played just about everything for a living. In fact my best game was table tennis. I was the champ of the world in 1930. I beat several world champions. I don’t care if it does sound like bragging, it’s true. I beat Jimmy McClure and Sal Schiff. They were both world champions and I murdered both of ‘em for money. As for horseshoes ..... well, let me tell you a story.

I walked into a recreation room in the little town of Dennision, Ohio one time. The owner had a pool table, a billiard table, a card table, a ping pong table and a horseshoe court with regular clay in it. They were all in there because they were his favorite games and he figured he was pretty good at all of ‘em - which he was, it turned out. Well, at that time I was an outstanding horseshoe pitcher, one of the best in Ohio. I pitched close to seventy percent wingers for a whole season. And I was the best table tennis player in America at that time. No probably about it. You can check up on it. Plus I was also a very good three-cushion billiards player - not a champion but anyway too good for a local player any place.

Now I’d come to Dennison to play a five-hundred dollar table tennis match with a guy only they couldn’t find him for some reason. That turned out to be lucky cuz the guy later went on to win the world championship. So I began playing pool with the owner of this room and then we moved on to the other games one by one. It turned into a marathon. Well, by the time I was done with him, the poor guy didn’t know whether he was in Alaska or the Sahara Desert or downtown Detroit. I had him sending out for money for a week and when I was through, I’d won all the money in that town I could possibly win. One of the funniest things you ever saw.

Sometimes the best way to get up a game is to walk in from nowhere and make a preposterous claim about how good you are and aggravate people into challenging you for high stakes. That’s called hoorah. You hoorah somebody into playing.

Probably the best example of a hoorah that turned out just the way I wanted was in 1947 when I was driving from Georgia up to New York for the World Series. I stopped at a hotel in Petersurg, Virginia and while I was on my way to the men’s room in the basement I walked by a pool room. I noticed a bunch of smart looking guys - you could tell they were gamblers of some kind - standing around like something had just happened. Now I was flush at the time, had about ten thousand in cash on me, so I walked in and said I’d like to play a game of nine ball for two hundred dollars.’ Then I turned and walked out.

Five minutes later I returned from the men’s room, walked in, and a guy came over and asked ‘You said something about nine ball?’ I immediately said, ‘Aw, you don’t wanna play me, I’m the world’s champion nine-ball player.’ At that time there was no such thing of course. Then he said, C’mon, you wanna play?’ I said ‘Are you kiddin’? I just beat Willie Hoppe two days ago for the title, beat him ninety straight games at forty dollars a game. You can’t beat me.’ Now the guy starts to get hot and challenged me to a game for twenty-five dollars. ‘Twenty-five dollars?’ I said. ‘Hell, if I want a bowl of soup I’ll buy one.’ With that his buddies started laughing. It went on like that for about fifteen minutes. That’s what I’d do, see, get them all riled up and then make ‘em laugh to cool ‘em off so they’d play. In the end I got up a game for eighty dollars, I think. Four guys bet me twenty apiece.

As I reached for a house cue I shook my head and said, ‘Ho ho, you’ll be sorry. Don’t say afterwards I didn’t warn you.’ So we flipped for the break, the other guy won, he broke the balls, nothing dropped in and I’m left with a shot on the one. Now instead of shooting for it I go for the nine off the one and it kisses off three balls, banks twice and goes in. Just luck, see. I was riding the nine and I won. So I picked up the eight bucks and without saying anything I walked over to the wall, put up my cue and started to walk out. Any my opponent yelled ‘Hey, whata’ ya doin’? Quittin’? I turned around with a puzzled look and said ‘You mean to tell me after seeing a professional shot like that you still wanna play me? Well, hell, I’m not quitting! Give me back my cue!’

By this time two more guys stepped in to bet and the stake went up to a $120. Now really, this only happens once in a lifetime. Second game, same thing. I got a shot on the two ball and rode the nine in on two kisses. And all the time I was shaking my head and saying ‘See? See’ and telling them how dumb they are to be betting me. Now I did that four straight times, rode the nine in on small balls. You couldn’t believe it. It just happened. ‘Course, I know how to ride the balls pretty good. But now I’m $600 ahead and I decided I wasn’t gonna depend on this any more. So on the fifth game I get a shot on the three and run out. That was the first time they saw I could really shoot and right away two guys quit. One of them said, ‘Hass, he probably is the greatest nine-ball player in the world.’ By that time I’m $750 or $800 winners and I don’t care if they quit.

The session lasted altogether about two hours. For awhile there I was betting one-sixty a game but near the end the bet was down to sixty. I finally beat the guy for about $1,200. As he was getting ready to leave he said, ‘You’re the luckiest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.

I said ‘Why’s that, son?’

He said, ‘Two minutes before you came in that door, I’d just won $300 and was on my way out.’

Several years ago during the Florida State Open Tournament, Willis was invited by the promoter to a players’ meeting. Among those on hand were Junior Goff, Bill Weenie Beanie Staton, Eddie Taylor (a great one-and nine-ball money player) and Willis’ old roadmate Johnny Irish. The purpose of the meeting, the promoter explained, was to explore the possibilities of incorporating the players into some kind of professional organization. As a preliminary step he handed out sheets of paper and requested the players to list their various accomplishments. For several minutes the room was silent while pencils scribbled.

At length the promoter collected the papers, all of which were full of championship honors and titles - except for the one from Don Willis. That sheet read only Undisputed Champion of Fourth Street, Canton, Ohio.

When asked about it, Willis replied he’d never in his life entered a tournament of any kind anywhere, adding, outside of being the champion of my family I don’t hold any titles in anything. But when the other players present insisted that, for all the top names he’d bested, he ought to write down somehing, Willis relented.

OK, OK, I’ll give you something. He reached for the stack of papers, selected one belonging to one of the game’s top players containing a lengthy list of titles, wins and championships, then wrote on the bottom of this great player’s paper, I beat him, signed Don Willis.

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