Pool hall gives students a chance to play with history

In a room on the second floor of the Michigan Union, Dave Matthews can be heard faintly beneath the clatter of balls, the cheers of victory and the moans of defeat.

Players, looking determined and intent, line up their shots amid encouragement and taunting. Stained-glass maize and blue Tiffany-style lamps hang above every table, and the walls are lined with black and white photographs of Michigan sports teams and legends of long ago.

For those playing pool so intently in the Michigan Union Billiards Room, the atmosphere is probably not the first thing on their minds. At second glance, however, the Billiards Room has more history than a small museum. Underneath items most would chalk up as simple decor and behind the faces of employees and players alike, lie many tales and traditions.

LOUIS BROWN/Daily LSA first-year student Kunjal Dharia is not worried about the Union Billiard Room's storied past, he just wants to make this shot.

For example, the block "M" stained-glass lamps, said hall manager and former student Betsy Sundholm, are the only ones of their kind and were added to the Billiards Room when the Union underwent renovation in 1996.

Out of the approximately 30 black and white sports photographs that adorn the walls, the oldest dates back to the late 1800s.

"These are originals; the Bentley Historical Library has come by a few times to borrow the photos to supplement their archives," Sundholm said. "People come in all the time to look for their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers on the walls. Some of the visitors are even looking for their own faces on the pictures!"

The Billiards Room of today has always been used by students, but in the past faculty and alumni were provided a separate "exclusive" room elsewhere in the Union. Though the room now boasts 17 pool, two snooker and two billiards tables, the majority of the tables were three-cushion pocketless billiards tables until the '40s. Pocket billiards was not quite so popular at the time among male students, and women were not allowed into the Union without escorts until the mid-'60s. Sixteen of the 17 pool tables that are currently used in the Billiards Room were acquired in 1945.

The room has not only a vivid physical history, but also a spirited one rooted in the tales of workers and regulars.

Sundholm said the Billiards Room was a popular spot for people to huddle around the radio and listen to the Michigan football games in the days before they were broadcast on television.

Smoking was permitted in the room until 1993. "There's one regular that always complains about the building being non-smoking," said Billiards Room employee and Engineering sophomore Wojciech Podwysocki. "He used to come in the '70s when he says that people were allowed to not only smoke, but smoke weed in the pool hall."

For many years, a group of professors gathered in the Billiards Room to play a unique game involving a leather bottle and three balls from a three-cushion billiards table. Sundholm recalls the group first consisted of more than 20 members who met everyday, but eventually the group shrunk down to three people meeting once a week. "In the years I knew them, it was all about pride," she said. "They would always split their table time equally. If their total was $3.05, they would bicker over who would pay the extra nickel ... we got to the point where we would 'coincidentally' make sure the total was easily divisible by three."

Former employee Bill Shurtliff, who began working in the Billiards Room in 1941, said most of the professors who played the bottle billiards were from the math department and played up until about a year ago. By the time they gave up the game most of them were in their 80s or 90s.

Shurtliff recounted several occurrences during his years at the Billiards Room. In the '40s, the manager was very rigid and the hall was somewhat formal. In those days, the elevator in the Union faced the doors of the pool hall. Often, Shurtliff said, people would stop the elevator in between floors and shoot craps because they weren't allowed to do so in the hall itself.

Also, Fielding H. Yost, the Michigan football coach after whom the hockey arena was named, used to wander through the Billiards Room looking at the photographs of students he used to coach.

Perhaps the biggest legend in Billiards Room history was Carl Conlon, a former Michigan football player, who toured the world playing billiards until his death in 1997. Conlon was a world-class three-cushion billiards player and "the most knowledgeable billiards player in North America," said friend and long-time Billiards Room regular Tom Colado.

Sundholm recalled how Conlon used to go to the Union everyday, when he wasn't traveling, to sell his custom cue sticks. The sticks were marked with Conlon's initials and are still used by many pool players today.

Though the Billiards Room's appearance hasn't been altered much since it opened - it is one of the only areas in the Union that has not gone through major renovations - the atmosphere has changed.

"I miss a place to go and not hear noise," said Colado, who began visiting the Billiards Room with his father in the '50s. "When you walked in, you felt like you belonged there. It was a place to go and play a game, and you were able to concentrate and exchange ideas without yelling. You couldn't swear ... if you were cursing, you were expelled for at least two weeks."

"It used to have a real pool-hall feel to it because of the smoke," added former student and employee Aaron Toth.

But Shurtliff disagreed. "It's not that drastic a change. A lot of people from the '30s and '40s could walk in and it still has a lot of the same flavor."

The Billiards Room may have changed over the years, but nevertheless, it is, and always has been, a popular hang-out for students. Generally, Friday and Saturday nights are the busiest, sometimes luring a crowd of up to 400.

It has plenty of activities to keep people occupied. Besides billiards, the room also has a foosball table and chess tables, and offers free board and card games. There are nine-ball tournaments every Thursday and larger ones on the first Sunday of every month. Monday is Ladies' Day, when women can play free of charge. For those with little or no experience in playing pool, Toth teaches a mini-course. Interested students can register for by calling the Michigan Union Ticket Office.

The Billiards Room also hosts monthly special events. Jan. 31, the hall is having a Super Bowl Party at 5:30 p.m. as a grand opening for its new TV lounge, featuring half-price pool games, free food, and raffles.

One final lure of the Pool Hall these days is that all the net profits generated go to support student programs in the Union.

"People visit because they enjoy playing pool," said employee and LSA sophomore Juan Alexae Solomon II. "Pool relaxes a lot of people and they can have fun with their friends, while others practice to get better. Everyone always has a good time."

LOUIS BROWN/Daily LSA first-year student Rahul Dawone sizes up his next shot as friends look on.

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