Junior Player of the Month
Joey Tate Joey Tate, 17, of Elm City, NC is the first sibling among 12 to benefit from the recent and substantial growth of junior player competition, exemplified by the Junior International Championship series of tournaments, now in their second year.
A
s such, Joey has become something of a flagship for his younger siblings, two of them in particular at the moment, who accompany him on the ‘open seas’ of junior, as well as adult competition. At the most recent Super Billiards Expo, Joey was accompanied by younger sisters, Bethany (15) and Noelle (12), who followed in his footsteps (sometimes, literally) as they moved about
34 | Billiards Buzz • May 2022
the massive SBE complex, either on their way to specific competition, or just perusing the cue vendors and other assorted industry manufacturers. This ‘trickle down’ family phenomenon had its origins with the family patriarch, Randy Tate, born in 1971 and playing pool at a Chicago area Teen Center by the time he was 12. Three
years later, when The Color of Money was released and pool halls became flooded with players, Tate rode the wave into a local pool hall – Harold’s Pool Parlor, in Roselle, IL, owned by Harold Simonsen, who, in 1983, had founded Pool & Billiard Magazine, selected as a consultant to the film, as Simonsen himself had been cast as the tournament director of the film’s final tournament.
