The Best ‘Teacher’ For Life By Patrick Sampey
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” -- Michael Jordan Thursday,Sep 9, 2021-- I was thinking about life lessons, and how that may relate to the game of pocket billiards -- and you know how when they say “get in the box,” and do you feel that fire and passion for the game like I do? Do you feel every pulse and synapse of that wooden shaft, organic vibrations of reverberating hum, the music of spheres -- and it burns like an eternal ember in my mind’s eyes, as the pool chalk decorated sidewalks of prose flow like rivers in the Congo. Excuse that contrite, concise diatribe... moving on! Throughout my life, I have always been a student to others in their areas of specialty -- each of us as individuals in life having our strengths and weaknesses. And sometimes your weaknesses can become your strengths and vice versa. And some say “practice your weaknesses,” but if you don’t also practice your strengths, they could become your weaknesses. What’s in your shot repertoire? Bank shots? Cut shots? Down-the-rail-length-of-table cut shots? Off-angle banks? Shots you’ve never seen before that come up in the course of some games? Seems to me that while chess has so many possible moves based on the limits of the board, that pool is a game of infinite possibilities predicated by the repeating decimal of Pi, 3.14… The pool balls have virtually any combination of 47
