Wednesday, January 3, 2018 // The Statement
4C
Wednesday, January 3, 2018 // The Statement 
5C

The pool hall, hustled out

Union renovations strip away 97 years of pool hall history 

by Will Feuer, Contributor
T

he room is a labyrinth of 
ancient tables, antiques still 
in use. Above each one, fluo-
rescent lights puncture maize 

and blue stained glass to reflect off the phe-
nolic resin balls. Blue cue chalk stains the 
hands of the players and permeates the air 
to create a haze. Chatter is drowned out by 
the smack of balls. The archaic space heat-
ers moan and the greats who came before 
us stand watch, framed in timeless wood, 
nailed to the walls. The scratches and tears 
in the 16 nine-foot Brunswick tables tell a 
story longer than most at the University of 
Michigan have been alive.

Few people know that when the Michi-

gan Union was erected in 1919, it boasted a 
bowling alley, bar, swimming pool, barber 
shop, hotel rooms and much more. Over the 
century since, these amenities have slowly 
been replaced by a computer lab, Starbucks, 
Au Bon Pain, fast food chains and other 
facilities that fill today’s Union. However, 
one room on the second floor remains vir-
tually untouched, frozen in time and dis-
playing the Union’s winding story. As this 
academic year ends, so too will the lingering 
life of the historic billiards hall.

I spent hours every week — probably 

every day — in this room my freshman 
year. It is where I would unwind after a 
long day and where I would bring people to 
understand me a bit more. The green-felted 
nine-foot Brunswick tables put the ratty 
seven-footer my dad taught me to play on to 
shame. This is my refuge, my paradise and 
my home.

It wasn’t long before I was on the club 

pool team. Yes, U-M has a team. In fact, U-M 
hosts the largest college pool tournament 
in the country, the University of Michigan 
Team Pool Championships. My freshman 
year, the UMTPC was the weekend of Hal-
loween. While my fraternity brothers were 
doing what they do, I was locked in a heated 
game of nine-ball until midnight against a 
couple of students from Carnegie Mellon 
University. I lost, we shook hands and they 
asked me where the parties were.

That tournament is held every year, and 

it’s bliss for those of us who crave the inten-
sity of calmly tapping safety shots for two 
hours patiently awaiting a chance to run the 
table in one foul devastating swoop.

OK, so it’s not football, but what pool 

lacks in aggression and physicality, it makes 
up for tenfold in strategy and tact. Though 
far and few in between, there is a network 
of individuals on campus who don’t just love 
billiards but love the billiards hall. That’s 
why I question the Union renovations slated 
to begin this April, which will not only erase 
the pool hall entirely but also devastate the 
community surrounding it.

*****

When the Union closes for renovations 

this spring, the University will sink more 
than $85 million into the project over 
two years. In planning the new and hope-
fully improved Union, the University 
conducted surveys, town halls, intercept 
interviews and more to gauge campus 
and alumni opinion on what the Union 
should be. In total, more than 350 stu-

dents, 500 alumni and almost 200 staff 
offered input.

Driven by the results of those outreach 

efforts, the administration is seeking to 
expand space for student organizations in 
the Union, said Susan Pile, senior director of 
University Unions and Auxiliary Services, 
who has been active in planning the renova-
tions. The University currently boasts over 
1,500 student organizations, but fewer than 
80 have office space, all of which is located 
on the third and fourth floors of the Union.

While creating office space for student 

organizations, the renovations will expand 
Counseling and Psychological Services 
and move some administrative offices to 
the third and fourth floors. The student 
org offices will move to the “IdeaHub,” 
a planned co-working space that will be 
available to all 1500 student organizations. 
However, if demand is high, space may 
become reservation-only.

What is certain is that the IdeaHub will 

take over the space that has been the billiards 
hall for 97 years, which has failed to turn a 
profit in the past decade according to Pile.

“I think folks recognize that we are trying 

to create a much more inclusive kind of space 
for student organizations,” Pile said. “We are 
going to maintain the historical details of the 
space and we will tell the story of the billiards 
room in the space to honor that legacy.”

The concept behind the IdeaHub origi-

nated in 2011 from the student-run Building 
a Better Michigan, formed by the Michigan 
Union Board of Representatives to advocate 
for improvements to the Union. BBM has 
significantly contributed to the Union ren-
ovation process, communicating directly 
with the project’s architects. 

“One thing that BBM really does is it 

helps keep the renovations in a student-led 
perspective because the University would 
not exist had it not been for students here,” 
LSA junior Jazz Teste said, a co-president 
of BBM.

In 2013, members of BBM spoke before 

the Board of Regents, claiming to repre-
sent all 17,000 LSA students despite being 
unelected. The Regents then voted to add 
a semesterly $65 “University Unions and 
Recreational Sports facility improvement 
fee” onto the tuition and fees of students 
to go towards renovating campus facilities, 
formally putting the gears in motion for the 
Union overhaul.

“I do regret having to lose the billiards 

room because it is a gorgeous and iconic 
place in the Union. However, student lei-
sure activities have changed over the past 
couple decades,” Teste said.

Teste said it’s unfair for the University 

to pick and choose which student groups 
receive the limited office space, and reiter-
ated the billiards hall has been unprofit-
able. The IdeaHub will eliminate the need 
to parcel out space among eager student 
organizations.

“It would come down to evaluating 

them, which we currently do, but how 
do you measure someone’s passion over 
another?” she asked.

Being that it is precisely the administra-

tion’s job with these renovations, I put the 
question to those who care most about the 
billiards hall.

*****

“This place for me was one of my favorite 

places on campus. It’s where I spent most of 
my free time. I fell in love with pool and met 
a lot of really cool people here,” Greg Web-
ster said, who graduated from LSA in 2016.

“I met my girlfriend here,” he added with 

a bashful smile.

Webster is a self-proclaimed follower 

of “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski,” 
though he’s replaced The Dude’s passion for 
bowling with that of pool. His long blonde 
hair and signature goatee are a testament 
to his aesthetic, even if the Union doesn’t 
allow White Russian cocktails. Webster can 
be found in the pool hall almost everyday. 
He is one of the first people I met at the Uni-
versity. In my freshman year, he convinced 
me to try out for the team.

“It is what it is. I’ve kind of accepted 

the fact that it’s going to be removed from 
the building … They’re already looking to 
sell everything,” he said in classic “Dude-
esque” fashion.

According to Pile, the University will 

seek out other homes on campus for the 
tables before trying to sell them off.

Webster understands the hall has been 

unprofitable for at least a decade, but he 
believes there’s value in the room that the 
administration fails to see.

“If you come in here during the day, you 

see people from all over the world coming to 
play and you hear people speaking all types 
of languages … Most of my friends who I 
spend hours a week playing pool with are 
from Asia. I’ve even learned some Chinese. 
I could go to a pool hall in China and be able 
to speak to them a bit,” he explained.

Webster was speaking not just about the 

pool hall, but also to a much broader global 
trend. While the once-hugely popular game 
of billiards has steadily declined in the Unit-
ed States, the sport has taken off throughout 
Asia, particularly China. At the turn of the 
20th century, New Yorkers enjoyed more 

than 4,000 billiards rooms. Today, there are 
fewer than 30.

Shanghai was home to 200 billiards clubs 

in 2008, a number that has since skyrock-
eted to 1,500. Pool academies have been 
established in major cities throughout Asia 
and today, six of the top 10 global pool play-
ers are from East or Southeast Asia, accord-
ing to the World Pool-Billiard Association.

“(The University) is trying to create all 

these ‘global citizens,’ but then they get 
rid of every sport that’s not ‘American,’” 
Webster said. “This is where you’re able 
to connect with people who you wouldn’t 
normally connect with through this shared 
interest in pool. This is where our cultures 
meet and we’re able to bond over it.”

Mengyang Zhang, who graduated last 

fall from the School of Engineering, echoed 
that point. Zhang hails from the province 
of Shanxi in China, and transferred to the 
University three years ago from North Car-
olina State University. Discovering the pool 
hall his first week on campus, the tight-knit 
community helped him adjust.

Zhang went on to represent the Univer-

sity at the UMTPC for three consecutive 
years, also competing every year to qualify 
for the Association of College Unions Inter-
national Collegiate 9-Ball Championship. As 
a founding member of ACUI, the University 
has hosted their billiards tournaments doz-
ens of times, and this past summer they did 
so again, knowing it would be the last in Ann 
Arbor. Zhang placed in the top 16, but his 
favorite part of the game is the relationships.

“Pool is a common interest for everyone 

who comes here, so from the pool, we then 
start talking about life and get to know each 
other, different lifestyles and cultures. It’s 
the start of the conversation,” he said over a 
game of eight ball.

The University’s billiards club is the first 

club Zhang joined on campus and three years 
later, he still attends almost every weekly 
meeting, loosely defining the term “meeting.” 
Members of the billiards club convene every 
Friday evening in the hall for a tournament. 
The winner gets a free week of pool. Though 
Zhang said he only competes to win when he 
is feeling really good, he enjoys being with all 
of his friends and afterward, they’ll go out for 
dinner or a drink.

“If it’s possible, I definitely want this 

pool hall to be kept. All my memories, all 
the people I know, it all started here. Even 
if they just move some to another room, if I 
see one of the tables I can pick up the memo-
ries maybe,” he said. “This is where all my 
memories are. There’s a story here.”

*****

The billiards hall has welcomed numer-

ous professionals over the years, including 
Hall of Famer Nick Varner, and the legend-
ary Mike Massey. But perhaps today’s most 
famous patron of the pool hall is Betsy 
Sundholm, manager of the Student Organi-
zation Resource Center. Sundholm came to 
the University as a freshman and hasn’t left 
since. She became a full-time employee of 
the Union in 1996. Not only is she friendly 
with every regular, student and non-student 
alike, but she has also created a huge network 

across the country of collegiate pool players 
through her masterminding of the UMTPC.

“I have so many memories of the bil-

liards room. It has played such a big role in 
the person that I am. I got a job there as an 
18-year-old kid and now I’m well into my 
forties,” she said nostalgically. “I met my 
partner of 27 years there ... he taught a pool 
class and I was working behind the desk. He 
was one of the best players in town and I had 
a crush on him.”

Sundholm struggled to recall other 

schools with comparable billiards halls, 
adding that some schools without any tables 
on campus have a flourishing billiards com-
munity, though they face massive hurdles.

“(Students from other schools) come 

here and this is like Disney World to them,” 
she added.

One of Sundholm’s favorite memories of 

the pool hall is when one of the most recog-
nizable faces of professional pool, Jeanette 
Lee or the “Black Widow,” came to play a few 
racks in 1998. The billiards room partnered 
with the Korean Student Association to bring 
Lee, a Korean-American, to campus.

When it comes to the pool hall closing, 

Sundholm has to separate her professional 
duty from personal feelings. Pile, her boss, 
sat in on our interview, perhaps to make 
sure she did so.

“Square footage in Ann Arbor is a pre-

mium,” she said. “On a personal level, it 
makes me sad, but professionally, I com-
pletely understand ... There will always be a 
demand to some extent for people who want 
to play pool, but I don’t think it’s going to be 
what the billiards room is right now. Stu-
dent needs evolve, spaces evolve…”

But the evolution of the Union will not 

just impact students. Whereas the billiards 
hall is open to the entire Ann Arbor com-
munity, the IdeaHub will be exclusive to 
students. Originally from Ypsilanti, Greg 
Jackson has lived in Ann Arbor for about 23 
years, but he’s been a regular at the pool hall 
for even longer.

“I started playing when I was 15 years 

old. All I wanted to do was play pool ... I was 
here almost every day for about 20 years. 
Almost every day,” he said. “It’s just the love 
of the game.”

Jackson says he endured a rollover car 

accident in 1995, which put him in a coma 
and permanently damaged his brain, but 
pool has helped him recover.

“I’ve learned to be patient. I’ve learned to 

accept things ... Pool has trained me to think 
about things in the long run. It’s trained me 
to take my time to concentrate and not just 
do the first thing that I see automatically.”

The billiards hall is not only Jackson’s 

home-away-from-home, but he says pool 
has taught him how to cope with a chaotic 
neighborhood at times.

“It’s been a great run for me here. I’ve 

loved every day that I’ve played here. I never 
got into a fight here. I never got into so much 
as an argument here. It’s just a peaceful 
place. It’s a peaceful place,” he said.

Since it was constructed and opened up to 

the public, the pool hall has been a corner-
stone of Ann Arbor, Jackson emphasized. 

He, like others, understands the financial 
turmoil of the room, but hopes the Univer-
sity can find another public space for pool.

“(The University) is focusing on educa-

tion and there’s nothing I can do about it, so 
I have to accept it. I have to accept things I 
can’t change and I can only change things in 
certain circumstances,” he dejectedly said, 
perhaps relaying a lesson he learned from 
the game of pool.

*****

But it isn’t just players mourning the bil-

liards hall’s death. LSA senior Alexandra 
Ngo has worked at the pool hall since her 
freshman year as a work-study employee, 
rising up the ranks to now serve as the facil-
ities and equipment manager.

“I’ve gotten to know everyone who comes 

in this room. I know everybody’s first name. 
I know what table they go to. I know what 
class they’re coming from and what they’re 
studying,” she said. “There’s a bunch of peo-
ple who have been here longer than some 
students have been alive.”

Alex works about 30 hours a week along-

side the 10 to 12 other work-study students 
who earn an income at the pool hall any 
given year. Over her four years at the pool 
hall, she has overseen weddings, bat-mitz-
vahs, bar-mitzvahs, “Sweet 16s” and many 
more events.

“It breaks my heart because I didn’t even 

know that the billiards room was included 
in the renovations until I got back to campus 
(this fall). And it breaks my heart every time 
alumni come in and say ‘Wow, this room has 
so much history,’” she said. “Coming in here 
and just talking to the regulars or people I 
recognize is one of my favorite things.”

Nguyen pointed out three distinctly mod-

ern tables in the far corner of the pool hall 
and explained they are Diamond Tables — 
the kind used in professional pool’s most 
competitive tournaments.

“We just bought these tables. We need 

a purpose for them ... This isn’t something 
you’re going to see drunk as hell sitting at 
Circus with people eating popcorn on them,” 

she said, referencing Circus Bar & Billiards 
on South 1st Street. “This is something that 
people literally drive to Ann Arbor to use. We 
are fighting to keep these in the building!”

Michigan Union employees declined to 

give the exact amount the University spent 
on the Diamond tables, but Sundholm says 
the total amount was less than $20,000. The 
fate of the tables are also uncertain as the 
University seeks a new home. 

Almost everyone I spoke to empathizes 

with the University’s rationale for closing 
the financially defunct pool hall, but Nguy-
en is unapologetically opposed.

“The University takes so much pride in its 

history and we talk about tradition and cul-
ture on campus, but if we get rid of the bil-
liards room I call bullshit … (The pool hall) 
is not only integral to U-M’s history, but also 
the history of Ann Arbor, so fuck U-M if we 
get rid of this.”

*****

This past summer I found myself in rural 

Buriram, Thailand for a weekend. No one 
spoke English, but everyone played pool. 
When I got on the table, I shed the role of 
strange foreigner and became just another 
player, shooting alongside everyone else. 
That bar, filled with smoke and tattered pool 
tables scarred by usage and lack of mainte-
nance, was a far cry from the Union’s bil-
liards hall.

In a few short months, the billiards hall 

will fall to the shadow of the Union, joining 
ghosts like the bowling alley and swimming 
pool. Pool will always be a part of my life, 
though that may mean playing more often on 
the unkempt tables down at Eightball Saloon 
on South 1st Street. But I will never forget 
the long days and late nights spent shooting 
on table 8 overlooking State Street alongside 
other wannabe hustlers, bonded by a shared 
passion for pool.

This semester is likely your last chance to 

shoot some racks in the same room as Michi-
gan’s greatest once did. Use the pool hall 
late in the semester, and you may be the 
room’s last.

Courtesy of Bentley Historical Library 

Men play pool in the Union billiards room in 1937.

Amelia Cacchione/Daily 

Photos of a visit by Jeanette Lee in 1998, a professional pool player known as “Black Widow,” hang in the bil-
liards room. 

