Ask them to teach you some English and you won’t get much help with your literature homework.
You will, however, be shown how to stroke the pool cue just right so that it hits the cue ball left or right of center, sending it barreling down the table in an unnatural sidespin.
The 30 or so members of the Cal Poly Billiards Club (CPBC) love teaching and sharing their passion for pool so much that it’s hard to tell where club duties begin and friendships end.
“With all the midterms and all that going by, (the club) just takes the stress away,” said civil engineering freshman Daniel Rakin, who said he’s made a lot of good friends through the CPBC.
“It’s more of just a bunch of us just kicking back, who are willing to teach anyone how to play pool,” added architecture senior Ben Tom, CPBC president.
The cue stick connoisseurs are just two of the eight members the relatively new club is sending to this year’s Association of College Unions International (ACUI) Regional 15 Leisure Activities Tournament, which is being hosted by California State University, Sacramento on Saturday and Sunday.
“I think Ben’s playing the best pool that I’ve ever seen him play,” said mechanical engineering grad student John Dell’Armo, who serves as one of the club’s unofficial advisers.
All three players who were sent to last year’s regional competition placed within the top 10. Tom placed third and went on to take ninth at the national competition.
The club was founded in 2002, when Dell’Armo, then a freshman, got together with his pool-playing friends and decided to organize a club.
“(The pool area was) where we all hung out; that’s where we went in between classes,” Dell’Armo said. “We ate there, studied there. It just kind of became our little hang out spot and we all loved to play pool.”
The friends decided to turn their favorite activity into a club in order to be more cohesive and receive funding from Associated Students Inc.
According to Dell’Armo, most players in the CPBC are intermediate, but he’d like to see a more diverse spread of skills.
“We don’t care if you’ve never played pool before, or if you’ve been playing pool for 10 years,” he said. “We’re pretty relaxed.”
“There’s actually been a lot of both girls and guys who joined that, I mean, they might have played at a friend’s house once or twice and they joined the league and they’re actually pretty decent players now,” Tom added.
Membership fees are $10 for the quarter or $25 for the school year, but the CPBC is far from stern about any of its policies.
“We’re not strict on paying any sort of fees or anything,” said Tom. “If you can’t afford it, just come in and play.”
Meetings are Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. in the billiards section of Mustang Lanes. New members are always welcome.