6 minute read
BCA Honors Bob Jewett With President’s Award
By Keith Loria
In his home, Bob Jewett has 2,000 different books about billiards on a few hundred feet of shelf space, so he can reference just about anything having to do with the sport. Some of the books are even in Russian or Portuguese, and he enjoys to school, I entered the Collegiate Championship. Dan Louie
looking through them and gaining nuances from each – even if he can’t exactly understand them!
His love for the sport is almost unparalleled, and he’s been involved with pool for most of his life as a player, writer and instructor. That’s why the Billiard Congress of America has awarded Jewett the BCA’s President’s Award for this year.
“I was surprised but very happy,” Jewett shares about being informed he won the award. “I have done a lot of things over the years, but it’s just a little bit at a time, but I guess it built up over the years.”
Among his myriad of accomplishments are winning the ACUI National Pool championship in 1975; writing the first-ever English-language book on artistic billiards in 1987; organizing an artistic billiard instructional clinic in Miami with European champion Hans de Jager in 1995; and arranging the “Jacksonville Experiments,” in which slow motion video of ball-ball, cuestick-ball and ball-cushion impacts were studied for the first time.
He became a BCA/PBIA Certified Instructor in 1993, and is presently an Advanced Instructor. He even had success as a player, being a past ACUI collegiate champion and defeating some top pros – including Shane Van Boening and Ronnie Allen – in tournament matches.
Jewett started playing pool when his friend in high school got a table for his birthday and the kids in the neighborhood would spend their days learning and competing against one another.
“I think I played on it more than he did, and eventually got to the point where I really couldn’t play with my friends anymore,” Jewett says. “I enjoyed playing. I was lucky enough to be at a university where the student union had all three types of tables, so I learned all the different games – pool, carom He went into the Air Force during the Vietnam War and had the opportunity to play a lot there because the day rooms all had pool tables and it was free to play.
“I gradually improved because I was playing all the time,” Jewett says. “When I got out of the Air Force and went back and snooker. I found them all interesting.”
was going to school at the time, so it was pretty much impossible to win. I outlasted him though and the third year I managed to win the thing.”
Jewett started teaching informally in the 1960s while at grad school.
“I ran a little 9-ball league and had to figure out the handicap system, and also the rules were pretty dismal, so I ended up writing my own rules, which eventually became the PBT rules and effectively WPA World-Standardized rules,” he says.
In the early ’90s, he got instructor training from Jerry Briesath and became certified himself. He co-founded the San Francisco Billiard Academy soon after and taught many people the skills of the game and how to control a table. Since 1993, Jewett has continued to offer instruction as he gets requests for it and enjoys doing that tremendously.
At some point, the snooker, carom and pool people in the United States thought there should be an umbrella organization to promote cue sports at the Olympics, so Jewett spearheaded the initiative as a volunteer.
With all his knowledge and love for the game, Jewett also has done a great deal of writing about billiards over the years. He has been writing for Billiards Digest since 1991, with an emphasis on some of the more technical aspects of cue sports.
It’s his writing that has brought many to the game, and encouraged a love for the finer points of the sport.
“He also has written basic and advanced instructional articles for several other billiard magazines for a combined total of over 500 articles,” says Brian Igielski, BCA past chairman. “Bob has been the secretary and president of the US Billiards Association for three-cushion billiards, and is presently the treasurer of the US Snooker Association.”
He also served as editor of the World Pool Billiard Association World-Standardized Rules, co-wrote the BCA Instructor’s training manual and was a co-founder of the San Francisco Billiard Academy. Now, Bob is continuing his service in the industry as the PBIA committee chairman.
“He has a collective lifetime of supporting billiards,” says noted billiard expert Michael Shamos, curator of the Billiard Archive. “For me, his most important trait is a scientific, non-nonsense approach to the game. When he wants to know something, he does an experiment or calculation. He discovered, for example, that when A and B play a match, the probability of a given player winning is the same whether winner breaks, loser breaks, they alternate breaks or flip a coin at each break.”
In addition to being a totally dedicated pool nut, Jewett also had a long career as a successful electrical engineer. This is where he got his perfectionism and desire to innovate and fix anything that is broken. Along his journey, Jewett got involved with Dr. Dave Alciatore as they shared a love for the technical aspects of the game.
“I was an electrical engineer and he was a mechanical engineer, so we both approached the game from a more technical viewpoint than most people,” Jewett says. “We’ve done quite a few videos together, including a lot of stuff that’s on YouTube for free, and sets of DVDs about different aspects of billiards.”
Alciatore, who nominated him for the award, notes Jewett has had a significant impact on so many areas of the pool world.
“He helped organize and fund many 3-cushion, carom, and straight pool tournaments,” he says. “He personally contributed nearly $100,000 of his own money to the Derby City Straight Pool tournament over many years.”
Looking back over his career, Jewett notes he has always enjoyed playing and competing and developed so much love and appreciation for the game. It’s what has made him such a popular figure among billiard enthusiasts, players and others.
“Bob doesn’t just participate, he always takes an active contributing role in every involvement and activity,” Alciatore says. “I don’t think there ever was or ever will be somebody as dedicated to so many aspects of the pool world as Bob has been.”
AGAIN TOGETHER
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