Calling the Shots : Wheelchair-Bound Sharpshooters Hone Competitive Edge at U.S. Open

In his low-slung wheelchair, Chuck Sexton leans in close to the table and eyeballs a New-York-to-Paris corner shot across an ocean of green felt. He grits his teeth and lets her rip, watching the ball explode into the far pocket with the authority of a pool shark on wheels.

He then laps the table, using his left arm to pull himself along the rail in herky-jerky little bursts, his free hand holding the cue high in a graceful stab of victory.

“Some players say a guy without legs suffers a disadvantage at the pool table,” he said. “Maybe so, but not on a shot like that. I can get the chair right up flush to the table, just like that, see? My legs don’t get in the way like theirs do. It gives me better leverage.”

The former Union Pacific railroad inspector lost both legs at the hip seven years ago after he was run over by six train cars. Sitting down but not out, he arrived in Los Angeles from Portland, Ore., on Thursday, among 64 sharpshooters gathered to compete in the U.S. Open Wheelchair Billiards Championship at the Bicycle Club Casino in Bell Gardens.

Running through the weekend, the tournament is one of six stops on a newly formed mini-circuit exclusively for wheelchair players like Sexton--men and women, quadriplegics, paraplegics, single and double amputees--all primed to compete for the $8,000 in prize money.

But when he twists together his custom-made cue stick, Sexton does not see race or sex or anyone else’s pool-playing deformities. He sees only the color of money.

“It’s just people,” he said. “Short, tall, fat, thin, badly maimed or not. We’re all pool players. And we’re all here to win.”

Three tables over, Randy Florez is smiling. The weekend 9-ball tournament is a dream realized for the former ironworker, who severed his spinal cord in an accident in Denver 18 years ago. Learning to shoot pool during his months at a rehab center, he fell for the sport and its exacting mix of speed, grace and mathematical angle.

Entering a tournament at a Phoenix resort six years ago, Florez encountered sets of stairs that were inaccessible to the handicapped. So he decided to start his own tournament--exclusively for wheelchair players. He called it the Silver Spokes Classic.

Since then--after joining forces with the McDermott National Wheelchair Billiards Assn. Tour--Florez has watched the sport of wheelchair billiards take off like an ivory-flecked cue ball zipping toward the break.

In time, he estimates, it will rank as the biggest participant sport among physically challenged men and women in the United States. Nationwide, he estimates, there are more than 10,000 wheelchair-bound pool shooters of all ages.

“The best thing about this sport is you don’t have to change the regular rules one iota to accommodate wheelchair players,” he said.

“You can’t say that about any other sport.”

On the wheelchair circuit, players come with all abilities and range of motion. But nobody’s complaining.

Most say the sport has played such a strong part in healing the emotional and physical anguish of paralysis, they are just glad to compete on any terms: Even quadriplegic players with limited arm movement insist on no special dispensation or category.

“Still, some players are strong enough to sit up in their chair for a better view of the table, and we think that’s kind of unfair,” Florez said. “So, where able-bodied players always have to keep one foot on the floor, our rule is ‘one cheek on the seat.’ ”

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Many of the competitors have played pool all their lives. For others, it has been a post-accident pursuit. But all agree that lining up pool shots from a wheelchair is a distinctly different animal from the stand-up variety: Long-range and middle-of-the-table shots are particularly tough and most players are forced to use a bridge.

Wheelchair players say they also lack the stretch of their able-bodied competitors--as well as a bird’s-eye perspective of the table--from their low-level chairs.

Constantly circling a pool table in a wheelchair also can be hard work, causing players to lose concentration. The result is missed shots.

“In time, with practice, you learn to move the ball better so you don’t have to stretch as far--you find you can overcome the downside,” said Aaron Aragon of Pomona, 38, who lost the use of his legs in a car accident 20 years ago.

“Like anything else, if you want do something bad enough, you’ll find the time to learn it, to master it.”

Like the others, Aragon spends hours each week in smoky pool halls perfecting his craft.

There, he’s just one of the boys. Until some stranger shoots a dismissive glance toward the guy in the chair.

“You know what’s on their mind. It’s like, ‘He’s in a wheel chair. What can he do?’ They take you for granted,” said Aragon who, like other wheelchair players, also competes in able-bodied events.

“That is, until you start putting the racks on and they start opening up their wallets.”

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Next year, with the help of a grant from the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the wheelchair pool circuit plans to expand to a dozen or more stops--if it can find enough corporate sponsoring.

To date, purses remain smallish: Aragon, this year’s leading money-winner on the seated tour, has taken home only $3,040.

Florez says his dream is to see a top wheelchair player such as Aragon or Richard Lubin--a tour regular featured in the film “Born on the Fourth of July”--to star in, say, a Miller Lite beer commercial, to promote the sport and attract advertiser dollars.

Meanwhile, enough able-bodied pool shooters have tried the sit-down variety of the sport that Florez is on constant watch for a stand-up ringer entered in one of his tournaments.

“People have asked what kind of wheelchair they’d need to join our tour, so it’s not out of the question we’d find an impostor in our ranks,” he said. “But if worse comes to worst, I can always put a lighter under his feet.

“If he jumps, he’s outta here!”