Hans stands mighty tall at wheelchair pool

Charlie Hans of Middletown, Ohio, was a helluva pool player when he was a young man of 27. One of the better ones in the Cincinnati area, he said with an aw-shucks southwestern Ohio drawl.

What about now, at 43? He thought about it a few seconds. “Still one of ’em, I guess.”

Charlie Hans was getting ready to shoot pool at the Riviera on Thursday night, at the Top of the Riv penthouse ballroom, which offers spectacular views of Las Vegas. If you squinted, you could almost see Frank and Dean and Sammy racking them up, hear the ice cubes tinkling in their highball glasses.

Only Charlie was about to shoot pool while sitting in a wheelchair.

It was a few minutes before the semifinals of the Wheelchair Challenge at the American Poolplayers Association National Singles Championships. Charlie was sitting there in his wheelchair alongside a short, older, gray-haired woman, who was seated on one of those ballroom chairs with the fabric upholstery. Every so often, Charlie would nod when the gray-haired woman spoke.

The young man from the pool association said I should go over and talk to Charlie. “Right now?” I said. It appeared the match was about to begin.

I haven’t witnessed many pool matches, but I couldn’t see myself wandering over to Willie Mosconi a few minutes before he was to shoot pool for money, or that Steve Mizerak guy from the old beer commercials, even when he was just showing off.

But I walked into the incandescent light coming from the six pool tables and then back out again, into the semi-darkness, to where Charlie Hans, who has a Jackie Gleason look to him — save for the oily hair — was sitting with the gray-haired woman. I introduced myself. I asked what put him in the chair.

“Car wreck,” he said.

Charlie was on the road, shooting pool for money in Dalton, Ga., with a buddy. It was late at night/in the wee morning hours, because when you shoot pool for money, it usually isn’t a large sum of it, and so you don’t sleep at Motel 6. You sleep in the car while the other guy drives.

Only the other guy dozed off while he was driving.

By the time the car was done careening around medians on Interstate 75 just outside of Dalton, Charlie’s neck was all twisted up, like a pool cue that had been left out in the rain. And the top of his scalp was sheared away, because it had gotten caught in the T-top of his buddy’s car while they were careening around medians.

That was 1997, and that was the last time Charlie walked.

It took him about four years to learn to shoot pool while sitting down.

Before the wreck, he worked for a medical lab, dropping off blood and other specimens. He was engaged to be married. Now he lives with the gray-haired woman.

Judy Huber is Charlie’s mother. She is a retired Hamilton County (Ohio) sheriff’s deputy. She seems a strong woman, but she’s 66, and she had been pushing around her son, who is a large man, in a wheelchair in a casino for the past two days. A casino that mostly has floors covered in thick carpet.

She said she was “worn smooth out,” which is what people from down on the Ohio River say when they grow weary of something.

Judy and Charlie get by on social security stipends and the sound of pool balls dropping into corner and side pockets. But it’s not a lot of money. Charlie made $2,000 for winning his second straight Wheelchair Challenge at the Riv. It’ll pay for expenses and a couple of tanks of gas in the 2005 Dodge Magnum that had 39,000 miles on it when Judy bought it and has 90,000 on it now.

Because Charlie won, they’ll be able to put a little money aside for the next pool junket, which will be back here in late May. (It’s a tournament at Bally’s for able-bodied players; Charlie will be the only one in a wheelchair.)

Had he finished second, they might have broken even after expenses. Had he finished third or fourth, probably not.

But it’s worth the effort, not so much because shooting pool has given Charlie reason to get out of bed in the morning, or something like that, but because of that one night when Charlie’s partner talked these two guys into shooting pool for $100 in a bar, and when Charlie came rolling through the door in his wheelchair with the bridges and contraptions that help him sink the long shots, the two guys asked if they could make it $200.

And so they did. And the way the gray-haired woman told the story, you could almost see Charlie and his buddy counting the money and sharing a hearty laugh, because like Fast Eddie Felson said in the movies, money won is twice as sweet as money earned.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.