So when he went home all he could think was that he wanted to play pool. He was used to playing pinball for a nickel a game. Back then, pool was ten cents a rack. So he started figuring. He knew he would get about five minutes of play on the pinball machine for a nickel. He also knew that if he was in the back of the pool room, he could pocket all of the balls and, if no one was watching he could put them back up and keep going, sometimes stretching his dime for half an hour. Then he found out he could play a little bit. So he started asking buddies to go to the poolroom with him. He’d get them to bet him for a coke. Sometimes he choked, but most often he won the coke

Then he realized that he wasn’t throwing money away into pinball machine, he was learning something. He was no longer going backwards all the time. Then he found out that he kind of hand a knack for the game, and then came the bottom line: he found out he LOVED the game.

Doc told of how he would lay in bed at age sixteen and think of pool balls. He would picture himself in his mind’s eye, cutting balls in the side, banking them across corner, and he’d make it every time. Knowing full well that other guys his age were thinking about girls and driving nice cars with loud mufflers and ‘coon tails hanging off the antennae, Barry was fixated on playing pool. He was hungry! All that he could think about was playing pool. He absolutely lived it. But he soon realized that he didn’t love the game as much as he loved the competition. He loved beating guys… he loved to WIN!

Every Saturday morning in Ashland, Kentucky, all the big players from a hundred fifty miles would come to play 9-Ball. Doc would walk in the wintertime, with cold and blowing snow, (up hill both ways without shoes, no doubt) to be there by nine a.m. before they would rack, to get a good seat. So if you asked him, who taught him to play, he would say, "self-taught," because he would sit there, on that stool, as a fifteen-year-old boy, and never move. He was too afraid of losing his seat, and wouldn’t dare miss this scrutiny for the world. He’d sit there all day long until ten or ten-thirty at night, until finally, being the last one he couldn’t take it anymore. At night’s end there was powder all over the tables. This was far from clean, neat pool. Not neat and pretty at all. This was dingy, dark, tough pool… men pool!

I asked Doc about a story he’d shared with me years ago, having to do with his nickname, "Quarter Hixon." He smiled, obviously this was a good memory. As a teenager with very little money, he would only bet a quarter on the five, seven and nine ball. "Why… because when you come in with $1.75 - $3.00, what else were ya gonna play for?" For sometime thereafter, he’d walk into a crowded pool room every week to the same taunting. The college guys would yell, "Hey, here comes Quarter Hixon, What do you want to play for… a QUARTER?" They loved to humiliate him.

One day he was sitting in the Sportsman in Ironton, Ohio, when he thought, "Who in the *@#! do they think they are?" He checked his pockets, and as usual, $1.75. He was determined to put these guys in their place. Having his own car now, at age 16, he hurried out to it and hopped in. The gas gauge read… VAPOR. But that wasn’t to slow him. He would simply drive as far as the fumes would take him, and if need be walk the rest of the way. He walked into the place and it was packed. It was no surprise to him to get the standard greeting from the bullies-at the top of their lungs of course. He made his way through the mass of bodies right up to the hecklers, looked them in the eyes and said, "I want you, and I want you, for half a dollar!" So they played for around two hours and Doc was up five bucks or so.

In the poolroom that day, as on many other days, was a guy named Gary Oxier. Everyone knew that Gary was smarter than everybody else. He’d take his college tuition money and play gin, bridge, pool, place bets. It didn’t matter, because everything Gary did turned to gold. Through the crowd of people, Doc saw Gary’s index finger curling up and motioning for Doc to go over to him. So he did, and Gary looked at him and said, "I want to know if you’re gonna beat those guys?" Doc said that he was sure gonna try, that he’d bleed all over the table, that he’d play his hardest. Gary asked the question again and Doc replied with virtually the same answer. They went back and forth, same question; he answers it a time or two more until finally, Doc answered the question to Gary’s satisfaction. He said, "I am going to beat those guys!" Gary said that was all he needed to know.

Gary then reached into his pocket and pulled out the "classic wad," a circular roll of money with a rubber band around it. He slipped off the rubber band(of course everyone was backing away at this point) licks his thumb, and starts flipping bills on the table. Then he looks at Doc and says, "Raise the bet and play up to five dollars on the five, seven, and nine." Doc asked in almost disbelief, "Are you sure?" But there was no reply from the serious face of Gary. Doc knew by looking at him that he was dead serious, so he went back to the table, raised the bet, and ran three and a half racks before getting sewed up. He came back to win a few more after that and consequently, was never the same player again. He said, "You don’t get better gradually, and you don’t get better until you dare—dare when the odds are against you. Courage is not an absence of fear, courage is overcoming the fear." And though Doc never out and out said, I suppose that was the end of the tormenting from the college boys.

Doc taught pool at Ohio State after returning from Vietnam. Though he started playing pool at the "Majestic" in Ashland, Kentucky, his first tournament win was in Grayson, Kentucky in 1965 with a high run of 75 consecutive balls and out. Later he finished first in the collegiate competition, at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia . A respectable Top 10 finish at the National Collegiate Competition was a handsome win at this point in his career.

Locally, Doc played in the Challenger’s 9-Ball Tournament at the Hall of Fame Lanes just down the road from the Reedurban Tavern in Perry Township, Canton, Ohio. The format was the winner of the winner’s bracket played the winner of the losers bracket a race to 13-winner take all. Doc was the winner of the loser’s bracket while Fred Martin, a 1996 Greater Canton Amateur Billiard Association (GCABA) Hall of Fame Inductee, was the winner of the winner’s bracket. Doc referred to Fred Martin respectfully as "Steamroller" Freddie, because once he got rolling, there was no strapping him. Doc was down 2 to 11. He took a break to the rest room, to collect himself. There, he reminded himself of the two reasons people miss balls. One, because there’s somebody else in the game, and two they miss for position. He told himself that he was allowed to miss another ball, but until it was over, he was never allowed to miss another ball for position. He came back to win that tournament 13-11—Doc seems to have done a little "steamrolling" himself!

In October of 1999, Doc was inducted into the Greater Canton Amateur Billiard Association Hall of Fame. In short, the Hall of Fame recognizes local pool players for their contribution to the sport of pool. Here he received the Achievement Award which reflects his expertise in the sport of Billiards. Had he not had a Doctorate in Dentistry, Doc surely could have been among the ranks of professional pool playing.

In discussing great players, I asked Doc to tell me which pool players he most admired and respected. His answer included both Don Willis and Jimmy Caras. Doc went to see Don Willis in the hospital during his final days with us here on earth. Doc asked him, "What is it Don, will you tell me what your secret is, what makes you such a great player?" Don simply replied, "Secret Heart." It’s not Doc’s place to share with the world what Don meant by that in regards to himself, all he can say is that we all have our own "secret heart" we just have to explore to determine what it is. Other notable players with whom Doc has played include Corn Bread Red, Steve (The Miz) Mizerak, and Kenny McCoy. In exhibition matches he has played Jim (King) Rempe and Jimmy Caras.

Doc had surgery in April of 1999 to correct a displaced disc. Here, a steel plate and a portion of his hipbone were fused into two vertebras in his neck. At the time of the writing of this article, he has a bone spur in his neck that continues to put pressure against his spinal core. So what does this mean regarding playing pool? The doctors do not recommend that Barry play at this point in his life. Periodically he will have the bone spur radiographed to see if the condition remains stabilized or worsens.

In closing, I would like to share two points. First is some advice that Doc wanted to pass on to the readers: "If you want to be a good player, and you want it bad you must…1-play, play, play; 2-practice, practice, practice; and 3-DON’T MISS!