Leil Gay, more commonly known as JR, grew up around billiards as his father used to sell merchandise to poolrooms when JR was very young. “I started going when I was real young, probably six or seven, something around there. I used to go to a bowling alley with an upstairs poolroom when I was little. Back then they said all I did [was] roll the balls around.” JR says of his father, "He sold a lot of things too, so we'd be loading up cue sticks, cue cases, bingo boards, radios and on and on and on. He had like this traveling show."

    Sometime later Leil’s father took a position as a counterman at Danny Vegh’s Hippodrome in downtown Cleveland, OH. There were eight children in JR’s family and “naturally all the boys tagged along to do all the work. I'd go down there and brush all the tables, then they would stick me in the back with no lights, cause back then the lights were hooked up to the computer. So if they hit the computer the time would start running. So I had to do all that junk just to practice.”

    At the age of 10, young Leil participated in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Championships. At this time he was already gambling at the poolroom. JR’s father played pool. “He played decent like a C player. By the time I beat him gambling, I was like 12.” Once JR began playing well, his father pretty much quit gambling on himself and mostly gambled on JR.

    "By the time I was 12, I was betting pretty high. I remember...I beat a guy out of $200, and I thought wow, what a bunch of money this is." Once JR hit his teenage years, his siblings would all run and hide when it came time to go with their father. They would go to the Hilltop on weekends and play. JR continued his studies and led a pretty normal life while in school. In the evening, however, he and his dad were out every night. 

    Well, back then tournaments were things "hustlers" tried to avoid. "The hustler thing, like you didn't play in tournaments. There were some I played in but I don't remember too many when I was young, it was almost all gambling." When he was 14, he ran 100 in straight pool. Learning to drive coincided at this same time, and  "We started taking road trips when I was like 14. When they got tired and they said well you might as well start now." JR reasoned, "if you can't drive on a freeway you can't drive anywhere." Travel destinations included the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, usually not very far, and most often just by themselves. "Mostly me and my father."

    When he was 16, he ran what would be incomprehensible to most: 157! "By the time I was 16 there wasn't too many guys that I couldn't play in town. By the time hit like 17 then I playing with Gulyassy, Grover, Emil, Maryo all those guys. By the time I was 18 I beat them all and none of them would play." "I run 157 like 10 different times. One-hundred -fifty-six 15 times. It was a mental block. Well I'd start thinking about it. Whenever you start thinking that's when you miss when you play pool."

    When JR was 15 or so and still in high school he played at the Velvet Rail on W 117^th street in Cleveland. This is where he came to know Bob Schneider well. He met him earlier on while travelling with his dad. When they first met JR couldn't have been more than 8 or 9. He recalled how his little brothers used to fight over which one would get to sit with Bob's wife. "My brothers they were fighting cause she was a real nice lady. You know 'Oh what a cute little kid,' that kind of stuff. They were eating it up." 

    During high school, his dad would pull Leil from school to go on road trips. It was never a concern since he always had good grades. Fellow classmates knew of his talent on the table, especially since their school game room had a pool table. "I beat up on a few teachers and staff members, so now I was like a hero to the kids." JR fit in well with everyone, "It wasn't like I had to be part of a group I was my own group." 

     Until the age of 18 or 19, JR played quite a bit of pool. "Then basically I run out of action. Once I beat that guy Amil, he was like the king. That wasn't just here, that was Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania blablabla. So then I got away from pool for a few years."

    JR started partying and having a good time. "I didn't have nothing else to do. I mean all I ever did was play pool. I played 10 hours a day for 10 years. People talk about doing it, I actually did it. It was like come home from school, hit the basement and start hitting balls. Dad would take a nap, wake him up...and go out all night and play pool." If JR stayed in he would remain in the basement until his dad would stomp on the floor, signaling he was tired of hearing the sound of pool balls. It was time for bed.

    It seemed all JR did was play pool. He looked at it this way, "I make a lot of money and really it is like helping support the family. But my Dad, that's all he was interested in." Looking back on it, trying to support 8 kids and always being on the road, he and his father were never around. He realized his mom had the most difficult job. "Even after I got older she said that never bothered her [his running around playing pool] cause at least she knew where I was. My other brothers were out running the streets, [but] she knew where I was. She didn't have to worry about me." 

    Before going on the road when he was 22, JR worked several jobs. Mike Gulyassy and Big Brad, who was like an old time hustler, accompanied him. Nobody really knew how good Big Brad played except for people around Cleveland, OH. All told, they spent 7 months on the road living out of a van. After two months, Mike called it quits but Brad and JR continued. They ended their trip through 20 states, $10,000 richer than when they started. The van also ended up gaining - about 30,000 on the odometer. They had both managed to save $5,000 each and live on the road for all that time. "Like I tell these young guys, road trip you're gone for 2 weeks, that ain't a road trip, what's the matter with you?"

    JR contends that this type of road trip was possible and that there was action to be had, although sometimes hard to get. However, the problem he ran into on his trip with Brad, was that Brad had been to all these places before. JR was told to "look for this guy or look for that guy, try to play this game, try to do that." He was basically being sent into these places to play blind. 

    He recalled going into a biker bar in Phoenix. Brad didn't want to go there, but JR knew there was action there. "I ended up winning like $2,000 at the bar over the period of a few days." On one particular night, he was forced to call Brad for help. He told Brad, "I'm winning about $800 and these guys keep bumping into me. They're getting really nasty." When Brad arrived, they had JR next to the alley door, just "talking " to him. JR spotted Brad and said "Oh hey there's my buddy, excuse me I'll be right back," and whoosh, out the door they went, followed by the group of bikers. They managed to get to the van and decided to spend a week in Tucson. 

    When they arrived back in Phoenix, JR says "drop me off at that bar, they got some more money I'll bet by now." He ends up winning another $2,000 and rationalized "that's the last thing they are going to expect is for me to come back." They end up flying a guy in to play JR. It turned out to be David Matlock, the famous bar table player. "He's got me for like $300 and he shoots a four ball combination and when the balls stop rolling he is like dead straight in on the next ball. I just paid him and said that's enough. Anybody who can do that I don't need to play them."

    When JR arrived back in town, he was 23 and decided to settle down. He enrolled in the Westside Institute and, after graduation, found a job as a printer. So for 10 years he worked for the printing company, bought a house and continued to play pool, mainly in bars. He settled into playing at one particular bar for about five years. He even played in the pool leagues. League play turned out to be less than appealing and he likened it to a waste of his time. "Once you get out to the nationals everybody wants to party." He continued to play strong with an impressive record of 83 wins in a row at the State, Regional and then National Event. "Every time I played, I'm basically playing the other teams best players." 

    From playing mostly in bars, and the opened Winter's Poolroom, JR got back to the big tables. "So my whole life I kind of flip flopped bar tables, big tables, bar tables, big tables, wherever the action was." It took a couple of months before JR could run a hundred. "That's probably when I started playing in more and more tournaments."

    The Viking Tour started and JR began to compete in those tournaments. It was in 1994 that pool became hugely important in JR's life. Frank Zummo was hosting an invitational straight pool tournament and when someone did not show, they called JR to see if he was interested in playing. He was told that it was a round robin format consisting of eight players. JR agreed and inquired as to the starting time. He was surprised by their answer, 15 minutes. He managed to get a ride from someone, played and rather well. After this first tournament, he was invited back for the next three.

    About this same time, JR played in a US Open qualifier and won. "I went to play in the US Open but right before that I tripped and broke a bone in my foot at that invitational, I was playing Mizerak actually when it happened, but I didn't know it." He just knew it hurt. He kept on working but soon realized his foot was not getting better, but worse. Come time to play in the US Open, everyone is in their tuxedos including the referees and JR is there with a broken foot. He talked the tournament director into allowing him to play the entire US Open in his black socks. He won several matches before losing to the second and third place finishers. He played very well. He recalls telling his mom he'd "crawl around the table if I had to because we used to go watch the US Open when I was a kid and here I am playing in it." 

    All seemed to work out well for JR as there were tournaments being held in Taiwan and they had invited Ray Martin and Dallas West to go. They also asked JR if he would be interested in going as an alternate. JR had three weeks before he was to leave for Taiwan. He was still working on his broken bone in the shipping and receiving department when he proceeded to purchase a non-refundable ticket as well as apply for a passport and visa. He waited and waited for them to arrive and they did - - the day of his departure. Now just the week before he was to leave, he told his employer that he had injured his foot. The injury required casting as well as a medical excuse from work.

    Anyhow, he went to Taiwan and was now not only in a tuxedo but also a cast. He ended up playing for 10 days with his cast on. Again everything seemed to work out well for he was invited to play in Spain, then Germany to play in the World Championships - an invitational with a limited number of players from each country.

    The Taiwan tournament was in October, the World Championships were in December, and the Spain tournament was in May. "I had to get like another Doctor's excuse. Got the cast off and told them I still couldn't come back to work."  He continued to use his ailing foot as a mask for attending the tournaments. He got off the plane from Germany on Sunday and reported back to work Monday morning. At this point, his employers were less than thrilled, so much so that it ended up costing him his job. This left him free to travel to Spain the following May. When all was said and done, JR had attended three world class tournaments in just six months. 

    JR never played on the pro tours because of that "hustler mentality", not because he couldn't stand the heat. It was only in the last few years that he has gotten away from that thinking. It was 1995 and he was playing mostly on the Viking Tour. "A lot of time I was going to the tournament with the mortgage money or I owe a month and I got $500 and another month is due, so actually I owe two mortgage payments and I have $500. Now that was heat." JR had a long stretch of victories, winning 9 out of 11 events and placing second in the other two. He also won the tour championship beating Steve McAninch twice. In 1997, "Corey [Deuel] beat me and then I beat Corey for the do or die match and that was about the time I started playing one pocket a lot more with Bobby."

    He really didn't like the game of one-pocket as a kid and didn't care for it as an adult. The game is too slow and JR likes to fire balls in. "I remember playing for 2 hours and getting a headache. I mean literally. Not too long ago I played a guy four days straight down at Derby City." 

    JR started playing one-pocket when Bob Schneider, a former tour pro and now partner in BJ's Diamond Mine who is featured on the cover, wanted to learn the game. It was around 1996 when JR started playing. When first learning play, not only did it cause him a headache, he couldn't win. He started going to Detroit to play. "I couldn't even beat like the bums playing one pocket. Nobody played any 9-Ball, but I couldn't beat them playing one pocket. But the catch is everybody up there plays good one pocket, even the weak players. So basically I'm learning, learning, beat a couple of guys, beat a couple of guys."

    At any rate, his interest peaked and his game improved. JR was now beginning to enjoy the game. "Now it’s like chess or a crossword puzzle...that’s why I like [it] though. You might get the same clues to that puzzle but it’s a little different. In other words it’s never the same game every time. Plus it’s fun to same them and same them worse, then safe them real bad. Then you get a few balls over by your pocket then a few more then a few more, you know just see how frustrated they get."

    Bob had convinced JR to go with him to the US Open One Pocket Championships in Kalamazoo, MI. There was also a big tournament going on at the same time in Boston, and many top players were attending that pro event instead of Kalamazoo. It was one of those situations where no one expected JR to accomplish much and simply overlooked him. Well JR caught his first break when Richey Richardson, who was spotting JR 10 to 8, had another person beat three to nothing and needed two balls to win but for some unknown reason began messing around. "This other guy ends up beating Richie and I'm spotting this guy 10 - 7. So I go from a playing a guy who was spotting me 2 balls to playing a guy that I was spotting 3 balls. That's who I beat in the quarterfinals. The only guy I really beat was [Cliff] Joyner, as far as a one pocket player." Cliff underestimated JR's abilities and did not take him seriously at first. "He got up there and treated me like your daughter the first couple of games. Boom, I put 8 and out on him, 8 and out on him. Now all of a sudden he starts trying but he give me that 2 game head start, so I end up beating him."

    "Then I play Jamie Goodwin and beat him. Then the last match, it was like David and Goliath, except I was Goliath and he was David. I just went right thru him. Beat him 5 - 0 in two hours. The whole match was like he didn't have a chance. That was like the end of the tournament. I started playing that good. All that one pocket in Detroit." 

    JR won the coveted US Open One-Pocket Championship, but the credit for his success he partially attributes to another player. "The other key was I played...Cecil Tugwell, he was a great player. I was just playing him $20 a game the first day of the tournament and he beats me like 15 games. I blow like $300 in one night, that's a lot of games." JR viewed the session with Tugwell as playing for experience. Thereafter, during each day of the US Open JR would play Tugwell one pocket. The next day JR took 5 games, the day after JR won 4 games, the day after that he won 3 games. On the last day of the tournament, JR approached Cecil to continue their play, but this time Cecil refused. He had had enough. "It just all came together." 

    After the US Open, JR went on to play in both of the Legends of One-Pocket events in Baton Rouge. During his first time attending, he lost his first match but then went on to take 7 matches in a row. Along the way he defeated legendary one pocket player, Ronnie Allen. Pat Fleming from Accu-Stats captured this one on tape. JR said, "the match before that was better, I beat Varner like 4 - 0 he hits only 1 ball."

    JR would have thought his title would have been in 9-Ball or straight pool, "win the one pocket, who? JR? No way! I always played straight pool." JR really enjoys straight pool and when he gets playing, he plays very fast. The lack of people playing straight pool is unfortunate. JR has had a phenomenal run of 313 about four years ago, finally breaking that 157 barrier. "I put together a 220 and a 313 back to back. Just a period when I was hitting real good."

    JR would have liked to have qualifies for this years US Open 14.1 tournament, but he his priorities have changed, JR had to work. JR now works for Bob Schneider as the residing house pro, assistant manager, and in charge of the counter at BJ's Diamond Mine in Cleveland, OH. "You see I've been waiting for this place three years, too. That's how long he's been planning it. For me this is the end of six years solid running, I mean I've been all over the country, I got like 4 states that I haven't been in. I bet you in the last six years I've hit 35 states playing pool." 

    Well suited for his role of assistant manager of BJ's, he enjoys his job. Leil is always willing to share his knowledge and looks after the place as if it were his own. If you’re thinking that maybe there is grass beginning to grow under Leil's feet, just ask him to play a little one pocket or straight pool sometime.