|
|
James Searles
Pool Checkers Champion
James Searles
from 1912 to 2002
- James Searles was a member of the American
Pool Checkers arena and Master of Lightning
Fast Checkers.
- James Searles' checkers play elevated
the lightning fast form of checkers that
had been played mainly by black men in
barbershops, parks and sidewalks to the
province of an exclusive if distinctly
clamorous society the Brooklyn Elite Pool
Checker Club, wherein the checkers game
was of ultimate importance so when Searles
first drafted the club’s
constitution back in 1972, he set high
standards and objectives because he pledged “to
elevate checkers to a level of respect
equal to or greater than that of any other
national or international pastime”.
- During pool checker champion James Searles'
working career, Searles was a warehouse
worker by profession but a serious Pool
checkers player in his leisure time.
- Searles lived in the Bushwick neighborhood
of Brooklyn, was known by the nickname
of ‘Step’ and
had friends who bore nicknames of ‘Ghost’, ‘Tijuana’ and
the ‘Mighty
Claw’.
- ‘Step’ and
his friends were serious Pool Checkers
players who frequented the club on Thursday,
Friday and Saturday nights because the
atmosphere surrounding a good checkers
game warmed their blood.
- They thrived on the ‘clack,
clack’ and ‘tap,
tap’ of checkers moving
around the checkerboard and reveled
in the cheerful, yet resounding exclamations
and cheers of victory and smiled at the
woes of defeat.
- Occasionally there was also the temptation
of a small side bet to cheer the soul,
but most importantly, ‘Step’ said
that they mainly lived for one another.
- According to James Searles, pool checker
champion players were a brotherhood so
that if one of the ‘guys’ had
sickness in the family, then the rest would
raise money to offset the expenses such
as hospital bills, or if unemployment hit
one of them, then the rest would chip in
and pay the checkers dues, the bottom line
was that they looked out for each other
and in this day and age, this prevalent
attitude is a rarity.
- For James Searles there
was no other game like Pool checkers and
once he became engrossed in a resounding
game, he would lose track of all time so
much so that he missed going on a Jamaican
honeymoon cruise with his bride 50 years
ago because he was so caught up in a checkers
game.
- In an interview with The New York Times
in 1991, James Searles had commented that “They
had a cash prize. That calmed her down
a little bit.”
- James Searles believed that the majority
of African Americans play Pool checkers
at some point in their life, and many continue
with the game as a serious leisure activity.
- He also knew that there were Russian
and Eastern Europe countries that played
a checkers variant of the game much closer
to his style than the Straight form of
checkers, and when the reputation of Russian
checkers champion, Vladimir Kaplan, preceded
his immigration from the Soviet Union,
Step and other members of his club, one
of whom spoke some Russian, met Kaplan
at the airport, spirited him to their clubhouse
and offered to pay his way to the National
Championships in Atlanta the following
month, and not surprisingly, Vladimir Kaplan
won.
- James Searles, a great and innovative
American Pool Checkers player passed away
in the fall of 2002 at the young age of
90, but his spirit still lives behind in
the memories of many novice and master
checkerists.
Of course, there are and have been countless
Pool Checkers champions across the United
States, and it is through the legacy of those
who have gone before to encourage new blood
into the hundreds of checkers clubs around
the country. It is no longer simply men who
play checkers, but the field is wide open
for youth and women to share in the delights
of this variant of the mind sport game known
as Pool Checkers.
|
|
