My name is Carl Stewart and I have always love billiards, pockets billiards or pool whatever it is called I have played it and loved it all my life. All my reports in grade school were on the history and details of the games.

I grew up in a very small town on the Oregon coast and never really got to experience the game expect in my family basement until I became of age and were able to play in the bars. Then when I was about 22 years old, a man moved to my little town from Reno NV and opened a “real” pool hall. I drove by the building and asked him every day when he was going to open for at least two months before he did open the doors. To say I was a “regular” would be an understatement. Lots of time on my hands and a love for the game equaled hours upon hours in his pool hall and of course, I became very close friends with the owners and I am still to this day.

Inside the pool community, I learned of a tournament in Reno NV (which is now known as the bar table open). That was my first real big tournament and wow, I loved it and have been hooked on big tournaments ever since.

That pool hall experience lasted a few years and then it was gone. A few years later, I found myself married with a new baby boy, living in Sacramento CA, and needing to grow up fast. I found two more great pool halls in Sacramento the first one was Hard Times Billiards and Jointed Cue.    

These are both family owned and I ended up getting to know both of them. I worked at hard times running tournaments and running my own cue repair business inside a closet they rented me and earned my first college degree. Seven years later, it was time move on to Tucson AZ.

I found two great but much smaller pool halls here and have continued to play and get a couple more Masters Degrees. During my time in Tucson, I kept being approached about giving lesson so I open the Arizona Billiard Academy, LLC and became a BCA certified instructor. My love for teaching has pushed me to become an active college professor in addition.

My final piece of the puzzle is a doctoral degree, which will start in May of 2011, and I hope to keep teaching and learning about this wonderful game called many different names.