Jean Balukas

**Jean Balukas** (born June 28, 1959) is an American pool player from Brooklyn, New York. During the 1970s and 1980s, many people thought Balukas was the greatest female player ever. Some people described her as a leader and "a child prodigy, a loner who rebelled against dress codes for women—the pool equivalent of Billie Jean King".

Balukas won the U.S. Open seven years in a row, from 1972 through 1978. She won six world championship titles. She had over 100 professional competition first-place finishes; 38 of those wins were in major events. She had a  of 16 first-place finishes in women's professional tournaments. Balukas was also the only woman to compete equally with men in professional play in her era.

Balukas played with a cue stick that had ivory details. It was made just for her in 1965 by a cue stick maker, George Balabushka. When she was five and six years old she would practice a game called straight pool to 50 points after family dinners. Her father supported her play.

## U.S. Open Straight Pool Champion
On August 18, 1972, when she was thirteen years old, Balukas won the women's side of the U.S. Open Straight Pool Championship. For the win she beat five-time champion Dorothy Wise. The prize was $1,500. Balukas was the U.S Open's youngest winner ever and by a large number of years. She also beat in the finals, Madelyn Whitlow of Detroit, Michigan, with a score of 75 to 32 in 44 innings (turns at the table). Reporting on the competition, *The New York Times* described her as a strong player "throughout the tournament ... as she defeated six opponents with precision shooting and almost perfect strategy". Earlier in the tournament she beat Mieko Harada, a housewife from Kyoto, Japan. Baluka's score was much higher than Harada's: 75 to 1 in 20 innings and sank 25 balls in a row. In the 1974 U.S. Open held at the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago, Balukas defended her title, again beating out Harada, but by a much closer score: 100 to 99. This was Balukas's third U.S. Open title in a row, at the young age of fifteen. The close scores at the end of the match were similar to the results on the men's side, where Joe Balsis defeated Jim Rempe 200 to 199.

In 1975, Balukas beat Ries again in the U.S. Open semi-finals with a score of 75 to 15 in 15 innings. She also beat Gail Breedlove of Ames, Iowa, 75 to 19. She then again played and beat Harada in the finals, winning $3,000 with a score of 100 to 63 in 39 innings. In her longest turn, she sank 23 balls. In 1976, then 17, Balukas took her fifth U.S. Open title in a row, beating Gloria Walker of Cheyney, Pennsylvania 75 to 46 in 39 innings and winning a $1,700 prize. Balukas would win the next two U.S. Open straight pool championships for a total of seven wins in a row. Her  of wins ended after 1978 because the U.S. Open itself was canceled, not because she was beaten.

Balukas was not only talented at pool but also good at other sports. From age sixteen to eighteen, ABC-TV asked her to be on a show called *Superstars*. This event happened in Rotonda West, Florida. Top athletes from one sport competed in a different sports that they did not usually compete in. In her first appearance in 1976, while a junior in high school, Balukas placed second with 192 points. She won titles in tennis and bowling. The winner that year was speed skater Anne Henning. Other competitors included: diver Micki King; tennis and golf pro Althea Gibson; skier Kiki Cutter; runner Wyomia Tyus; and tennis champion Martina Navratilova. The second place win was both good and bad for Balukas. She won $13,100 prize money, so she lost amateur standing. Afterwards, she was banned from competing in high school sports. Also, she was not allowed to get a college athletic scholarship.

Balukas has won many other pool titles, including six at the World Open Pocket Billiard Championships. At her first win in that tournament, held at a convention hall in Asbury Park, New Jersey on August 14, 1977, she was described as "the 18-year-old prodigy from Brooklyn". There, she again beat Gloria Walker with a score of 100 to 57, and earned a $1,001 prize. Balukas has won more U.S. Opens than any other player, male or female. The closest male is Steve Mizerak with four wins to Balukas's seven. Her ball average over the seven U.S. Opens was far better than was her opponents'. She would later play "Battle of the Sexes" matches on television with Rudolph Wanderone (also known as Minnesota Fats) in 1977, Ray Martin in 1979, and with Steve Mizerak in 1986.

On August 6, 1978, Balukas became the first women to qualify to play in the men's side of the World Open Pocket Billiards Championship. This meant that Balukas would be competing in both the women's and men's sides of the tournament. The tournament was to be held on August 12 of that year at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City.

Balukas played against men in several other competitions. These included at least one first shown on TV on March 25, 1979, between her and men's champion Ray Martin. The match was described on the television schedule as part of a *Challenge of the Sexes*. Other male-female matchups in the series were between golfers Nancy Lopez and Andy North and co-ed participants in a skateboarding challenge match. During 1980, Balukas again competed in the men's side of the World Open Pocket Billiards championship. That year it was played at New York City's Roosevelt Hotel. She was beaten in the second round by Steve Mizerak with a score of 150 to 93. Her final rank in the tournament was 22nd. At the end, 42 men were behind her. She also played on the women's side and was the champion. She beat Billie Billings, also from Brooklyn, with a score of 100 to 75.

Balukas was entered in both the men's and women's divisions of the 1987 B.C. Classic, a nine-ball competition. After controversy, she competed only on the men's side. There, she beat Keith McCready 11 to 3. At that time McCready was the 17th-ranked male player by money list. Balukas finished the tournament by tying for 9th place.

## Leaving the sport
In 1988, Balukas was playing another professional player named Robin Bell the Brunswick-sponsored World Open Nine-ball Championship. The tournament was held at Caesars Palace (a  and hotel) in Las Vegas, Nevada and shown on television. Bell was Balukas's best friend on the women's tour. She had never beaten Balukas before. However, Bell had been playing very strongly in the tournament. The terms of the match were that the winner would be whoever won nine games first. In the game of nine ball, there is a way to win the game very quickly. The game is over and the first player wins if they put the 9 ball in a pocket when they take the first shot. Early in the match the score was 2 games to 3, with Bell winning. Then, Bell sank the 9 ball on the first shot two games in a row, so she won both games. That made the score 5 to 2 very quickly without having to play a complete game. Bell avoided having to match skill with Balukas on each turn. Announcers had stopped calling Balukas "the Little Princess", but introduced her to audiences as "the Queen". By that time she had won the World Straight Pool Championship women's division eight of the last nine years. During those same years, she also won sixteen women's professional tournaments. She had been named the Billiard Congress of America Player of the Year five times. In 1985, Balukas became the second woman (after Dorothy Wise) to enter the BCA Hall of Fame. She was the youngest person ever to receive the honor, at just under 27 years of age. In 1999, Balukas was ranked number fifteen on ''Billiard Digest's'' Fifty Greatest Players of the Century.

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