Nestled within the Game Room in the Henderson Campus Center, the Pool League stands as a place where students can hone their skills and foster camaraderie.
As the league gained more student interest, a new table was introduced to accommodate the growing number of students wanting to participate. Students gained access to the new table at the beginning of the semester, enhancing their initial experience.
Former Pool League Commissioner Kinton Thakur, ’23, explained the process involved in funding a new pool table for the game room. “The Game Room itself usually funds all of its assets, repairs and otherwise,” Thakur said. “However, it is pretty limited, and there was no way we would have had enough money for an extra table.”
Thakur said that he had to request additional funds from the Allegheny Student Government, which was a month-long process.
“I had to attend a meeting and I had to write a proper proposal,” Thakur said. “It was a pipe dream for a while, but it eventually came together through ASG.”
Thakur has been an instrumental part in encouraging people to join the pool community.
“I love to get other people into it too and if I see people on the table experimenting and having fun with the table, I ask if they want to play a game,” Thakur said. “I try to make it a comfortable environment and make it very approachable for everyone. It’s a passion of mine and I just want to share it with people.”
Jonathan Sharp, ’24, the current Pool League commissioner, said the group needed to have another table because of the increasing number of students who wanted to join.
“Before we would just play three games in a match and then we would accumulate wins and losses by that, but with two tables we could play more matches and race to three rather than only three games to have a total of five games in a match,” Sharp said. “This is allowing all students in the Pool League to play more games, have more fun, and everyone can practice more.”
Pool League is looking to expand more by gaining new members every semester and playing more competitive matches according to Sharp.
“This is kind of like the golden era of the Pool League right now, but each year there seems to be some new improvements and new members,” Sharp said. “We may add another day of the Pool League depending on how many new members join.”
Game Room manager Cade Moffatt, ’25, said he noticed the addition of the new table has helped players improve their skills.
“There are a couple of people who joined the Pool League this year and even from the start of the year to now, you can see the improvement in the skills that they had because not a lot of people come in with an already established skill level,” Moffatt said. “It’s been kind of cool to see these newer kids start improving.”
Moffat said many players are close in skill level which has made for an interesting competitive environment since it has encouraged healthy competition amongst students.
“The person that wins the playoffs gets their name on the plaque on the wall,” Moffatt said. “The last week before finals is when the pool playoffs will happen.”
Through the league, Moffat said he has been able to make a lot of friends who are now part of his core friend groups.
“I definitely have some friends outside of the Pool League but I would say a lot of the guys that I hang around with I have met through pool,” Moffatt said. “One of my favorite memories is probably from my freshman year before I really started making friends. I came here every night for a week towards the end of the semester and felt like I was making friends through playing pool.”
A challenge brought by the addition of the pool table is the lack of space in the Game Room — which was already a problem before the table was added. For a time, the ping-pong table had been under repair, which increased interest in pool and created space difficulties when the ping-pong table came back.
“It is a balance of trying to keep everybody happy because we don’t want to completely remove ping-pong,” Moffatt said. “It just became a thing where the pool community was growing so much and with only one table it was really hard for people to improve and work on their skills.”
Currently, the Pool League meets from Sunday to Tuesday from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. in the Game Room.