Roy Pastor started playing pool at nine years old because his parents in Queens, New York figured a table in the basement would keep him off the streets. Nobody in the family played, so his father bought a used Willie Moscone book and Willie became Roy's hero. When he was 12, Roy and his dad took the bus to see Mosconi at an exhibition at Golden Cue Billiards on Queens Boulevard. Mosconi agreed to a photo but refused to look at the kid standing next to him because Roy's dad couldn't afford the $1.25 book. That moment stuck. Now, 23 years into teaching juniors and never having charged a single one of them a penny, Roy runs the Red Dragons Billiard Club in Harvard, Massachusetts, operates two New England pool leagues, leads the BCA WPA Break and Run junior program with students competing from four countries at Worlds, and somehow still practices law full time. We discuss why there are no shortcuts or secrets in pool, how 30 minutes of focused practice beats three hours of grinding, using music and rhythm to build stroke mechanics, why adults are harder to teach than kids, and how a snub from his childhood hero shaped everything he does today.

Find Roy at RedDragonBilliards@gmail.com, roypastor@americanpoolschool.com, or on his YouTube channel All Things Pool New England.