Nick Varner (born May 15, 1948, in

Owensboro, Kentucky Owensboro is a Home rule in the United States, home rule-class city in Daviess County, Kentucky, United States, of which it is also the county seat. It is the List of cities in Kentucky, fourth-most populous city in the state. Owensboro is loca ...

) is an American professional pool player who was inducted into the

Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame This is the list of people inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's hall of fame to honor outstanding people who, through their competitive skills and dedication, have enriched the sport and industry. Two categories have been established in ...

in 1992. Varner is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Varner is a multiple world champion and has won back to back U.S. Open 9-Ball Championships, in addition to being the oldest player to ever win the WPA World Nine-ball Championship, at 51 years old.

Career

Nick D. Varner graduated from Tell City High School in Tell City, Indiana in 1966. Varner learned to play pool in his father's (Nick Varner) pool hall in Grandview, Indiana. After graduating from high school, Varner gained notoriety on the professional pool scene after he won two ACU-I Intercollegiate Championships while attending Purdue University and playing "money games" at an on campus pool room called "The Hole". A cliché given to Varner was "Speak softly and carry a big stick" because of the way he conducted himself as well as his competitive endeavors. In 1989, Varner became only the second man to Mike Sigel, to earn over $100,000 in prize winnings in single year, accumulating an unprecedented 8 out of the 16

Nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...

PBA tour events that year. The same year he won the PBA World 9-Ball Championship, after a momentous hill-hill final against Grady Mathews. He was named Player of the Year in 1980, 1982, 1989, 1994, by the pool media, including the National Billiard News and Billiards Digest Magazine. He also represented Team USA eight times at the Mosconi Cup, four times as a non-playing team captain. Varner is also an author, a video personality, a pool room proprietor, a manufacturer's representative, and an

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

player. Varner is considered one of the best all-around players of all time, winning multiple titles in

Eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, bigs and smalls, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of Pool (cue sports), pool played on a billiard tabl ...

Straight Pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a Cue sports, cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many s as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of Pool (cue sports), pool play ...

, One Pocket and

Bank Pool Bank pool is a pool game that has as its most fundamental requirement that all scoring shots in the game must be made by a called ball off a and into a called pocket. While the game has multiple variations, the predominant version through much ...

. Varner is one of the few players to be inducted into the BCA, One Pocket and

Hall of Fame. Nick is starring in the upcoming billiard movie, "The Tale of Texas Pool", set to be released on December 25, 2024. iMDB The Tale of Texas Pool movie

Career titles and achievements

References

External links

"bio on NickVarner.com"

"Nick Varner Custom Cues"
Nick Varner Custom Cues * , ''InternationalPoolTour.com'', International Pool Tour {{DEFAULTSORT:Varner, Nick American pool players 1948 births Living people Sportspeople from Owensboro, Kentucky World champions in pool WPA World Nine-ball Champions Straight pool world champions