Cue it up

Forget the Old Oaken Bucket. There's a new trophy in the IU-Purdue rivalry, and Isaac Stone Simonelli made it his mission to bring the prize to Bloomington.\nThe IU pool team will travel to West Lafayette on Saturday to try to bring the "Old Oaken Cue" to Bloomington. In a competition that started last year, the winning team of the Hoosier-Boilermaker pool tournament claims the stick for one year and gets the privilege of painting their team's colors and the victory date on the cue, forever marking their victory.\nPurdue leads the rivalry 1-0.\nIU will bring eight players to challenge Purdue in a round-robin style tournament. The IU team hopes to paint its cream and crimson stripes and this year's date above Purdue's gold and black stripes to avenge last year's loss.\nThe two teams will compete in games of "nine ball" and "straight pool" to 35 points, said Simonelli, an IU junior and pool team president. In "nine ball" players hit the numbered balls in ascending order and the team that hits the number nine ball in wins.\n"It's made for people who can play good position and really run tables," Simonelli said.\nIn "straight pool" players hit any ball in until they miss or until 14 balls have made it into pocket. Then the balls are re-racked and the ball not hit in a pocket is left outside the rack. Then players break and try to hit the outside ball into a pocket. Straight pool is a popular game among professionals, but they usually play to 150 points Simonelli said. Each team shoots until it misses.\n"If you make one mistake your opponent could run out 35 balls without you getting another shot," Simonelli said.\nThe team began as a club in 2003 when it was founded by IU alumni John Frank and Seth Garrison. The pool team comprises players from the pool club.\n"It started because Seth and I were playing everyday and we wanted free table time," Frank said.\nThe two used Facebook and Dan Cheeseman, who was an IU billiards instructor at the time, to spread the word. Frank and Garrison first went through Recreational Sports to formally organize the club but didn't stay with them for more than six months, Frank said.\n"We decided to break off and make our own club through the student union like the bowling team had done," Frank said.\nGarrison and Frank got jobs at the Back Alley in the Indiana Memorial Union and talked to Corbin Smythe who was in charge of the budget for the IMU. Smythe paid for the team's entry fees and transportation to the team's first tournament at the University of Michigan, where the team continues to compete annually. \n"Smythe was extremely supportive," Frank said. "He's the reason we became an actual team."\nBrent Smith is an IU alumnus who joined the team after finding out about it in his billiards class. Smith became president of the pool club his senior year.\n"I'm extremely happy with the way Isaac and the other guys have taken it over and improved upon what we started," Smith said. "I hope they keep it up.