Just Who Does Charlie Williams
Think He Is?
The goofy kid with the frenetic game has become one of the industry's
most controversial figures. The president of the UPA reflects on his
transformation, answers his critics, and explains why he's stepping
down.
By Mike Geffner
 Charlie
Williams is a dictator. … Charlie Williams is a liar. …
Charlie Williams is another Don Mackey. … Charlie Williams is
a jerk. … Charlie Williams is a bully. … Charlie Williams
is too young to be a leader. … Charlie Williams is so in over
his head he hasn’t a clue what he’s doing. …
It’s reached the point where every time Charlie Williams hears
the phone ring, or when his computer blinks that he has mail, that
he can’t help but sigh, “Oh, no, what now?”
In just over two years, during which he founded, launched, and became
president of the United States Professional Pool Players Association
(UPA), Williams, aka The Korean Dragon, has gone from one of the most
likeable characters on the men’s pro circuit to one of its most
controversial. Promoters have hung up on him (or wanted to), players
have screamed at him (or wanted to), people have trashed him both
to his face and behind his back, and in online billiard forums everywhere
the initials C.W. instantly set off seemingly endless strings of thermonuclear
posts.
“This job is way harder than I ever imagined,” the 26-year-old
moving target reveals during a wide-ranging, four-hour interview over
three days. “I seem to get blamed for everything that people
don’t like about the UPA. They don’t realize I’m
just one vote on the board. I don’t have anywhere near the power
that Don Mackey had with the [Pro Billiards Tour]. I’m just
the guy out in front who presents the UPA position. But most of the
hostile stuff I get is just plain insulting, … though the other
day I did get an e-mail from a guy who said he wanted to rape me.
I do get a lot of anonymous hate mail.” He chuckles. “It’s
hard to take a lot of it seriously. A lot of it is just junk, people
who are responding to rumor and gossip or misinformation.”
In some circles, albeit small but loud, Williams is so loathed he’s
been labeled everything but the anti-Christ — and that may not
be far behind. He’s been accused of using unethical strong-arm
methods to get players to sign UPA contracts (which some players liken
to signing away their souls), squeezing promoters into absolute UPA
submission or else, stubbornly holding grudges against longtime U.S.
Open honcho Barry Behrman and tempestuous longtime champion Earl Strickland,
and flexing his political muscle just for the hell of it at every
opportunity.
The perception of Charlie Williams has forever been altered. No longer
will people merely see him as that goofy, talented kid with the corny
jokes and frenetic game. “It’s weird,” he says.
“People don’t even think of me as a pool player anymore.”
He has, almost overnight, come of age, moving and shaking every step
of the way. From out of nowhere and with some reluctance, he has surprised
everyone, including himself, by emerging in adulthood as a power broker.
“The whole thing is sort of funny to me,” Williams says.
“Because this is the last place I thought I’d ever wind
up — seen as a selfish, controlling, power-hungry political
animal. I mean, anybody who really knows me knows that isn’t
me. In fact, there was a time I would’ve been perfectly happy
to go my whole career without taking a political stance or getting
involved in the politics of the game in any way. I was always the
guy who used to say: ‘Can’t we all just get along and
play pool?’”
Knowing the history of men’s association start-ups, Williams
could’ve predicted how the critics and pitfalls would come at
him full-throttle the second he raised his profile. It’s become
a pocket billiards tradition. The heat — and suspicion —
has come down bigtime on anybody who’s ever taken on a leadership
role in this game. Ask Mackey or C.J. Wiley or Allen Hopkins, just
to name a few.
“I guess I didn’t really believe that it would happen
to me. I was 23 years old then, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and
overly optimistic. I figured what I was trying to do was such a good
thing — a nonprofit group of volunteers encouraging the brotherhood
of players — that everybody would naturally support us right
away. I figured we’d have the players, the sponsors, the promoters,
the billiard manufacturers all get right behind us.” He pauses
a second, then: “But I was very, very wrong. I didn’t
realize how many people would feel threatened by a strong men’s
pro tour association. I also didn’t realize how much we’d
suffer from the ills of the past. I feel like we were starting off
with two strikes against us. People just assumed we’d steal
and cheat and lie and whatever else they thought past associations
did.”
Indeed, there were a ton of growing pains at the beginning. Players
complained about low payouts and single-elimination formats. Promoters
were put off by the stiff demands, then further put off by low turnouts.
Williams admits to making some mistakes and slight missteps. “For
one thing, I wished we had gone slower,” he says. “We
tried to do too much too quickly. We had high expectations. And when
it didn’t happen right away, we were very frustrated.”
Make no mistake, though, he’s not apologizing for being more
than a tad demanding. “If we’re uncompromising, it’s
for a reason. We’re looking to get power for the players, to
build a strong players union. We won’t allow for the players
to be taken advantage of, like they have in the past. We take a stance
and stick by it.”
Williams was a mere pup of 21 when he first turned full-time touring
professional, joining the Camel Pro Billiards Tour in 1998. It was
a dream come true to finally mix on equal terms with guys he’d
idolized as a kid, the Buddy Halls and Jim Rempes and Mike Sigels
and Nick Varners. He remembers how much he looked forward to his first
players meeting as a pro. And then it happened. He was in Olathe,
Kansas, the first stop of the season, and finally getting his feet
wet at the players meeting. His adrenaline rushed like crazy. At least
for a while it did. As the meeting progressed, however, he felt the
air slowly seeping from his big balloon of anticipation and excitement.
By the time it was over, he felt strangely deflated and a bit troubled.
“I realized I didn’t really belong to an association of
professional players,” he says. “We were just a bunch
of guys being lectured to. The players had no say whatsoever. The
few times the players questioned something, the Camel guys immediately
shot them down, told them it wasn’t the right time. Wasn’t
the right time? Isn’t this a players’ meeting? Isn’t
this the time to talk things out? … It was a real letdown going
to those meetings, and I guess it was the first time I started thinking
about how important it was for us to someday be unified and have an
association again.”
Williams didn’t think about this again until around a year after
Camel went under, when the players, completely orphaned, were left
with little else to do but stagger from one independent event to another,
accepting whatever crumbs that were offered. The men’s circuit
seemed hopelessly lost, if not doomed, without a remotely positive
sign in sight.
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