There have been several occasions over the past few years when I’ve thought, “I really should write something about Jorgen Sandman’s contributions to the sport.” Of course, something really important (like Jeanette Lee’s addition to Cameo!) would pop up and I’d be forced to push that idea to the backburner.

Then, like a microcosm of the reality-check we’ve endured in the past year, I received a cold slap with regards to the Swedish-born Sandman. A massive landslide in his adopted Norwegian village of Ask swept away Sandman’s home in the middle of the night — with him and his wife Anna in it! (See Wing Shots, page 12.)

Despite the fact the three-story building in which the Sandmans lived slid some 500 feet and collapsed around them, miraculously, the couple escaped unharmed save for a broken collarbone and some bruises that Jorgen sustained. Photos from the landslide, which demolished nine buildings and took 10 lives, leave little doubt that the Sandmans cheated death.

“We’re happy to be alive,” Sandman said in a recent call.

I am certainly happy that Jorgen Sandman is still with us because it affords me another opportunity to pay him tribute while he’s still around to read it. (Mostly, I’m glad that Jorgen is still around because he happens to be one of the most congenial, ethical men I’ve ever had the honor to know.)

At least part of the reason I feel compelled to state Jorgen’s case as one of the sport’s true heroes is because he would never bother to do it himself. He is a man with little or no ego. He spent the better part of 15 years tirelessly working (in a volunteer capacity) to help establish a global association for the pool community and a global association for all cue sports with the hope of getting Olympic recognition for the sport, yet he’d never boast of his achievements, nor would he ever promote himself based on them.

Now, I would argue that nowhere in the pool community has the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and World Confederation of Billiard Sports (WCBS) been taken to task more frequently or more vehemently than in these pages, but I will never discount or dismiss the importance of what Sandman helped establish.

In the late 1980s, before the internet exploded and the world shrank, the idea of creating an organization of pool federations from around the globe seemed a gargantuan and daunting task. It was. And, like most ideas so grand, it would require a few incredibly selfless people to devote hours and weeks and years, with virtually no financial reward, to lay the groundwork and get the organization up and running.

An instructor in Sweden in the mid-’80s, Sandman was a member of the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) when the carom game’s worldwide chief Andre Gagnaux attempted to rally the other cue disciplines (pool and snooker) to take a run at International Olympic Committee (IOC) membership. Pool had no world body at the time. Sandman was enough of a visionary to recognize the importance and value of establishing such an organization, so he volunteered to drive the effort. He did the heavy lifting in the formation of the WPA in 1987. He led the way to establishing the WPA World 9-Ball Championships in 1990, giving the sport a much-needed legitimate format for world titles. Still, it took seven years of letters, trips, handholding and persistence to get all six inhabited continents to form their own federations and officially make the WPA a true world organization.

Along the way, Sandman was also one of the anchors in the formation of the WCBS, whose primary aim would be to establish cue sports as medal events in multi-sport competitions (Pan-Am Games, Southeast Asian Games, World Games, etc., and eventually the Olympics) around the world.

Years of patiently filling out forms, setting up organizations, filing requests and taking a knee at the feet of international sports wonks (again, all with no salary), yielded results when the WCBS was granted membership in the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) in 1995, provisional membership in the IOC in ’96 and, finally, full recognition by the IOC in ’98. Sandman was the president and chief architect for the WPA from ’92-’99 and was president of the WCBS from ’96-’99, and again from 2004-’08.

While the WPA has fallen out of favor over the past decade-plus, due largely to a flawed business model and apathy at the board level (a column for another day), the organization remains vitally important to the sport. The formation of a world body and subsequent recognition by the IOC paved the way for member federations to petition their national Olympic committees for membership, which, in turn, has allowed many to get association and athlete funding from their government.

That the international pool scene began to boom following the formation of the WPA and WCBS is no coincidence, either.

Again, the WPA and WCBS have long ways to go to reassert their value and restructure their business model to move the sport forward. But the foundation is there, thanks in large part to the selflessness and commitment of Jorgen Sandman.

In fact, I believe it’s high time the industry reward him with the green jacket, ring and plaque that would formally validate its appreciation for his contributions.