![]() ![]() "We need to build that bond and that trust." "This business is all about customer service," she said. To do that, she has to show members, current and potential, that she won't be just an owner in name only. Lee said for her, success will mean growing that membership eightfold and adding to the list of weekly venues. She could have gone in a lot of different directions." "(Lee) saw some potential in our market, which is kind of cool. "Tampa's a huge market, and there's a lot of room for growth," said Alana Rodgers, whose family owns Robertson Billiards on Franklin Street and has been in the retail billiards business for 80 years. The Dusels ran a league in Buffalo and moved here with Lee to run the Hillsborough chapter together. Last summer, Lee approached longtime Tampa Bay APA owner Pat Giorgianni, who agreed to sell to Lee and her two business partners, Jason and Misty Dusel. They vie for cash prizes and a chance to go all the way to the APA World Pool competition held each year in Las Vegas. Members then pay a small weekly fee to play at local bars and pool halls. The Hillsborough chapter of the APA - known as the Tampa Bay APA - has roughly 800 active members. "I wanted a place that was a little more family-friendly than New York City and not as slow as the countryside, and Tampa seems like the right pace," she said.īut they didn't want to move without a way for Lee to earn a living and still be home to tuck in her children at night. He encouraged her to take risks on the table and to accept that sometimes, you lose. She befriended legendary player and teacher Gene Nagy, who taught her to play without worrying so much about winning. Young and beautiful with a penchant for dressing all in black, Lee got the "Black Widow'' nickname for her ability to lure opponents to the table and then eat them alive. I was just so focused about what was going on on the table." It was the first time I stopped caring about what other people were doing. "I felt like it was artistic, and very much something I could do. "The more I played, the more I loved it," she said. It wasn't long after the release of The Color of Money, the 1986 film that inspired a new wave of pool hustlers. Lee was 18 when she first stepped into Chelsea Billiards in Manhattan. "I felt like I was broken, and I didn't like what I saw in the mirror," she said. At the age of 13, she had surgery to correct scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. She did well in school but didn't feel like she fit in anywhere. What do you do when you're done flying everywhere for tournaments?"īorn and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., by a single mother working two or three jobs, Lee grew up a Korean-American in a predominately black neighborhood. "I don't want to travel the way I was before. ![]() "My youngest kids are just entering school now," she said. ![]()
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