Wheelchair user becomes professional billiards player

From the Oakland Tribune in California:

Dark, seedy pool shark, at your service.

Semiprofessional pool player Hydred Makabali (pictured) revels in the seeming transformation her favorite pastime has taken in the public eye during her lifetime.

People's perceptions of professional pool players may still include an image of smooth-talking, fast-playing billiards men in a "sort of very dreary place," Makabali said. But the formation of professional billiards organizations, industry-wide standards and even occasional star personas capturing general interest via television broadcasts are working to lift that image.

The former Vallejo resident said she's doing her own work to help change prejudices against a sport that began for her as a necessary therapy after a life-altering car crash.

"In the past, people have looked down on people who have played pool, that there's always a hidden agenda, that they're on the hustle, that they're trying to make money," said Makabali by phone from her San Diego home.

"Nowadays, it's pure recreation. It's about showing off your skills. It's, you're a shark. It's the glorified dregs of society."

The 33-year-old, who moved to Vallejo as a teenager from her native United Kingdom, not far from London, only became interested in pool after becoming wheelchair-bound.

"With me, it's even more of a spectacle, a woman, in a wheelchair, and you play pool -- that's also been fuel over the years," Makabali said while trying to explain her place in the sport.

A car crash 15 years ago turned into a bittersweet and formative experience for Makabali. Makabali, then just barely 18 and living in Vallejo, was paralyzed from the waist down in the blink of an eye. The accident, with her then boyfriend driving and her sister riding in the back seat, left Makabali wheelchair-bound and withdrawn from many of her friends, seeking only some sort of solace.

It even pulled her away from her art, something in which she had long been deeply interested. Picking up a pool stick, shooting a rainbow array of balls across a felted table, practicing every shot over and over, memorizing the physics of the balls' movement -- all that became Makabali's new art.

Makabali, a Filipina found herself spending more and more hours at the now-closed Palace Billiards on Sonoma Boulevard; She eventually worked her way up from pool halls and bars to small tournaments.

"There are several key shots that you see every single time, but you master them," Makabali said. "Everyone has a sort of weakness in pool ... so it's always been very fascinating to me. I love to be interactive ... and experimental. The way the ball travels is artistic to me."

"I found myself in the pool room every day," Makabali said. "It wasn't really devotion, it was just fun. It was just a small microcosm, you have your own little family."

In 1997, she moved to San Diego where she joined a women's pool league, which led her to become the first woman on the board of the National Wheelchair Poolplayer Association. In 2002, Makabali became the first wheelchair-bound woman to compete in a professional tour event, through the Women's Professional Billiards Association.

If it sounds as though these experiences are in Makabali's past, it's because at least part of it is. While she still practices regularly and plays in small local events, Makabali has shifted her focus to a freelance makeup business specializing in weddings and special effects.

But she's still in the pool hall every day, perfecting her shots.