Minnesota Fats, he was not. But for two semesters at the UI, James Adams (’91) spent more time gripping a pool cue than he did a pen.
“My sophomore year, between classes, you could find me shooting pool in the basement of the Illini Union,” says Adams, who went on to found a New York City-based national recruiting firm for the restaurant industry. “I would run from the engineering campus, across Green, downstairs, chalk up my cue stick and get three or four games in before I would run back across the street to my next class.
“More than once, I was playing for money and ended up missing the first 10 minutes of class. Although my game improved dramatically, I was never good enough to take on some of pool sharks — mostly business students.
“What great memories.”
