“You’d expect a 600-year-old sport to have played through its identity crisis. Not the case for pool. The sport’s very name comes from pooling money to determine odds. And wagering lends pool mystique; hustling and pool go together like a cue stick and chalk. But that’s as much a curse as a blessing. How can a sport thrive at the highest level, when so much of it exists in the shadows? Well, here comes Shane Van Boening, from Rapid City. Age 39, with no interest in gambling, he’s arguably the best American player ever to break a rack and ranked number one in the world for 2022. He also happens to be deaf. Can the South Dakota Kid help turn pool—popular in bars and basements but not on TV— into a proper pro sport? We hit the circuit with him to find out. “
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