continued from page ceived emails ….

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ceived emails every morning chronicling his nights, the tournaments, the scoring, and the rankings (it’s not as straightforward as you might think).

He won locally several times, and that was pretty cool, and then we learned that he had played well enough to qualify to go out to Louisiana for the NAPA national competition.

Yesterday, I followed the Senior 9-Ball brackets as he kept winning. Then, just a few minutes before he played his last match, I received a text.

“They are going to live feed the final match,” the text read, and then he sent a link.

I sat down with my iPad in my lap and grabbed my phone and pushed in Mom’s phone number.

“Mom, do you want to watch Andy play his last match?”

Of course she did, and so I talked her through the process of pulling it up on Facebook. Andy was dressed like Andy — old shorts, a black “Roco’s Bar” t-shirt, tennis shoes that have seen better days, and a ball cap. And as luck would have it, he competed against his friend, Ray, in the final match. My brother was on fire, making shot after shot and moving around the table as if he were playing a friendly game in our family’s game room. If he had nerves, he didn’t show it. And then he won. “Did he just win?” my husband asked me. “Oh my God — I think he did,” I answered. And several of us got to witness it through the magic of a live streaming feed.

“I don’t know anyone who has won a national title. Do you?” my husband asked last night. “Well, I guess we do now,” I said. “My brother has two.” He plays again later this week for the overall championship — all age groups. Please join me in wishing him luck.