Monday, December 01, 2008

By JEFF JARDINE
jjardine@modbee.com

last updated: May 22, 2008 05:11:49 PM

Noel Campos just sat there and endured the insult.

The 30-year-old Modesto woman needed a victory to advance to the quarterfinals of the Billiards Congress of America National 8-Ball Championships in Las Vegas earlier this month.

"She was playing an Asian woman who had been just walking all over (her opponents) -- really rolling over them," said Linda Barrett, Campos' friend of a decade who is also a billiards player. "(Campos' opponent) came up to the table, looked at Noel and said, 'Oh, great. I get to play a gimp.' "

Consider it an ill-mannered comment and a poor choice of words, especially when talking about someone who can't walk, let alone with the limp "gimp" implies. If the opponent thought she could trash talk her way inside Campos' head, she was sorely mistaken.

"It kind of fires you up," Campos said.

Over the next hour or so, from the elevated seat of her wheelchair, Campos won the four games needed to take the match. One of Campos' friends -- gee ... Barrett, perhaps? -- uttered loud enough for all to hear: "So you let a gimp beat you?"

Oh, yeah, and a legally blind gimp at that.

Campos went on to win the 32nd annual tournament's women's open division. Not the women's handicapped division. Not the handicapped women's open. The women's open, in which her opponents can, well, stand.

"What she did, for a woman coming from the Modesto area to be a national champion, would have been an accomplishment in its own right," Barrett said. "But that she did it from a wheelchair makes it that much more impressive."

Campos transcends billiards and the skills needed to win at that level. Her story symbolizes the human spirit, of overcoming physical barriers and societal prejudices to succeed.

She was born with a spinal condition that prohibited her from learning to walk. She can't see out of her left eye and needs to get within two inches of printed material to read it with her right eye.

A graduate of Beyer High in 1996, Campos learned to play billiards from her father while she was a teenager. It didn't take much to tap into her competitive juices.

"I wanted to be better so I could beat him," she said. But she didn't get serious about the game until she began taking lessons about nine years ago.

Campos began playing tournaments, struggling at first but always improving her game. Over the past five years, she began climbing in the national standings.

Meanwhile, she studied to become a computer programmer and became a private contractor to support herself and her billiards habit. She simply blows up the size of the type on the screen to the point she can read it.

"The thing that really hits you about Noel is that she's a very beautiful, sweet person," Barrett said. "She's got a great sense of humor. She's unassuming and very low key. But put her at a pool table, and look out."

Campos made adjustments to overcome her physical handicap, adding cushions to her armless wheelchair to give her the elevation necessary to see the table better. She also created a collapsible extension for her bridge -- a device that steadies her cue for difficult shots.

"She sent me the prototype," said Mark Griffin, chief executive officer of the Billiard Congress of America Pool League, which ran the national tournament Campos won at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.

Playing from her wheelchair, squinting at the table, Campos wows some folks and inspires ill feelings from others.

A few years ago, her custom-made cue stick disappeared while she was at O'Brian's Tavern in north Modesto. Campos posted a $200 reward for its return. A few days later, she got a call.

"I asked him to read the inscription," she said. He did, and she knew it was hers. She made arrangements to get it back.

"I grabbed a couple big guys I knew, met him, gave him the reward and took the cue," Campos said.

She used it to win her recent national title.

"It's weird," she said. "Afterward, I was approached by I don't know how many people in the gift shop who congratulated me. But you'd also be surprised by how many people who saw my cue hanging on the back of my chair, and said, 'Oh, you're going to play?' in condescending tones. I got that a lot. Like I'm supposed to be sitting in my wheelchair with my cat and staring out the window?"

To the contrary, she picked up $6,000 for winning the tournament, and came away with gobs of billiards apparel.

"I wore a Hustlin USA shirt when I won the championship," Campos said. "There was a big expo there (at the tourney), too. The guy from Hustlin USA said, 'Come to my booth,' and he gave me a bunch of stuff. He said, 'Keep wearing it. You're making my stuff look good.' "

As for her trash-talking opponent? The tactic backfired in a big way. I mean, to call someone a gimp and then lose to her must be pretty unnerving.

"On this particular occasion, it had some effect," Barrett said.

Her vanquished opponent failed to play her way back into the championship bracket and earn a rematch with Campos. Perhaps she didn't want one.

"I ran into her later," Barrett said. "She seemed humbled."

Jeff Jardine's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in Local News. He can be reached at jjardine@modbee.com or 578-2383.

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