Gainesville's Game Room
Museum Road (Inside University of Florida)
Gainesville, FL 32611
The scrappy Reitz Union Game Room at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida is filled with billiards tables, poker tables, a bowling alley, and more. In the context of budget cuts nationwide for university pool rooms, however, this gameroom faces potentially tough times ahead.
In a university atmosphere where State of Florida budget cuts and the state Board of Regents is tightening admission and raising student fees, the Game Room offers collegiates an inexpensive getaway from the pressures of student life.
The game room is filled with hundreds of gamers a week seeking sports action and a relaxing break from their studies. The young people, and local visitors including university faculty and local residents seeking the smoke free, family-friendly environment, appreciate the Game Room's 17 pool tables and Snooker table, 16 bowling lanes, air hockey, videogames and foosball.
One of the best appointed student poolrooms in existence, most of the UF tables are nine-foot beauties, several covered in Simonis cloth for shooters seeking faster table action. Noise from nearby arcade games and the bowling lanes is kept mostly clear from the pool tables, which are recessed onto a lower level of the Game Room.
The historic tables have seen American College Unions International (ACUI) championship play and visits from Hall of Fame players like Nick "Kentucky Colonel" Varner, who won his second national ACUI title there, naming a line of his cue sticks "The Gainesville" after his win there.
Other national champions from UF include alum and university administrator William Rion, whose winning cue stick is on display inside the Reitz Union, where a ballroom is named in his honor, J.L. Geiger, Leff Mabie who won the nationals twice, and most recently, David Uwate who triumphed in 1991.
The local shark pool is so strong that Uwate was eliminated several times at the local level, taking two match losses per year before breaking through to one of the most thrilling regionals ever with multiple racks of 8 ball run from the break from both finalists, then sweet victory in Hawaii at the nationals.
Dotting the Game Room is play furniture, numerous card and study tables, billiards and bowling magazines, gamer supplies, gaming pictures and decor, and more. The room has been featured in the press as a real kids' gameroom and safe arcade gameroom as well.
For pool and billiards, the Game Room has supported the sport with league play open to all comers, tournaments for trophies and recognition as best among 60,000 students and faculty at UF, and more. A plaque at the head of the room lists champions from years past.
UF has worked to sustain ACUI competition, providing local finalists and team alternates the chance to practice for free in the months between qualifiers and regional and national competition. In recent years Game Room leisure courses have promoted the game to beginners and intermediates, getting the next generation ready for competition.
The desire of local folks is for the room to become an ultimate gameroom for thousands of local pool players and bowlers. There are quite a few poolrooms competing in town, some falling prey periodically to lack of customers, due to poor atmosphere and failure of the owners to maintain equipment in decent condition.
Here's hoping for success for UF's Game Room for years to come.
