On the Spot with Samm Diep

On the Spot Question: As your involvement in the sport has expanded, how have your expectations as a player evolved?

Samm Diep Answer: Thought provoking question... Let's see... As I've become more and more involved in the non-competing aspect of the sport, truthfully, the expectations of myself as a player have decreased significantly. The more I had been building my business as an instructor, and actively marketing myself as a "billiard personality" and doing more and more media coverage at events, the lower and lower my expectations became to perform well in tournaments.

Initially, it was quite frustrating and very difficult to manage. This was a huge learning experience for me. Often times, I would be competing at an event and also trying to cover it because I needed the financial help with my expenses. It's VERY difficult for me to not give 100% at whatever I'm doing so I think that was the toughest part. Ultimately, my game suffered and I'm sure my tournament reports could've been better too.

Nowadays, I just try not to take on as much and I've learned to balance things and manage my time a lot better. Fortunately for me, I'm not a drinker or a partier. I'm really quite boring, actually. I just go to the tournament, pull out my notebook between matches and do some writing, and go to dinner and back to my room at the end of the day. So, there are very few minutes wasted in a day.

I think I also learned to channel that "low expectation" feeling into "low pressure" for myself at tournaments. Instead of feeling overwhelmed about all the stuff I need to do, I just try to be as prepared as possible before I leave town and once I'm there, I can just enjoy every moment and remind myself that I'm a player first.

I also have a strict policy that I do not cover a tournament that I win. In the past, that has caused some inner-conflict, but these days I use it more as an incentive.

I'm also much faster now at throwing together tournament reports and having great support from my friends also helps.

A wise mentor of mine once told me that there would come a time when I would have to choose if I wanted to be Samm, the player, or Samm, the reporter (or whatever else I was working on). I feel pretty fortunate right now that I'm kind of skating by without having to make any big serious decisions like that yet, but I know I'm at that fork and just circling the roundabout. We'll just have to see what happens in the next couple years.

You can see Samm play on the Arizona Women's Billiard Tour (AWBT) where she has won two out of the last three events, or reporting at events all around the country, perhaps at the US Open in October. I would like to wish Samm all of the best in her very busy life, and to thank her for contributing to the sport so graciously.