Play Meter

•
cOlnman
of the month -
A Foosball
Education
Interview with
Operator-Principal
Adrian Hoines
Adrian Hoines was introduced to foosbaU while a
college student at Northern State in Aberdeen, S.D.
He had to be coa:ced into going out to playa game,
but, in his words, "The first time 1 actually saw a
foosball table, that was it." He was hooked. He
began immediately playing seriously, developing
the different shots and (as soon as they started)
entering tourTULments.
Success came early. He took seeond place in his
first tourTULment, held only four months after he
began playing. And the success continued. Hoines
played regularly until 1968 when he was state
doubles championship, then he retired for a while.
"They changed the tables, so that we just quit.
AU the guys 1 knew just completely quit playing. "
But Hoines wasn't just playing foosball. He
worked on a teaching degree at Northern,
graduating in 1968 with a major in mathematics and
a minor in economics. He taught for two years then
returned to school taking a masters degree in
administrationfrom South Dakota State. He taught
for two more years and then in 1972 took the
principal's job at Mt . Vernon, S.D.
And he got married. Hoines wife Annette is also
an avidfoosbaU player with three or four trophies of
her oum. The Hoineses have no children.
October's Coinman of the Month started operat-
ing on a part-time basis in 1972. He plans to go to a
full-time operation at the end of this school year.
~ And he's started playing again. He came to
W Minneapolis, Minn. to participate in the TourTUL-
_ ment Soccer World Championships. Play Meter, of
~ course, was there and had the opportunity to
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14
"1 think if a guy's a good player, if he knows all
the shots, he can promote foosball on his oum, at a
local level. "
conduct the following interview:
PLAY METER: So you were first introduced to this
business as a player. When was it that you decided
you wanted to be an operator?
HOINES: It was when Bill Sumption got involved
and started stirring up all this interest in
Minneapolis. He and I'd come to Minneapolis and
we'd just beaten everybody down here and they
thought we were really fabulolus. We got a kick out
of that, and he started looking into the business.
Then I said to myself, "Well if he ever gets anything
going I'd like to buy a table if I could get hold of
one." He finally ran across Tom Hanson who was
already selling tables. So, four or five players got
together and started Hanson Distributing, and I
bought a table from Bill just to practice on. Then he
said, "Well, why don't you start selling tables,
home-style tables?" So I bought a bunch of tables
and sold them. Then he said he'd like to promote
Tournament Soccer across South Dakota and they
wanted me to promote it since I had a pretty big
name in foosball across the state. So they got me
started over there as a vendor. I just set out a few
machines to see how it would work out.
PLA Y METER: You secured some locations shortly
after that?
HOINES: Yes, it didn't take long after I started
looking around. I set my first table out and it did so
well that in two months it paid for itself. So then I
really opened up. I really started working on it,
started looking around ; I picked up more locations
and it was always the foosball that did it for me.