{"id":29566,"date":"2013-08-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/foosball-champion\/"},"modified":"2021-05-19T19:49:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T19:49:37","slug":"foosball-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/foosball-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Foosball Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right; margin: 10px;\" title=\"Elizabeth Moore\" src=\"\/uploads\/images\/August_2013\/FEAT_Foosball_Playing_0813.jpg\" alt=\"Elizabeth Moore\" width=\"209\" height=\"300\">Elizabeth Moore has her own<br \/>\ncard. Like baseball cards or football cards or even Pok\u00e9mon cards, Moore is a<br \/>\nsuperstar, and fans of her sport collect player cards and follow her matches.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s a champion\u2014an athlete who<br \/>\nis among the top ten female players in competitive foosball. She twisted the<br \/>\nhandles, knocked the ball into goals and traveled the country winning foosball<br \/>\ntournaments in smoky bars and foosball venues nationwide. The 38-year-old has<br \/>\nwon a variety of championships and is soon on her way to the International<br \/>\nWorld Championship of Foosball in France to represent America in the wild world<br \/>\nof foosball. Moore is pretty serious about the sport as well as being one of<br \/>\nthe best. She\u2019s helped put Oklahoma on the map as one of the hotbed states for<br \/>\nprofessional foosball. \u201cOut of the top ten women players, five are from<br \/>\nOklahoma,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Now she\u2019s on her way to try to<br \/>\nwin the U.S. Worlds in Dallas and then in January, she will cross the pond to<br \/>\nshow the world how Okie girls dominate in foosball.<\/p>\n<h2>Young Talent<\/h2>\n<p>Moore first found the love of<br \/>\nfoosball when she attended high school in Tampa, Florida. A pool hall sat<br \/>\nacross from her school and the kids would hang out during lunch and after school<br \/>\nto play pool and throw darts. One fateful night, she wandered into the pool<br \/>\nhall after dark and stumbled upon a foosball tournament. Somehow, she managed<br \/>\nto get a spot, and the action of that ball hitting the goal with a loud<br \/>\nmetallic ting changed her life forever.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the sound that hooked me,\u201d Moore said.<br \/>\n\u201cI started playing local tournaments and took it to the state level. In 1989, I<br \/>\nwent on the national tour stop in Atlanta for the National Championships. I was<br \/>\n14. I won the semi-pro division.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moore\u2019s foosball career<br \/>\ncontinued throughout her teen years and she was ranked the number one female<br \/>\nplayer at age 16. \u201cI loved and craved the attention,\u201d she said. \u201cI was young, I<br \/>\nwas good and it was so easy for me to play. When you are on the tour, you meet<br \/>\npeople from all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moore\u2019s doubles partner,<br \/>\nChristina Fuchs, hailed from Tulsa and her open mix doubles partner lived in Oklahoma<br \/>\nCity. Moore said it became clear that Oklahoma was the place to be for<br \/>\nfoosball. \u201cAfter I turned 18, I moved here to play and compete, because<br \/>\nOklahoma was more central and easier to fly out of,\u201d she said. \u201cI really liked<br \/>\nOklahoma and I never went back home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Foosball in the 1990s was huge<br \/>\nacross the country and the sport was particularly popular in Oklahoma. In<br \/>\nEurope, foosball tournaments were even more popular, with stadiums being filled<br \/>\nto watch players battle it out with their plastic players. \u201cPeople are obsessed<br \/>\nwith it,\u201d Moore said, \u201cbut it\u2019s a bar sport, like pool and darts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px;\" title=\"Elizabeth and her trophies\" src=\"\/uploads\/images\/August_2013\/FEAT_Foosball_Playing_0813_thumb.jpg\" alt=\"Elizabeth and her trophies\" width=\"209\" height=\"300\">Moore took a nine-year break<br \/>\nfrom competing to have a family and raise her children. She returned to<br \/>\nprofessional foosball in 2009. The break didn\u2019t seem to hurt her skill\u2014she\u2019s<br \/>\nmade it to the finals in every tournament she\u2019s played since.<\/p>\n<p>This year, she will compete in<br \/>\nroughly 10 tournaments at a state and national levels. \u201cWhat I\u2019m really excited<br \/>\nabout is being in the World Cup team in France,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to<br \/>\nrepresent your country.\u201d Through the years, however, interest in the sport has<br \/>\nfaded. Attracting younger players is getting harder and recruitment is a<br \/>\nchallenge. Nothing is stopping Moore from continuing her love affair with<br \/>\nfoosball. \u201cIt\u2019s so much fun though and there is prize money to be won,\u201d she<br \/>\nsaid.<\/p>\n<p>Moore will compete in the U.S.<br \/>\nWorld Championship in Dallas over Labor Day weekend and will represent the<br \/>\nUnited States at the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p><em>To donate to the U.S. Team, contact Moore at elizabethjmoore@live.com. To<br \/>\nlearn more about competitive foosball, visitifpfoosball.com or<br \/>\nfoosballboard.com. <\/em><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Moore\u2019s championships include:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u2022 3-time Tornado World Champion<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Current Reigning Open Women\u2019s<br \/>\nDoubles World Champion<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Open Mixed Doubles in the 2000<br \/>\nWorlds Competition<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Open Women\u2019s Singles in 2009<br \/>\nWorlds<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Open Women\u2019s Doubles in the 2012 Worlds Competition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Moore is a professional foosball player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":36403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"Issue":[284],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29566"},{"taxonomy":"Issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/Issue?post=29566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}