Richard McMorran

Richard McMorran was born September 24, 1934. His family originally lived in the tiny Colorado town of Dolores; a scenic hamlet of only about 550 residents. Yet small as it was, Dolores had a little poolroom in the center of town, and the game quickly caught Dick’s interest. There were no age restrictions in Dolores at that time, but when Dick skipped school to play one day, the town was too small for his parents not to find out, and after a “real good whipping,” that was it for pool for a while. When he was a fourteen year old freshman in high school his family moved 50 miles east, to Durango, Colorado, and “My life as a serious pool player began,” says Dick., “I thought I’d died, and gone to heaven. Durango supported three bustling pool rooms, and my parents soon gave up trying to keep me out of them.” The sting of the memory of his earlier whipping still kept him out of the poolrooms on school days however, but, “On weekends and summer vacations, I opened and closed the place,” recalls Dick. Pretty quickly Dick developed into a good local player and by the time he was about 16, he was considered the best player in town. In Durango at that time, the popular games were Kelly Pool and Golf on a 5×10 snooker table, which is where the bigger money changed hands. (One Pocket.org) Dick and his young wife Paula Archuleta eloped at 19 and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah for a couple of years and then later moved on to San Jose, CA in 1955. They had 4 children William “Bill”, Steven, Lynda and Richard McMorran II. Paula Archuleta passed Sept 1981. As San Jose was only 50 miles from San Francisco, where the legendary poolrooms the Palace and Cochran’s were located. “I used to go up there about every other weekend.” As he matured as a player and gambler, it was here that Dick went from being the ‘Durango Kid’ to ‘San Jose Dick’. For a few years around ’61 or ’62 he was part owner of a small poolroom in San Jose called Circus Billiards. That was the first time the two long time friends and combatants bumped heads, and his first real introduction to the game of One Pocket. In the late 60’s Dick moved to Fort Worth, and then on to Houston, Texas, where he and Jersey Red became kind of a house pros at the Le Cue. That’s when he really got proficient at One Pocket . Dick appears in one Accustats video from Grady’s 1998 World One Pocket Championships in Baton Rouge, LA, where he wins a close one over Cliff Joyner (1P98-02). Dick got married a second time to Kathy McMorran and assisted in raising her sons Larry and Rick and they made their home in Arizona. Dick gave up the game nearly completely and worked for UPS from ’74 to ’89. Kathy McMorran passed July 2010. Dick passed away in Peoria, AZ Aug. 18, 2018. He is survived by his 5 children William, Lynda, Richard II, Steve and Christopher and his two step-sons Larry and Rick. Dick is also survived by his grandchildren Genevieve, Robin, Nicole, Juliann, Nick, Richard and Evan and 8 great grandchildren and 1 great great granddaughter Genevieve Marquez and many other friends and family.