About the APA

The APA is the world’s largest amateur pool league with more than 265,000 members competing in 8-Ball and 9-Ball Leagues throughout North America. Click here for more information about the history of the APA. 
 
 

Meet Your League Operators! 

 
 
Stephanie & Zach being all cute and stuff near a pool table. 
 

Stephanie

 
Stephanie was born an only-child in the Chicago suburbs and spent her childhood and adolescent years there.
 
In 2004, Stephanie attended a religious-based sports camp at Graceland University, where she met a lanky young man named Zach (you can see where this is going). 
 
Stephanie Graduated high school in 2004. She worked in the Chicago area for a few years before she had her first child, in December of 2007. In 2010, she decided to move to Kentucky and live with her lifelong friend to try and make a new start for her and her toddler child. That summer, she would reunite with Zach and begin hatching plans for a move to a new place.
 
In 2011, they moved to Kansas City where Stephanie began working as a Funeral Director while simultaneously going to school at Kansas City Kansas Community College. Stephanie and Zach married in 2013 at a vineyard in Lexington, MO.
 
Stephanie and Zach welcomed their second child in July of 2014. In 2016, Stephanie left the funeral industry to pursue other professions in fields such as insurance, roofing & eventually the service industry. Prior to their move to Wisconsin, Stephanie had spent the better part of 5 years working at a local pool hall as a server and bartender.
 
She began playing in the APA soon after starting working at that pool hall and that laid the foundation for what would come next.

 

Zach

 

Zach was born in Southern Indiana and stayed in that same general area for the entirety of his childhood and adolescence. The oldest of 3, he kept a watchful eye on his younger siblings and tried to stay out of trouble.
 
In 2004, Zach attended a religious-based camp at Graceland University, where he would meet a beautiful young woman named Stephanie. Sound familiar?
 
Anyway, Zach graduated from High School in 2006 and promptly went off to college at Graceland University in Lamoni, IA. He graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Information Technology.
 
The summer after his graduation, he would reunite with Stephanie and begin planning for a move to Kansas City. They moved in April of 2011. Zach found a job as help desk support with a well-known accounting firm, where he would stay for just over a decade.
 
During that time, they welcomed a new child and bought a home.
 
The pandemic brought a new schedule to Zach’s work day, most notably that he didn’t have to go into the office anymore. It stayed this way for a year and a half or so before he was asked to come back into the office fulltime.

Shortly thereafter, Zach began burning out at work and was considering other employment options. When the opportunity to be a league operator came up, Zach and Stephanie jumped at it.