Glenn ‘Piggy Banks’ Rogers was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago, near the Bulls stadium. As a teenager, he had a good shoe shine business going, and when Glenn discovered pool, but was still too young to play in the poolroom, he convinced one of the poolroom owners to let him shine shoes and do other errands for the privilege of playing during the daytime. After a bit, the older players took young Glenn under their wing, almost like “an image of their son”, as Glenn tells it.

The black comedian Pygmy Markham was popular at the time, and it was his name that first got attached to Glenn as a teenager. Then as Glenn’s banking improved, the name evolved into Piggy Banks, which has stuck with him ever since.

At that time, there were 15 or 20 active poolrooms in the area, and “hundreds of Banks players just on Madison Street,” according to Piggy. In Piggy’s home room there was James ‘Youngblood’ Brown, another top Banks contender, and a host of lesser known players who also shot real well -- guys like ‘Little Ed’, “a real good Banks player,” and ‘Left Hand’ Walter, another good banker who showed Glenn how to make use of english to get extra action in his banks. And other great players from throughout Chicago came around of course, like ‘Lefty’ Chapman, and ‘Bugs’ Rucker, both now in the One Pocket Hall of Fame for Bank Pool.

As Rogers matured as a player, he later migrated to the South Side and got to be better friends with Bugs. It was from Bugs that Piggy learned how to take advantage of “the patch” when banking.  It was “like a fox in the hen house,” explains Piggy, when a player like Bugs got into “the patch”.  Glenn describes “the patch” as a situation that can come up in Bank Pool when a good banker can maneuver the cue ball into an open cluster of balls that all bank, so that the shooter can run off a number of banks without moving the cue ball much. Bugs and fellow Banks hall of famer Javanley ‘Youngblood’ Washington were both Chicago masters of “the patch”.

Glenn at the Derby City Classic in 2009

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