Racquetball: A Cautionary Tale of a Sports Boom | Get Memphis Moving | Memphis FlyerRacquetball: A Cautionary Tale of a Sports Boom
In the mid-1970s, racquetball was one of the hottest sports on the
planet, and Memphis was its epicenter. Today it's one of those sports,
like jumping rope and baseball, that lots of us used to play and few of
us still play. It didn't quite go the way of tube socks and afros, but
it was definitely headed that way. How and why does a sport with such
appeal to both men and women bloom, fade and perhaps bloom again in
popularity?In 1976, Elvis Presley had a basement court at Graceland, where he
played Dr. George Nichopoulos and other members of his Memphis Mafia.
Memphis had a half dozen racquetball professionals and a young phenom
named Andy Roberts who would later win a world championship. One of the
city's most prominent businessmen, William B. Tanner, was a racquetball
fanatic and promoter who built a court on top of his office building on
Union Avenue Extended. Memphis State University, as it was then called,
and Coach Larry Lyles started a club team that dominated college
racquetball for two decades. Baseball legend Don Kessinger took up the
sport and built a court complex. In all, there were more than 150
courts in the city.
Today,
racquetball isn't dead, by any means. Memphis still hosts the U.S.
Nationals and pro tournament at The Racquet Club of Memphis in October,
and there are probably 100 courts scattered throughout the city and
suburbs at schools, churches, fitness clubs, and U of M. But they don't
get as much play as they used to, and nobody is building new centers
dedicated first and foremost to racquetball.What happened to the hottest sport of the Seventies? Memphian Randy
Stafford, owner of The Court Company and a former professional, has
played the sport at a high level for 40 years and is also the sport's
unofficial historian. The game, he says, was invented in 1954 and first
flourished in Louisville alongside handball. The first generation of
Memphis players included Giles "Bull" Coors, DeWitt Shy, Jack Doyle,
and Ronnie Leon.The game was slower than the modern version but easier to play than
tennis because the racquet was shorter, the court smaller, and the ball
bouncier. You banged it off the front wall, side walls, or ceiling and
it came back to you. It quickly replaced handball because it was easier
on the hands and women could learn it quickly. The sport exploded in
the early 1970s as hundreds of colleges built multiple courts and made
it a physical education elective. The game appealed to businessmen like
Tanner as a way to get an intense indoor workout in an hour or less. In
a Match for the Ages, a champion handball player, Paul Haber, played a
champion racquetball player using a racquet but playing with a
handball. Haber won the match. But racquetball won the war. At its
peak, the sport claimed 14 million players, half of them women, and set
an architectural standard for the modern fitness club.Today, Stafford says there are about 5.5 million players, only 20
percent of whom are women. Aerobics, cycling, jogging, and
weightlifting all took a piece of the pie."Pure racquetball didn't work so clubs had to add other things," said Stafford.
Racquets got bigger and balls faster. Stafford calls today's game "bullet ball."
"I don't know that the speed of the game hurt its popularity," he
said. "Young people like the speed. It's older players that complain."Stafford's own career reflects the sport's changes. He started
playing when he was 14 years old and a freshman at White Station High
School. His parents moved to Alberta, Canada and he began dividing his
time between racquetball and hunting. At a national tournament, he
caught the eye of the sport's grand master, Bud Meuhleisen of San
Diego, who invited him to come to California for the summer to train.
Stafford took him up on it. Almost broke, he paid him in bear meat and
moose meat.With a long, graceful stride and rangy body, Stafford was a natural
for the slow-paced game of the early Seventies, but the game outgrew
him as it got faster. He was a second-tier pro, wrote books about the
game, and began building courts all over the world. Until last year he
still competed nationally at the highest level in his age group.His nemesis is Ruben Gonzalez, one of the hardest hitters on the
tour when he was in his prime. Stafford is 55, which is usually the
best ago to play a new division. Unfortunately, Gonzales is older, so
Stafford has caught up with him, not left him behind.
