The closure of Nashville's only racquetball only club (also only club with
a public play option) and major tournament facility left many of our area's
players out in the cold and scattered to the four corners of our area.
There were nurmerous other facilties (approximately 50 with about 134 courts
between them) . I found myself with only a few advanced players to
compete with at the facility at which I chose to play. And worst
still, where I had been use to traveling to tournaments in other areas
of our state or other states with anywhere from 10-20 of my club mates,
suddenly I found myself travelling alone. My new playing facility had a
good programmer who ran challenge courts and leagues, but only occasionally
put on a tournament.
One particular player at my new home base would frequently comment to me
that racquetball was dead. This irriatated me to no end becuase I
knew that plenty of racquetball was being played across our city.
Walmart and other local stores were increasing their supply of racquetball
equipment on their shelves. I knew they wouldn't do that unless they were
selling plenty of racquetball equipment.
I set out to show the naysayers that racquetball was indeed alive and kicking
in Nashville and the surrounding area.
Racquetball Spotlight Newsletter
Racquetball Spotlight started out as a newsletter designed to cover our
local racquetball scene.
One of my best racquetball buds, Vicky Hilliard, who ran numerous tournaments
gave me her best mailing list of local players. This list consisted
of 120 players. Our former club had 500+ members at one time.
Initially, it took ten calls to one of our Metro area clubs to get even
the most routine info on challenge courts and leagues that they had been
running for years. I kept calling, talking to players that I knew
from various facilities, walking into facilities to pick up info, and sending
out newsletters with the conviction that racquetball was alive in our area.
And many players kept telling me that I was wasting my time because racquetball
was dead.
A funny thing soon happened. People started sending me subscription
fees for the newsletter and placing ads in my newsletter. The few
programmers around started asking me if I would publish info about their
programs.
Racquetball Spotlight covered both USRA and non-sanctioned tournaments,
league results, player profiles, playing tips, drills, upcoming programs
and events, and basicly anything related to racquetball that might be of
local interest.
Soon D level players came up to me beaming because their name had been
in print in the newsletter. Many players would stop me and tell me
that they never knew that they were welcome to play in such and such a
facilities' open challenge night. And BEST OF ALL that player that
used to enjoy telling me that racquetball was dead SHUT UP!
Just when the newsletter was really taking off, I took on the responsibilities
of State Director for the Tennessee Amateur Racquetball Association_TARA)
and could not afford (financially or time wise) to continue to publish
Racquetball Spotlight. At the time that the newsletter was discontinued,
my mailing list had grown to 500+ players and tournament directors would
call to request to use my mailing list.
Racquetball Spotlight Website
Don Brown of Geosite.com approached me with an opportunity to put a website
on the net to promote TARA. He was very helpful in getting me started
on the net. I saw the net as a way to get around local racquetball
politics and simplify the difficulties and expense of promoting racquetball
across a state that is about 700 miles long with very distinct regional
areas.
As TARA director, I wanted to promote racquetball on the metro, regional,
and state levels because I believed that was the best approach to growing
our sport. Unfortunately, getting other players to look beyond today
is very difficult. I had some success and cooperation on a state wide and
regional level, but no one was willing to take on the task of handling
their local area beyond their own playing facility.
The TARA website helped to accomplish some of my promotional goals that
I could not accomplish in person or recruit others to help accomplish.
I decided to resurrect Racquetball Spotlight as a website. While
I was still working with TARA, I did not have time to do more than post
the very basics for the site. Once I stepped down from running TARA,
I began to try to finish the site.
Racquetball Spotlight Website Today and for the Future
I want the site to be helpful and of use to the local player and to those
that travel through our area.
My goal is have a network of local players that feed info to Racquetball
Spotlight via email. Hopefully, in the near future, Racquetball Spotlight,
will become a dynamic and interactive site showcasing our Metro area racquetball
scene. To achieve this goal will require racquetball players to care
about their sport and to take action to promote our sport. If you,
as a racquetball player don't take responsibility to introduce others to
your sport, you will have few if any places to play racquetball.
Racquetball players tend to be very docile about their sport, unlike tennis
and handball players who scream to the high heavens when you mess with
their sport. My current facility (private club offering a multitude
of activities and social functions) was just brought out by new owners.
The tennis players and aquatic participants were extremely vocal.
I was the only racquetball player to voice concerns for our program.
Already, the tennis program has taken over all of the racquetball informational
displays at the front desk and all other areas that did not fight for their
space are being down sized or eliminated. Another local club (weights,
fitness, aerobics, and racquetball) also faced new owners who immediately
stripped out three courts to expand an already extensive weight training
area.
