Quite the Racquet...

For those of you that don't know (man, I sure start out a lot of posts like that, don't I? Jiminy Christmas, I'm getting boring. Let me start over with a new intro.)


To Whom It May Concern: I have been playing racquetball for a long time. I can still remember the first time I ever played. I was a freshman in college at Miami University and a guy I knew from the mock trial team took me to the Rec center on campus to teach me the game. He was a very nice guy, though, looking back now, not a very good player. Still, he knew the rules, so he whipped me. Unfortunately, this little session occurred on one of the last days before the spring semester ended, so I went home with only the one experience on the court, having not yet been bitten by the racquetball bug.

My next year of college, by coincidence, I lived right next door to the auxiliary racquetball courts on campus. While the facility right next to me was not the pristine, recently built complex that I had learned the game in, this dungeon of a building provided courts that were only 30 steps from my front door. True, I didn't get a chance to check out the girls walking by in their exercise attire, which is regrettable, but I was able to waltz onto a court anytime I wanted and hold it forever.

Yeah, I got hooked. There was a period where I played EVERY DAY for a month. One day, I played for 6 straight hours. I would come home exhausted  but I got into extremely good shape (for me) and eventually I got pretty good.

You see, racquetball offered something that I hadn't found up until that point. An even playing field. Growing up fat, it always meant that I couldn't run as fast, or for as long, as most of my friends. Obviously, this puts a guy at a disadvantage when it comes to competing in sports. In racquetball, everything is condensed to a small court, so if you're good, there isn't that much running. Additionally, even if you do have to run, you don't have to run for that long.

In any case, I kept with it well into law school. I joined the St. Thomas Racquetball Club when I was there and was playing twice a week. Obviously, since I stop attending the school, my availability has diminished a bit. 2 months ago, I played in my first tournament in about 2 years (Where I got my ass handed to me with impunity.) On Saturday, I played in another tournament.

Get your game face on?

Overall, I did alright. I lost my first match (to the eventual champion) and I won my next two. After that, I was drained, but I still tried to go another round. I lost the first game of the match 13-15, then started the second game. I found that I was so tired, if a ball was more than 3 feet away from me I wouldn't move to get it. After seeing how lazy I had gotten, I decided to stick a fork in myself and concede the match.

It was an exhausting day, but a fun one. Luckily, it was my cheat day, so I got to hang out and eat all the most amazing food possible immediately after my matches with 0% guilt. Man, I gotta start doing this every week.