A racquetball game sounds like a space battle. Squeaks and chirps come from players’ shoes protesting quick footwork on a hard floor. The distinct “pong” of the blue rubber ball bouncing off the court’s walls and ceiling echoes like a shot fired from some futuristic weapon, one with lots of knobs and some concentric circles radiating from the muzzle. There’s an occasional percussive blast, like an explosion, from a particularly crushing blow.
The noise doesn’t seem to register with many passersby in the hallway at the Santa Maria Valley YMCA. They’re used to it. T-shirted members on their way to a Zumba class smile and wave as they pass the familiar racquetballers prepping for their games or cooling down after a set. The otherworldly noises from the courts are soon drowned out by a Techno-reggae remix of “Jump in the Line.” You can’t see the class from the benches outside the racquetball courts, but it’s easy to imagine the sweat flying off the participants as Harry Belafonte belts out his tune over thumping bass.
Each of the Y’s two racquetball courts features a large window, so the sweat streaming off of these guys—isolated in a big, white box and impervious to the “Shake, shake, shake, Senora!” filling the air in the hall—is clearly on display. After 2 1/2 hours, no neckline is dry; no armpits are spared.
Ted Takagi, a 47-year-old electrical engineer who commutes to Santa Barbara, generally starts his days on the court at 5 a.m. On Dec. 30, he was wrapping up a set with three other locals—Carl Nielsen, Dick Parry, and Chad Jordan—at 8:30 a.m.
“This is sanity control,” said Nielsen, who picked up racquetball 30 years ago. “If you’re having any problems, bring ’em here to the court.”
Takagi has been playing regularly since 1995, when he happened upon some friends enjoying a game and figured he should get in on it. His enthusiasm quickly developed, and he now touts the sport’s many benefits, including camaraderie. He’s prepping to play in the International Racquetball Tour’s California Coast to Coast Open, set for Canoga Park Jan. 5 through 8.
The sense of community is obvious in the hall, especially when Doug Brown’s group starts to arrive. The Benjamin Foxen school principal and court regular committed to the sport at a local racquetball club and now organizes tournaments—roughly at Thanksgiving and Easter each year—and works to drum up interest.
“Back in the ’80s, it was a huge sport,” he explained. “We had tournaments back then where we’d have 150 people from all over the state come and play.
“Now,” he said with a laugh, “we’re giving free equipment away to generate interest.”
That’s a joke, he explained—the giveaway part, anyway. But the interest? That’s something everyone would like to see expand. Local tournaments these days tend to draw 40 or so people at best. Brown recalled the days when the club would offer kids’ clinics.
“It’d be great to get some younger people here,” Takagi said, “people with fresher legs.”
There are a few theories as to why racquetball isn’t exactly thriving. Brown said that many of the sport’s best athletes move to tennis. Also, racquetball is difficult to televise, because the ball moves so fast—faster than a tennis ball.
Tim Domingues, 51, said he found the game when he was 19 or 20 and picked up a wooden racquet to play with his brothers at Cal Poly in SLO. That’s where he honed his skills, until courts opened on Carmen Lane in Santa Maria. Now, he works for Pepsi and comes to the YMCA courts two or three times a week.
Dave Daniels, 49, comes five times a week (“on a slow week”). As co-owner of Inland Pacific Builders, he makes time to visit regularly. Most of the guys coming in and out of the courts come often, though many have set times. There’s a morning crowd and an afternoon group. But Takagi said the real treat is when R.O. Carson shows up. (“I just watch,” Parry said. “I don’t play with him.”)
It was Carson’s Carmen Lane club where Brown developed his game. The name is something of a legend—and not just locally. Carson’s son Rocky, who grew up in Santa Maria, is currently the No. 2-ranked player in the world and just won a gold medal for the United States in the Pan American Games. Carson himself, now retired from club ownership, is fitness coach for the U.S. Junior Team.
R.O. Carson looks and sounds a little bit like Terry O’Quinn’s John Locke from Lost, but older and larger. He explained that racquetball is popular in the south—as in Mexico and below. The Pan American Games offer serious competition. He echoed Brown’s thoughts as he pondered why the sport hasn’t caught on in the United States: “It’s not the fact that we don’t have the players. It’s the fact that we never got TV.”
Carson listed off the multitude of sports—40, by his estimate—that have proliferated in the years since he first picked up a racquet. Back then, he said, there were only a few major things to watch: football, baseball, and basketball. Now, channels are crowded with everything from major sports to extreme activities—think snowboarding and motocross—that didn’t even register several decades ago.
But no racquetball.
There is hope. Domingues took some time out from his warm ups to talk to a grandfather looking for advice to give his new-to-the-game grandchildren occupying the neighboring court at the YMCA.
Executive Editor Ryan Miller hasn’t played racquetball in years—and now feels guilty about it. Contact him at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2012.