Congratulations to our RYDF athletes for their outstanding performances! Special mentions go to: Carla Munoz, a supported athlete and board member, who won pro singles and finished second in pro mixed doubles
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The Reaching Your Dream Foundation is raising money to help support its Dream Team members, including male and female athletes from the United States and internationally, to attend the 2021 US OPEN Racquetball Championships. Your donation will help make this a reality for these emerging players, who for the last 18 months, have been unable to play competitive racquetball because of COVID-19. A great US OPEN will help re-energize racquetball. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause, assisting these athletes, and bringing back racquetball!
A recent article by Restrung Magazine made some poignant statements about the state of professional racquetball. Specifically, it referenced the emergence of talented Central American, South American, and Mexican male athletes who have enormous potential, yet apparently lack the killer instinct to overcome two now veteran players, Rocky Carson and Kane Waselenchuk. It also generalized that some of the current North American players appear entitled and enjoy their status as professionals without having earned major titles or achieved high rankings. In this article, they were described as being in a “bubble of mediocrity”.
On Tuesday February 26th, 5-time World Champion Rocky Carson hosted a Pro-Am Fundraiser for the Reaching Your Dream Foundation at the club where he plays and teaches. Rocky recruited several of the local area pro players (e.g., Luiz Avila, Brandon Davis, Scott Davis, Greg Solis, and Josh Tucker) and club players and was able to raise $10,000 for RYDF! We’d like to thank Rocky, the pros, and the donors who gave their time and money to support the Reaching Your Dream Foundation. We’d especially like to thank the owners and management of ClubSport Aliso Viejo. If any of those who read this want to consider doing the same thing for RYDF, please contact Mike Lippitt at 510.504.2494 and we will help you set it up. Thanks!
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into racquetball. Growing up I played a lot of baseball and soccer. But I got to the point where I got tired of playing the same sport. I was a little bored and wanted a new sport. I came across racquetball through my dad who showed me the basic concepts of the sport. Darrell Warren really was the one who introduced me to the fundamental basics of racquetball. I was about 15 and started getting the hang of it.
RYDF is excited to share Gerardo Franco Gonzalez’s inspirational story. Gerardo is 19 years old and is currently ranked #7 by the World Racquetball Tour (WRT). He was also awarded the WRT Sportsmanship Award in the 2016-2017 season.
Unfortunately, racquetball is not a well-researched sport in comparison to other racquet sports such as tennis or table tennis. Much of the data available regarding calories burned during a game, for example, come from data acquired in the 1980s and 1990s when equipment and gameplay was very different. However, we were delighted to learn of a racquetball study that was recently completed by Mexican LPRT racquetball player and university student Carolina Rivera Luque. Her thesis, as part of her physical therapy degree, was about racquetball injuries. Therefore, we asked her to share a little about what she found.
Andree Parrilla has been a force to be reckoned with for many years. A finalist as a 17-year-old at the 2014 Pan Am Championships, we have seen this young man mature from a successful junior career into a very competitive contender in the senior ranks. And then, just a few short weeks ago, he claimed his first IRT pro stop title in Chicago. We caught up with him briefly to discuss his experience.
In December, we published what some might consider a controversial article featuring Markie Rojas. Within this article, we highlighted the financial struggle many players on racquetball tour experience: relying on prize money from tournament successes is not a sustainable financial model. Our article was not written to criticize tours, players, or tournament directors. Rather, a goal of RYDF is to actively help those in racquetball overcome challenges just like this. We see ourselves as part of the solution. However, sometimes to offer solutions, problems must be identified.
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