Pro Racquetball Stats (PRS), like the rest of the racquetball world, basically was put on hold for most of 2020 as event after event was cancelled. We did manage to crown the 2019-20 season ending pro champs once it became clear the latter quarter of the pro seasons wouldn’t be held.
– Kane Waselenchuk won his 14th year end title, finishing roughly 400 points ahead of #2 Alex Landa . See http://rball.pro/B8C116 for the IRT year end rankings. – Paola Longoria won her 11th pro title, blowing away the tour and finishing nearly 1100 points ahead of #2 Maria Jose Vargas Parada. See http://rball.pro/5DC5C8 for the LPRT year end rankings.
The ladies were first to return to the court, thanks to racquetball benefactor Randy Root, and played a great event in Kansas City in December. The Men got to play a lower tier tournament in Atlanta a couple months back, and are scheduled for their long awaited tier 1 return to the court next week in the Suivant Consulting Grand Slam in Atlanta. Stay tuned as we are scheduled to join Dean DeAngelo Baer on the IRT Live stream to preview the event next week.
And the single biggest event of the year was MC Vegas and 3Wall Ball putting on the 11th iteration of the 3WallBall Outdoor World Championships in Las Vegas, a massive event that featured a who’s who of both indoor and outdoor players.
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Here were the most popular/most engaging Facebook posts we made all year: 1. 5/5/20: Gregg Peck‘s passing retrospective. 2. 10/19/20: 3WallBall Wrap-up of Men’s 3wall event 3. 12/7/20: TeamRoot.com supermax wrapup 4. 2/10/20: US National Doubles wrap-up 5. 1/20/20: Longhorn Open Wrap-up
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We had to cancel most National and international events for the year, which was a huge disappointment for an entire generation of Juniors (who aged out without playing their last event) and for Adults in turn (many of whom were set to play the PARCs or Worlds for the first time). We did get some fabulous news though recently, with confirmation that Racquetball will be included in the 2023 PanAm Games. Great news and congratulations to all who made that possible.
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We look forward 2021, and look forward to getting back to a sense of normalcy in the world of racquetball.
Thanks to Steve Belmonte for digging up the full draw sheets from the 1980 Outdoor Nationals event in Costa Mesa, California. I’ve loaded the full men’s singles and doubles draws into the database, including seeding and scores.
Here’s the doubles Match Report: http://rball.pro/1B3596
Here’s some fun facts on the 1980 Doubles event: There were 43 teams entered into 1980’s event. top 8 seeds: 1 Trenton, Dave/Fey, Steve; the 1979 champions and runner’s up a couple other times. 2 Wallace, Barry/Wetzel, Bob; the founders of the Outdoor Nationals tournament and the champs in 75 and 77. 3 Southern, Dan/Alcala, Juan; Southern = outdoor HoFamer 4 Carson, Jim / Chadwick, Bill: Carson was the tournament director in the 80s 5 Morrow, Morrow/ Radford, ? 6 McDonald, Greg/McDonald, Martha; the husband and wife pair who competed in Men’s doubles events both here and at USRA nationals. 7 Stocker, Bobby/ Meyers, Larry 8 Hogan, Marty/Mondry, Steve; Marty Hogan competed in outdoor nationals a number of times in the 1970s, including playing in the first one in 1974 at the age of 16.
The winners, Mark Harding and Paul Olson, were the #42 seeds. I dare say this is the lowest seed i think i’ve ever see win a tournament that I’ve entered into the database. They also won in 1985 as a team.
Here’s the Singles draw in the database: http://rball.pro/5B4519
52 players in this draw. top 8 seeds:
1 Marty Hogan, the 79 champ and in the midst of his total domination of the sport.
2 Wagner, Rich; the 79 runner up and one of the more underrated pros ever. He’s up for the HoFame this year.
3 Morrow, Mark
4 Southern, Dan
5 Myers, Lindsay; the early canadian #1 pro who toured until the Catalina tour shut him out.
6 Dave Peck; who would go on to win the 1982 pro indoor championship.
7 Stocker, Bobby
8 Bush, Dave
Notables in the draw:
9 Hawkes, Brian; he was the 9th seed here, but would win in 1981 and start his 25-year run dominating the tournament.
21 Mike Genevay, brother of Dave Genevay, the 3x doubles champion
34 Mark Harding, who won the doubles title.
42 Jerry Hilecher, one of the top indoor pros of the day.
52 Gregg Peck, who was just 16 and was traveling and competing with his older brother Dave. Gregg was a 2020 Hall of Fame inductee who tragically passed away earlier this year.
In the singles draw, Hogan got beat early, Wagner as the #2 seed forfeited his opener, and #56 Steve Mitchell made a huge run to the semis. In the final, #4 Dan Southern fell behind 3-10 in the tiebreaker to #7 Bobby Stocker, called two successive time outs to cool him off, then came back to take the title 11-10.
(This story is also courtesy of Belmonte, a great historian for outdoor racquetball)
As always; if you have old draw sheets for tournaments like this, or specific to outdoor if you have any history on the Men’s doubles event from the late 1970s to early 1990s, let us know. We have multiple holes in this data.
Post-publishing update: thanks to Norm McNutt and Steve Belmonte who noticed some misspellings and data entry errors in the draws, specifically with R.O. Carson getting mapped to his son Rocky, Olson misspelled as Olsen, and the wrong Genevay brother in the draw.
Here’s some more reports we’ve added lately. There will be a part 3 of this post: we’ve added a lotta a stuff in the last year or so.
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– I added a couple of specific IRF queries around the time of the Pan Am games in Aug 2019 that i’ll cover in a separate post, probably revisiting the next time we actually have an IRF event (they have cancelled the Pan American Racquetball Confederation – PARC championships for 2020 thanks to Covid-19). But if you’re bored you can fire up the IRF section and run all sorts of new reports.
– In support of the UnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball Championships last October, we created two new US Open specific reports: o Player W/L Record just at US Opens: this was suggested by Dean DeAngelo Baer to help highlight just US Open performance and it has shown some amazing stats. Here’s Kane Waselenchuk’s US Open W/L record report: http://rball.pro/ABF04B (he’s 90-3 lifetime at the sport’s biggest event) o Player Match History just at US Opens: a full list of all US Open matches per player. Here’s Conrrado kevin Moscoso Ortiz Racquetball‘s match history: http://rball.pro/2F8B8C
– Player Lefty-Righty W/L Splits: great suggestion from Brian Pineda (who still owes me $10 from a bet made during a match last fall), who surmised that some players are better than others against lefties. Well, now you can query that. Here’s Alex Landa ‘s splits L vs R: http://rball.pro/28335A
– Head to Head Summary report: interesting suggestion by Timothy Baghurst to emulate a graphic we saw posted on a Squash broadcast: if you fire up the “Tale of the Tape” report, you can now select this H2H Match Summary report, which breaks down the h2h wins/losses, plus gives details on 3-game wins, 4-game wins and 5-game wins in both the best-of-3 and best-of-5 format. Here’s an example of this data for matches between Kane Waselenchuk and Rocky Carson: http://rball.pro/49B9BA
– Slight improvement to the Player Summary report as suggested by Evan Pritchard (aka Kramer X, aka the guy who writes The Racquetball Blog) to add in # of tournaments played along side # missed and total per player, per year. This does make the report more readable definitely. Here’s an example of a player summary for Paola Longoria showing the new column: http://rball.pro/7F61BB
– Addition of Player Home pages as suggested by JT R Ball. We don’t know too many stand alone pages for players, so I’ve added in some known “Facebook home pages” that some players are using in lieu of an external page. This data is now seen on the Player Profile reports. I’ll continue to add home pages as I encounter them. JT also just sent me some youtube playlist links that I may use instead of home pages for some players.
– Added functionality to the “Oldest to…” and “Youngest to…” reports after a conversation where Keerti Kumar asked whether Lalo Portillo99 was the youngest player ever to break into the top 10. I’ve modified the “Youngest to..” and “Oldest to…” queries to also list the Youngest and Oldest players to ever finish a season ranked in the top 10 on tour.
The answer to the question, “was Lalo the youngest ever to break into the top 10?” requires a bit of a history lesson.
Short Answer: No.
Longer Answer: Prior to 1982 there wasn’t a points system on tour used to determine the year end winner; the year end Nationals tournament determined the winner. They did have a ranking system, but it was just used to seed events properly. In the early days of racquetball, the tour was dominated by very young players succeeding at an early age. Marty Hogan (racquetball) for example finished as runner up in the Nationals in 1976 and 1977 at the ages of 18 and 19 respectively. Brett Harnett amazingly played most of the 1980-1 season at the age of 16, then made the semis of Nationals just after turning 17. Newly elected Hall of Famer Gregg Peck was just a few months younger than Harnett and played alongside of him, making the quarters of the 1981 nationals also at the age of 17.
Harnett then finished ranked 4th on tour the first year there was a ranking system in 1982. Other teenagers to finish in the top 10 once there was a ranking system include Gregg Peck, Gerry Price in 1983, Cliff Swain in 1985, Jack Huczek in 2002 and most recently Daniel De La Rosa in 2013.
– Added a section to the “Oldest to..” report to have a “non Ruben Gonzalez version of the “Oldest players to make the round of 16” on the Men’s tour. Ruben held 19 of the top 20 spots; now you can see who else is getting close.
——————- We’ll do part 3 next week to spread out the rball content!
DLR the big winner this weekend, winning both Singles and Doubles. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
Congrats to your winners on the weekend: – Singles: Daniel De La Rosa – Doubles; Daniel De La Rosa/Alvaro Beltran
De la Rosa wins this event for the second time in four years (he loves Sioux Falls: he’s made the final here now four years running), and captures his 4th Tier 1 victory, moving him into a tie for 19th all-time with heady names like Steve Serot, Gregg Peck, Bo Keeley and his long-time Mexican rival Alex Landa . Click here http://rball.pro/E75E50 for a list of all 40 tier 1 men’s pro titlists throughout all of history.
—————- In the 128s: – Minnesota amateur Lee Meinerz played some solid ball and hung with Tony Carson in his first tourney back, taking the first game 15-14 before Carson had to retire.
In the 64s: – Meinerz continued to play tough and stretched #17 Sebastian Fernandez to 8,12 in his tourney opener. – #25 Kadim Carrasco played a tough tiebreaker against #24 Jansen Allen to advance. – #28 Sam Bredenbeck played #21 Felipe Camacho tough, falling 9,14 in a hard-hitting match. – Charlie Pratt Racquetball got a solid win over Alan Natera Chavez 10,8 to move into the 32s. – Set Cubillos Ruiz got a tie-breaker win over the Ref Scott McClellan to advance. – Robert Collins got a tough earned win over Canadian Tim Landeryou 12,12 to move on.
—————- In the 32s: – #16 Adam Manilla could not keep the momentum going from last weekend and fell to #17 Fernandez 6,10. Fernandez looked bulked up and ready to challenge #1 Landa in the main draw. – #21 Camacho got his best win of the season, ousting #12 Carlos Keller Vargas in a tie-breaker to advance to just his second main draw of the season. – #20 Javier Estrada went breaker but took out #13 Thomas Carter to get into his third main draw of the season. – #19 Javier Mar eased past the Costa Rican number one #14 seed Andres Acuña to get into the main draw. Mar has a history of disrupting IRT draws, and he’s well positioned to do so again here. – #22 Charles Pratt moved to 4-0 lifetime in top-level events against #11 Mario Mercado Valenzuela in a streaky game that looked like was going against him early. Pratt gets a juicy match-up against a player he shocked in last year’s PARC event in Moscoso (also his doubles partner on the weekend).
—————- In the 16s: some notable matches:
– #20 Estrada could not get the breakthrough win he’s been pursuing, losing to #4 Alvaro Beltran in two solid games. – #19 Mar proved once again why fans wish he’d play the tour full time, topping #3 Andree Parrilla in an 11-9 breaker. Its the second straight one-and-done for Parrilla, having been shocked last week in Austin by Manilla. – #6 @Luis Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo] got revenge on Pratt from their last meeting (the 2019 PARC) and topped him in two. He seemed to show little side effect of whatever malady caused him to exit so easily in Austin. – #7 Daniel De La Rosa continued his h2h dominance over country-man Rodrigo Montoya Solis, beating him 11-8 in the breaker in a tough match.
So, 7 of the top 8 seeds into the quarters; a slight surprise to this observer who keeps waiting for some of the guys in the 9-20 range to step-up.
—————- In the Quarters though … all upsets. – #8 Samuel Murray got a walk over when #1 Alex Landa pulled up lame midway through the second game. Murray had won the first, and it was hard to tell if the core injury (strained back?) was affecting Landa early on. Murray has beaten his oft-doubles partner before, so it wasn’t a huge surprise for him to get a game up on the notorious slow-starting Landa … but Murray into the semis was unexpected, especially from the #8 spot. – Whatever #5 Lalo Portillo figured out … he needs to bottle it up and sell it. After three straight one-and-dones since earning a top 8 seed … he held serve against a former top 10 touring pro in Camacho in the 16s, and then dominated #4 Beltran 5,6 in the quarters. He gets a second semi on the season, and a winnable one at that versus Murray. – #6 Moscoso continued to have the upper hand over Mar, dating to their junior days (they’re the same age-year and often met in the back end of Junior World events), and advanced in two games. – #7 DLR took advantage of #2 Rocky Carson’s first game back from injury, playing solid ball and advancing in two 12,11.
So; for the for the first time in recorded seeding history on the Men’s tour, all top 4 seeds are upset prior to the semis, leaving the rest of this tourney to be contested neatly by the #5, #6, #7 and #8 seeds. We’re guaranteed to have a shock finalist; Murray has just one finals appearance in his career, Portillo none. The Lewis Drug event continues to provide surprises year after year.
————— In the Semis:
– #5 Portillo raced out of the gate to blow away #8 Murray in game one, then mounted a huge comeback after going down big in game 2 to advance 4,14 and move into his first tier 1 professional final. Lalo is just 20 years of age and is one of the youngest finalists we’ve seen in years, and will have his hands full against a seasoned pro.
– In just their 4th career meeting (pro or international), #7 DLR continued his red-hot form and reversed the result from the US Open earlier this season and topped the Bolivian 8,11 to move into the final. Its hard to say whether Moscoso showed any ill-effects of the leg injury he picked up in Austin; one observer in the chat-box noted that Moscoso was merely “shuffling” to his right and not crossing over footsteps, perhaps implying he still was favoring his left leg. I also find it curious that the foot fault issues that plagued him at the US Open continue to be a factor; its now to the point where the referee knows to look for the FF and I believe now calls it even when its a borderline case.
—————- In the Finals:
It looked for a while like the young Portillo may provide a shock, as he played consistent solid ball to jump out to a lead, but DLR pulled back, played smart racquetball and eked out game one, saving game point against 15-14. In game 2, it was never really as close as the eventual 15-9 scoreline showed; DLR was in control despite Portillo’s excellent game plan.
—————- Points Implications of results: – Landa had a chance to take over #1 with a tourney win, but by existing at the qtrs along with Carson they stay 2-3 in the standings behind Kane. – Parrilla and Beltran remain 4-5, but Alvaro picks up some ground. – DLR moves up to #6 with the win, gaining enough points on Moscoso to switch places and dropping the Bolivian to 7th. – Despite the finals appearance and the win over Murray in the semis, Murray and Portillo remian 8-9 in the standings. – With the missed event, S.Franco drops to 12th, which elevates Jake Bredenbeck into the top 10 for what I believe is the first time in his career. – Mar jumps from #23 to #20, which is important because more than a few guys in the 11-20 range right now are either stepping back from touring or periodically miss events, meaning Mar could slip into the top 16, meaning a bye into the 32s.
the IRT now has enough events on the 12-month schedule that they’re counting points in 11 events, dropping other events. Which makes it even more amazing that guys like Kane and Conrrado can maintain top-8 seeds despite not even playing the minimum # of events.
The doubles draw was chalk in the semis, with all four top seeds advancing. Landa’s injury took out the Murray/Landa team, giving Montoya/Mar a walk-over into the finals. There they met their long-time Mexican nemesis team of #1 DLR/Beltran.
DLR/Beltran vs Mar/Montoya is becoming a frequent match-up in major doubles events. This final is a rematch of the following major matches: – 2018 Mexican Nationals final – 2018 Mexican Worlds Selection event final – Quarters of 2018 World Doubles – Semis of 2018 US Open – Semis of 2019 Atlanta open
The veterans DLR/Beltran won all these meetings. And they won again in the Sioux Falls final, though they had to go breaker to do so. Beltran continues to be such a skilled shot maker even at 41, that I wouldn’t be surprised if he remained a dangerous pro doubles player for years to come.
—————- Men’s Open:
The top four seeds in the Men’s Open draw are all IRT pros ranked in the 9-16 range, and as expected they all advanced into the semis. Only Gerardo Franco Gonzalez was really troubled along the way, taken to a tie-breaker by Canadian veteran Landeryou.
In the Open semis: Franco upset Acuna while Montoya handled Mercado, and in the final Montoya cruised to the Men’s Open singles win.
—————— Next up?
The third of three IRT events in a row; the Lou Bradley Memorial in Sun Prairie, WI. It should be interesting to see what toll these back-to-back-to-back events take on players: we’ve already seen Kane bow out of one, Landa forfeit out with injury, and see both Beltran and Carson exit earlier than their seeds. Will we see another run from an unexpected source next week?
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International Racquetball Tour International Racquetball Federation – IRF International Racquetball Federation USA Racquetball Racquetball Canada Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora Racquetball Colombia Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball F
Mannino up for the Hall. Photo via Geoff Thompsen/Double Donut Studios
Hey racquetball fans. Long-time touring pro and former IRT commissioner Jason Mannino is up for the USAR Hall of Fame this year. Like we published with fellow HoF candidate Gregg Peck earlier this fall, here’s a career retrospective of Jason with some stats and lists of accomplishments:
Mannino overcame a near-fatal car accident at the age of 18 to become one of the most accomplished players in the sport’s history. Read on for a career summary. ————
Junior Career
Mannino hails from Staten Island, NY, the same area as Hall of Famer Sudsy Monchik, and being just 3 months apart in age frequently competed throughout their junior and professional careers. Often times these two dominant players would meet in the finals of state, regional and national competitions and would trade off as title holders.
Mannino and Monchik also frequently teamed up as doubles partners and won multiple junior national titles throughout their junior career.
Junior Career Accomplishments: – 3-time USA Junior National champ o 14U National Champ in 1990 o 16U National Champ in 1991 (as a 15-yr old) o 18U National Champ in 1992 (as a 16-yr old
-5-time USA Junior Doubles national champ with Monchik o 18U in 1993 o 16U in 1990 o 10U, 12U and 14U titles previous to that for a full sweep with Sudsy
– 18U World Junior Singles champion in 1994
———————— Professional Career
Mannino turned pro soon after the end of his junior career, when he was offered a contract with Spalding upon winning the 1994 Junior 18U world title. His first pro main event qualification was at the Jan 1995 Atlanta tourney. In his first full season on tour as a 20-yr old, he finished in the top ten on tour. He improved even more in the 1996-7 season, finishing 4th and kicking off more than a decade of being ranked in the top 5 on tour.
He competed across two distinct “eras” in the sport, and faced off against legends like Cliff Swain and Sudsy Monchik in the first part of his career, then Rocky Carson / Jack Huczek / Kane Waselenchuk in the second part of his career. Despite frequently competing in the back ends of tournaments against multiple year-end tour winners, he won 22 titles in his career and made the finals of another 18.
Mannino competed at the top of the tour for an astounding 16 seasons, competing at a high level well into his 30s and becoming one of the most long-serving pros in the history of the game. His playing career only ended at 35 so that he could take the opportunity of running the pro tour; he finished his final touring season ranked 4th.
Professional Career Accomplishments: – IRT Pro tour champion: 2002-3 season – 16 years on tour; 15 top-10 finishes, 14 top-5 finishes – 22 career titles, 7th all time – 40 career finals made, 9th of all time. – 195 career appearances, 5th of all time – 70.0% career W/L percentage (402-172), 11th all time – 2-time US Open champion, 1999 and 2006 – Las Vegas Pro Nationals Champion 2001 – 1996: IRT Rookie of the Year – 1998: IRT Most Improved player of the year
————————– Innovative Playing Style
Mannino’s playing style was revolutionary in our sport for two primary reasons: his tactical serving approach and his amazing retrieval capabilities.
Coming into play at an age in our sport dominated by power servers (Swain, Monchik, John Ellis, Doyle, Drew Kachtik, Andy Roberts, etc.), Mannino developed a unique serving style that was not really seen prior; the “Junk serve.” Not a lob serve, but not a drive serve, he pioneered a serving style that involved deception, placement and guile to de-emphasize the power of his opponents and often times force loose service returns for easy points.
In the meantime, Mannino’s “getting” ability on the court was perhaps the best ever seen on tour. Mannino could retrieve balls that no other player in his time could get, diving all over the court to extend points and rallies. Mannino could anticipate where kill shots were going and would literally begin diving before a shot was executed, and could return kill shots from mid-air. He set the athletic standard for generations of diving players to come.
——————— Professional Tour Leadership
Mannino retired in April 2010 to take over the professional tour as owner and commissioner. He succeeded Dave Negrete and became the 8th pro tour commissioner in men’s pro tour history. Mannino took over the tour at a critical time; economic downturns in the 2010 time-frame forced major sponsors out of the game and cancelled marquee events. Mannino was able to resurrect the Ektelon Nationals in California for a time, and stabilized the number of tier 1 events for the better part of the 2010s.
However, Mannino’s lasting impact on the tour may be the rule changes he implemented immediately upon taking over as commissioner. The IRT returned to two serves for the first time since Aug 1990 in an attempt to improve the excitement of the serve. Additionally, in response to complaints from fans and sponsors, Mannino implemented anti-arguing rules and pace-of-play statutes in an attempt to improve the quality of the product as the sport moved more fully into a streaming/broadcast focused mode.
Mannino sold the IRT tour in June 2017, ending more than 20 years of direct involvement (as a player or in management) of the men’s professional racquetball tour.
——————— Coaching and Mentoring Career
Mannino has partnered with Fran Davis for more than two decades to teach Racquetball Camps all across the country and internationally. Davis and Mannino are the primary instructors of the most popular annual Racquetball camp series in the nation and have taught hundreds of players over the years.
Mannino is a co-author with Davis of Championship Racquetball, published in 2011.
——————— Personal
He hails from Staten Island, NY and studied at St. John’s University before turning pro. He currently resides in San Diego, CA. He transitioned to a career in Real Estate upon leaving IRT management. He continues to work with Fran Davis Racquetball as a coach and mentor. He is married with two sons who have continued his athletic pedigree by excelling in youth baseball.
——————— Conclusion
Mannino’s pro record speaks for itself; he’s one of the most accomplished pro players to ever play the game. He continued to have an impact on the sport after his playing career ended, and continues to this day. He more than belongs in the Hall of Fame.
(Editor note: this was a post I published straight to the “Keep Racquetball Great” Facebook group on 9/25/19, in response to a groundswell of discussion related to his re-nomination to the USAR hall of fame. I’ll back-date it and copy/paste the content from that time).
I’m a bit late to the Gregg Peck for the Hall of Fame conversations from a couple weeks ago, but wanted to put up some stats to help spread awareness. Here’s a quick summary of Gregg’s rball career in support of his nomination:
Junior Career Accomplishments:
Multiple USRA State and Regional Championships
Multiple IRA state and Regional Championships
1980 USRA Junior National champion (17U)
Won title as a 16yr old, defeating Brett Harnett in final
Professional Career Accomplishments:
20th all-time in professional Tournament Wins
18th all-time in career W/L Percentage, all rounds
Held career winning Head-to-Head records against Hall of Fame pro players Ed Andrews, Ruben Gonzalez, Brian Hawkes, Mike Ray and Davey Bledsoe.
Retired with multiple victories over 5-time pro tour champ Yellen and Hogan.
Youngest pro player ever to make a Semi-final (oct 1980 Coors Grand Prix I)
1981 NRC Rookie of the year
1983 International Racquetball Most Improved Player
1985 DP Nationals Champion (defeated Mike Yellen in the final).
1985 Pro Male Athlete Player of the Year
Finalist, 1985 Ektelon Nationals (losing to Cliff Swain in a nationally televised match)
Semifinalist, 1983 DP Leach Nationals
Semifinalist, 1983 Catalina Pro Nationals
Amateur/Age Career Accomplishments:
1981 USRA National Singles Men’s Open finalist (losing to Ed Andrews)
2002 USRA 25+ Men’s Doubles champion (with Mike Guidry)
2003 USRA 35+ Mixed Doubles champion (with ?)
2004 USRA 25+ Men’s Doubles champion (with Mike Guidry)
Coaching and Mentoring Accomplishments:
Peck Racquetball Camp Instructor, 1978-1986
14 Junior National titles won by participants in El Paso Junior program
Coached future pro tour champs Swain, Monchik and Huczek.
Head Coach, US Junior National Team, 1999-2000.
2-time Gold winning Junior national team coach
USA won 24 junior world titles under his guidance
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Peck’s contributions to the sport span many facets; he was an accomplished player at the Junior, Professional and Adult/Age level. He was an accomplished coach/mentor who served the USRA national team. He’s well liked and well advocated for in the racquetball community. He is a worthy candidate for the Hall of Fame.
Andree Parrilla is part of two of the best family-pairs in the sport’s history.
Here’s a fun one to discuss during this slight break in the rball tourney schedule; what’s the best Father/Son combo in our sports’ history? How about Husband/Wife or Brother/Sister?
Here’s some opinions on each category from yours truly, with others that I considered. Did I forget someone? Am I totally wrong? Feel free to chime in.
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1. Best Husband/Wife combo: Jack Huczek and Christie Van Hees Only husband-wife team where both sides have won tour championships. Both retired way too soon; I would bet money Jack in particular could still be making the back end of pro tournaments if he was still playing (he was born in 1983, so hes younger right now than Kane/Rocky/Alvaro).
There’s actually a slew of Racquetball playing couples with pro experience on both sides … i limited this to just the best and the top 3 honorable mentions. If you want to include the Pratts, Fowlers, Wachtels, Kirches, Hawthornes, or others, I wouldn’t blame you.
Another category where there’s lots of honorable mentions; I left out the Paraisos, the Doyles, Kerrs, and Odegards in particular. I sense there’s a lot of younger players in the junior ranks that could qualify here too.
Lots of good examples of brothers playing right now. Bredenbecks, Murrays, Kurzbards, Garays, Kellers, Acunas, etc. And there might be more in the Latin Americas that i’m not aware of, since there’s so many players with common surnames.
I thought of a few other father/son combos where at least we knew both sides played at a high level (examples: Schopiearys, Ullimans, Elkins). But I couldn’t think of a single instance of a top pro from our entire sport’s history who has a son playing at a high level right now.
Father/Daughter combos are hard to come by … but not as hard as the last category.
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8. Mother/Son: literally the only example I could find where a mother and son both had pro experience is … Goldie Hogan and Marty Hogan.
That’s right: Marty’s mother entered a number of the very earliest Ladies pro draws in the early 70s at the same time her precocious son Marty was starting to win events as a teen-ager.
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So, did I miss anyone? Do we have any top pros with younger kids making their way up the junior ranks?
Editor note: I mistakenly thought that Armando Landa was Alex’s father; they are brothers. This post has been edited following corrections.
