Tag: jerry hilecher

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1973 USA National Singles and Doubles tourney data loaded!

Thanks to Shari Coplen, who sent along some old magazine scans she got from one of the early pro champions Steve Serot, we now have the full Men’s singles and doubles draws from the 1973 IRA (now known as USA Racquetball) national championships.

Serot featured prominently in both events and kept copies of the material throughout the years. He also provided full bracket scans (!!) for both draws. Read on for a fun trip down memory lane.

The Singles draw from 1973 nationals is amazing: 102 players. I have never entered a bigger draw.

Match report: http://rball.pro/2EBB7D

Top 10 seeds:
1 Charlie Brumfield
2 Rubenstein, Ron
3 Schmidtke, Bill
4 Lawrence, Paul
5 Serot, Steve
6 Michael Zeitman
7 Bo Keeley (Steve Keeley)
8 Porco, Ken
9 Charles H. Garfinkel
10 Jerry Hilecher

Other notables in the draw:
– #15 Charlie Drake, who eventually became the commissioner of the pro tour in the early 80s and the CEO of Leach industries (one of the major sponsors of the sport).
– #17 Steve Strandemo, who was a regular touring pro for a decade and one of the sport’s first big-time teaching pros, running clinics for years after retiring.
– #24 Davey Bledsoe, who would go on to win the 1977 nationals and who passed away in Dec 2019
– #26 Randy Stafford, who now curates the Racquetball Museum (and who just got it back online: http://racquetballmuseum.com/ )
– #72 Chuck Leve, who wrote several books on racquetball and was inducted into the USAR Hall of Fame in 1997.
– #91 Marty Hogan … which has the be the lowest he was ever seeded in a tournament in his life.

The draw went nearly chalk in its later rounds, with 15 of the top 16 seeds advancing out of the 32s (only the #8 seed was upset early), then 7 of the top 8 seeds making the quarters. From there, #1 and defending champ Brumfield took over, advancing past #5 Serot in the semis, while #7 Keeley beat the #2 and #3 seeds to advance to the final. Brumfield took the title in a breaker over Bo in the end.

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1973 Doubles review

See http://rball.pro/CACB31 for the doubles bracket in the database.

The tournament is a throwback to the very early days of the sport, and the players involved in this event show as much.

Top Seeds:
1 Luciw, Mike & Rudusz, George; the 1972 champs.
2 Porco, Ken & Evans, Bill: Porco was part of the 1971 winning team.
3 Brumfield, Charlie & Serot, Steve; two of the best of the early touring racquetball pros during the sport’s infancy.
4 Souders, Roger & Charleson, Dave; Charleson would win the title in 1974.
5 Hilecher, Jerry & Wong, Kenny; Both St. Louis based and part of the core group of St. Louis natives that dominated early.
6 Keeley, Steve & Drake, Charlie; Keeley is the legendary character of the sport.
7 Dunn, Bill & Thurman, Bill were both early touring players and both played a number of NRC and IRA pro events from 73 to 77.
8 Johnson, Galen & Wirkus, Joe
9 Stafford, Randy & Davey Bledsoe
10 Strandemo, Steve & Strom, Ron

Also playing was a young Craig McCoy (the 15th seed as a 16yr old), and under-seeded Bill Schmidtke (the 1971 and 1974 Singles national champion), and seeded 44th a very precocious Marty Hogan, playing in his home-town at the age of 15.

The 5-time pro tour champ Brumfield, teamed with the lefty Serot, blew through the draw and were never really challenged in the event. They topped the #5 seeded Hilecher/Wong team in the final 1,15

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thanks to Shari and to Serot himself for retaining this information. As always, if you can find the draw sheets for an old event, i’ll put it in.

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1980 Full Outdoor Nationals Men’s draws loaded

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.