Never Let Good Enough be good enough!

I have coached many athletes over the years and have been lucky to have been involved in several upsets. My athlete was given no chance but because we had prepared properly, the upset occurred. Here are 5 ingredients for upsets. 1. You must practice a unique shot selection in many cases. My first upset was me laying it on an unsuspecting opponent. Here is how I did it. First I realized I could not slug up front with this opponent so I allowed myself one shot and then I hit a defensive shot if I was lucky enough to get …

Creative practice-I had a short conversation recently with the greatest player to ever play. When we get into these conversations I get a headache. I hate to admit this in public but it is true. He knows more specific racquetball than any person I have ever talked to. There are few people who can intimidate me with their racquetball knowledge. I like to think over the past 50 plus years of coaching novice to pro level I’ve learned something. But this guy is on another plane. His feel for the game and game planning is amazing. I do come up …

Talk about getting a taste of your own medicine!. The toughest opponent you will ever face is the one you see every morning in the mirror. The mind can sabotage our best intentions with excuses, negative thinking, and poor practice scheduling. One of the ways to overcome such mental trials is to practice mentally as well as physically. Way back in the day I had Dave and the late Gregg Peck to watch practice. They would head to court 9 where nobody would see them and I would sneak down there to observe. They practiced “tired” for lack of a …

I will never forget overhearing a losing coach for a foreign team saying to me, “Well we did everything we could do. We just did not have the talent on the men’s team.” While listening my mind was thinking this: “You are wrong my friend. The women’s team was totally neglected and that is where you could have made your points up. You also did not plan ahead. The players never got game plans or strategies for each foreign player. You just went in and “winged it”. You had months and weeks to prepare and you should have been calling …

“Is it me?” Racquetball Manners 101 I used to play cutthroat a couple of times per week and this one guy violated every etiquette rule of racquetball. So this tip is for all the “rude” players who do not seem to get it. Five rules of practice play etiquette. 1. Do not call double bounces on your opponent. They will call their own. You stopping play and calling a double bounce is not only rude, it assumes your opponent is a cheater. 2. Do not stop play on any little hinder. Just because your opponent crossed your line of vision …

Happy Mother’s Day and sorry for the long personal post. This is not a racquetball tip but more like a life tip! I am so fortunate to meet so many great Moms out there in racquetball land. This is for you and your undying love for your children. To anyone whose Mother is no longer with us, my heart goes out to you. I lost my mother over 30 years ago and not a day goes by that I do not miss her. For those of you fortunate to be with your Moms this mother’s day be sure to thank …

Strategy revisited – The short-statured player presents challenges in shot selection. A good low pass can be cut off by this player and because of their low center of gravity, the ball is then rolled out. So the traditional shots have to be dead on if you are shooting from the back court. A good down the line gets re-killed by these players but if you hit that same shot higher, they will have difficulty with it! If you hit wide angle passes and v passes the short player has to take more steps to get to the ball; so …

What is he writing in the book? In the national tournaments and pro tournaments you will see me with a notebook plugging away and writing. People ask me all the time what I am writing. First and foremost is the score. Believe it or not referees lose track of the score (and who is serving) and the players sometimes do not notice. This also keeps me in the match and focused. I hate small talk around me about this player and that gossip etc. so I try to stay away from the fans as much as I can; again to …

Most players have imperfections in their forehands or backhands. Hitting a soft drive serve at those imperfections greatly increases your chances of getting setups. I call these types of serves “dinky doos” as the ball is dinked back to an opponent’s forehand or backhand. This causes the opponent to have to use good footwork to get to the ball and good mechanics to strike the ball after getting to it! Since good footwork and mechanics are deficient in many players, this movement deficiency results in many scoring opportunities. Dinky Doo 101 technique-think of this serve as a “lob drive” serve. …