More humorous stories from racquetball tournaments!
I’m playing this opponent who was complaining about every call and he appealed a serve at game point. Linesmen called it good and the call stood. As we left the court I have no idea why I said this but it turned out pretty funny.
I told him, “Look your own son is out there and he agreed with me and the linesman!” (not true but I thought it might quiet him down.)
It had the opposite effect. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire. He began ranting and raving at his poor son.
“Never go against me in a match!” and similar words came pouring out of his mouth while the poor kid didn’t even know why he was getting such treatment. I tried to tell the Dad I made it up but he was so mad at his poor son he continued yelling for five minutes.
Same guy-different tournament-he comes into the club and was rude to our front desk staff. He told them he would kill me when he played me and I was not that good. The front desk begged me to kick this guy’s behind. We had an 8am match and normally I would have fallen out of bed at 7:15, came into the club and “routined” my way through the match. I get up at 5:30am and do the whole pre-match prep thing and kill this guy 15-0, 15-2. He goes up to the front desk and tells them, “I know I can beat Winterton, he’s not that good.” That’s when I realized….I probably should have slept in!!
Here’s another. Big tournament, big money. I am sitting next to our 10k sponsor who is a beer distributor watching the finals. One of the players pushes the other. Next thing I know there is a fight. I run downstairs and separate the players and read them the riot act. I tell them I’ll double forfeit them and give the money to the semis losers. The players settle down and go back to playing without further incident.
I begin the long walk upstairs to the sponsor. I sit down and the sponsor says, “Does this thing happen very often?”
“No, I say and begin to explain this never happens and apologize when he interrupts and says, “That’s too bad. Do you know how much beer we could sell if we staged some fights!”
Hockey Racquetball anyone?