The late Dr Bud Muehleisen changed the game forever in the 70’s and 80’s. Now all you young players stay with me because this is not so much a jog down memory lane as it is a good lesson for you young whippersnappers! Dr. Bud influenced so many people including me, directly and indirectly. He taught Dave Peck who taught me, his HOF brother Gregg (RIP) and legendary pros of the future (at camps) and I have passed it on to two more generations and am still preaching it.
But then Dr Bud indirectly changed the game again. I am gong to guess this happened about 12 years ago and I got to talk racquetball with Dr. Bud and Charlie Brumfield. This two hours of racquetball chat influenced the game and Dr. Bud is to blame!
Monkey See Monkey Do
“Monkey see Monkey do” is how he described modern racquetball. So of course I wanted an explanation. He proceeded to tell me there was no creativity in the game especially on serve and return of serve. I watched closely from a fresh perspective and began tinkering with serve angles, serve movement, and serve modifications.
Kane, Rhonda, and the Pros
Kane as usual was already ahead of me on this but those things were put into use and more years of domination on the King’s part happened. At the same time Rhonda Rajsich began tinkering with her approach to deceptive serving. This filtered down to my junior players (at that time). Coaching opponents studied and studied hard. Everyone began copying and this past weekend I was amazed to see all these serve variations used by players all over the world. Coaches and athletes are looking at video of matches and cherry picking serve weapons!Now I do know that these motions were not invented by me. They existed in the yesteryear days and I remembered them. Jerry Hilecher deserves a mention here as he was (and still is) the master of the walking serves.
Thanks to the man called the father of racquetball, the first inductee into the USAR HOF, Dr Bud!!