Above: Coach W and Fran talking Coaching
Salute to Fran Davis. The year was..well a long time ago in the wayback machine. Yours truly got a message from an old friend in Pennsylvania and he asked me if I could help this one wall paddleball player from New York City. He knew she had talent and suggested she visit me.
Fran did the drive from NYC to Rochester, NY where I played. At the time I was coaching Mike Levine, an up and coming future junior player who ended playing Pro on the tour at a young age.
In those days our training consisted of Nautilus strength training to failure twice a week and rigorous bouts on a machine called the Real Runner. (Real Runner: https://buff.ly/rCjKLBY )
The Real Runner was brutal because we did 10 seconds of full sprints, followed by 20 seconds of rest and repeated that 6 times. Then we took one minute off and went to the same time on an elevated type movement like standing on a bike pedaling uphill. From there we went to a swimming pool and worked on flexibility. That workout took all of 14 minutes on the Real Runner and 14 minutes in the pool.
Then we drilled or played on legs fried due to the morning work.
Fran was tough-but not in good shape. She persevered and pushed hard. We had a problem-Fran had no backhand and the regionals were approaching in two months. She worked on her backhand every day for 30 days before she was allowed to play again. Long story short-she won the regionals .
From there Fran and I trained together for five years and she went into the racquetball playing and teaching business. In 1990 when I got the head coach of USA Racquetball gig, Fran was the first person I called. Together we settled into a routine of coaching up players, many of whom are in the Hall of Fame today, along with Fran and yours truly, I should add! What also followed was undefeated USA World championships for 1990, 92, 94, and 96. In1995 the first Pan Ams in Argentina we coached USA to a full medal sweep!
She left the team in 1995 after our historic number one finish in the Pan Ams. I left the team in 1999, after our 2nd Pan Am first place finish. In 2003 I returned to the team and again, Fran was the first person I called and again we experienced success. What was historic about our 2002 team championship was we beat Mexico, the team that I coached and was responsible for beating USA in 2000. That was also memorable for me because I met a young guy named Kane Waselenchuk in 2000 at the worlds and in 2002 our friendship began.
I retired from teaching school and went into racquetball coaching online in 2008. We became competitors in coaching but remained friends and of course still are to this day. I hate losing some athletes to other coaches but I do know if they go with Fran, they will improve if they do the work.
Our friendship goes back many years and in the early days we traveled to tournaments together and we both were still playing on Sundays in those days, not exiting on Friday!