We here at The Racquetball Blog are trying to get a complete record of the women's pro tour, akin to what Todd Boss has done with the men's pro tour. Like Boss we're using old racquetball publications to do this, as well as some internet records. But also like Boss we don't have complete records.
We've contacted some people previously involved in the women's pro tour, and more than one of them indicated that they believed the USA Racquetball (USAR) offices had many (if not all) of the old records from the women's pro tour. However, when we contacted Jim Hiser, the USAR Executive Director, he indicated that they did not have those records.
Thus, our search continues.
On a positive note, Shannon Feaster, Commissioner of the Women's Professional Racquetball Organization (WPRO), tells us that they are going to be including a "WPRO history page" on their website. She's hoping to have that set up on their site "before summer's end."
Facebook fans of the WPRO & IRT
You can become a fan of the women's and men's pro tours - the WPRO and International Racquetball Tour (IRT), respectively - on Facebook.com. Curiously the current fan numbers have 8 times as many fans for the IRT than for the WPRO. Are there really 8 times more fans of men's racquetball than women's?
We suppose that's possible. We have told you about how men are a much greater proportion of racquetball tournament participants. Often it's a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 men to women ratio, and sometimes it's greater. Still it seems astonishing that fans of the pro game would be so much more in favour of men's play over women's.
The Racquetball Blog is certainly a fan of women's pro racquetball, although we acknowledge that as racquetball is a power and speed game and men generally have a higher maximum on their power and speed they are able to do some things that women can't. Nonetheless women's racquetball matches can be great sporting events. The Brenda Kyzer versus Rhonda Rajsich match at last year's US Open was a prime example of how great women's play can be.
Follow the bouncing ball....
Friday, July 24, 2009
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1 comment:
Years ago, before UsRA let her go, Linda Mojer did a ton of research into exactly what you're after. She had on hte usra.org pages a list of the womens top 10 every year. it was a start, not the full match database but a good start. I'd get in touch w/ her, see what she still has from the content she created while w/ usra. i've got her emial as linda@lindamojer.org.
hth, todd
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