USA Racquetball hires Mike Wedel as its new Executive Director

USA Racquetball (USAR) announced Mike Wedel will be their new Executive Director. This follows the surprise dismissal of previous Executive Director Jason Thoerner in the early summer under circumstances that are still unclear, but led to a story in USA Today, and somehow involved the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

The level of concern was such that USA Racquetball issued a letter to its members in late July to calm the nerves stating they “acted … professionally and responsibly in the best interests of USA Racquetball, our members, and our sport” in dismissing Thoerner. It also indicated that a wide net was being cast for the next Executive Director.

Two months later, Wedel is hired. He’s from Kansas, and has over 20 years of experience in racquetball at various levels, including as president of the Kansas Racquetball Association. Wedel is also a former USA Racquetball board member.

He replaces Thoerner who had over 20 years of experience in racquetball, and was a USA Racquetball board member at the time he was hired. See the difference between Wedel and Thoerner? We don’t either.

That is, those looking for a signal that USA Racquetball was interested in moving in a new direction, and willing to make bold decisions going forward did not get that signal from Wedel’s hire. You can contrast this hire with that of Racquetball Canada, who hired a new Executive Director earlier this year. They chose Donna Harris, a woman with no racquetball experience, but with extensive experience in sport as an athlete, coach, and administrator with Athletics Canada.

But the status quo seems more important to USA Racquetball, and that’s reflected in the comments of Scott Fish, a USA Racquetball board member who was on the search committee that hired Wedel. Fish said “When we evaluated the … applicants, it became clear that knowledge of our sport, our community, and our culture was vitally important.”

We don’t know who else applied, of course, although USA Racquetball says that dozens did so. Wedel may well be a good hire, but an Executive Director is an employee, who is directed by the Board of Directors. That is, Wedel may have great ideas and look to change things up, but if the Board isn’t on board - so to speak - with his ideas, then they won’t be implemented.

Thus, as good as Wedel may be, he shouldn’t be viewed as a knight riding in to save the day.

Where is USA Racquetball going?

The question is what USA Racquetball is going to do moving forward. Racquetball is a small sport, although bigger in the USA than any other country. Getting attention for a small sport is difficult. The internet has made attention getting somewhat easier than in the past with opportunities for live streaming and social media, but it can still be a struggle.

It can also be a struggle for a national sport organization (NSO) to have an impact at a local level, especially in a country as large as the USA. That’s doubly so when the NSO is small, like USA Racquetball.

One of the biggest impacts USA Racquetball has is holding the US Open Racquetball Championships, which is the largest racquetball tournament in the world. We are less than a week away from the start of the 2018 US Open that kicks off next Wednesday in Minneapolis. The US Open is in its 23rd year, and Doug Ganim has run the tournament for all 23 years, which is an incredible run.

Running the US Open is a big job, and it’s a major USA Racquetball event, which undoubtedly generates a lot of revenue for them. If Ganim was to step away from running the US Open, which you have to think will happen sooner or later - and probably sooner than later given we’re 23 years into the run, who is going to be the next US Open Tournament Director? Arguably filling that position will be a more important hire than that of Executive Director.

But that’s for the future. In the near term, we’re looking forward to another US Open that will undoubtedly yield some great racquetball.

Follow the bouncing ball….