Racquetball brings more excitement to campus

By Christopher Gleeson
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Sweat drips from his brow, and you can almost hear the drop hit the wooden floor because it is so quiet. His opponent waits in eager anticipation in the silence, with him hearing only his heartbeat in his ears from fatigue.

A lot of people walk through the warm hallways of Andrews Hall, mostly athletes on their way to a locker room, or a basketball player on his or her way to the gym. But few venture down to the depths of Andrews where the racquetball courts are.

As you come to the basement of Andrews, you enter a long hallway with six tiny doors on one side and an old cream-colored cement wall with benches on the other.

"The hallway looks like a ghetto munchkin village," said Derek Drouin a 21-year-old international studies major from Nashua NH. "It's a long hallway with little wooden doors on one side."

The courts are 40 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 20 feet high. As you walk into a court, you can almost feel the presence of past players, and every sound you make in the court is amplified and echoed from the large dimensions of the room.

"I've been playing for two years," said Nick Bishop, a 21-year-old criminal justice major from Rochester, NY. "You're always moving around real fast to hit the ball; it's good exercise."

The game itself is very fast-paced. Racquetball racquets are made from many different materials; there are plastic racquets, aluminum racquets, fiberglass racquets, and now even titanium racquets.

"The game is very fast-paced and the ball can be played off any wall in the room," said Brandon Lanza a 21-year-old history major from Southington CT.

The ball, which is made of seamless rubber and is 2 ¼ inches in diameter, weighs 1.4 ounces and can reach speeds up to and over 100 mph.

"The games get pretty intense," said Mike Legere, a 22-year-old communications major from Bow, NH. "Sometimes you get nailed by a ball and it leaves a huge welt, but that's just part of the game."

"You have to have fast reflexes to play; it's a fast game" Bishop said.

Players usually wear eye protection, but the goggles are optional. It is a good idea, though, if you would like to keep your vision intact.

Some people have played for awhile and others are just starting out fresh. "I've been playing for about six years," said Lanza.

"I took up racquetball here at Norwich because our ghetto fabulous gym is so under-equipped," said Bob Golden, a 24-year-old business management major from Scranton, Pa. "It's an easy game to pick up, and I like it a lot, now."

The school does not supply equipment, so new players must find someone with a racquet or buy one on their own.

"It doesn't seem like people really know the courts are there" said Legere. "People that are down there are always looking for new people to play against and are always willing to play other people anytime."

As more and more people start venturing to the basement of Andrews Hall, screams of victory and the screeching of sneakers racing across the waxed wood floors are breaking the usual empty silence.

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