Daniel Miller dmiller@media.ucla.edu
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Sports are fun. Unless you are playing something lame like
croquet, you are having fun. People have fun when they play sports.
Unless you are Chris Webber, you enjoy taking part in your sport of
choice. With this in mind, I figured that I would have an
ultra-fantastic time when I decided to play a friendly match of
racquetball with friend and UCLA freshman Nick Martin last week at
the Wooden Center.
Sadly, as said friend and I trundled over to the Wooden Center,
we did not know that we were in for the biggest
shock-slash-punishment of our lives. Our crime? As one racquetball
aficionado puts it, we merely wanted to play, “Rball, the
king of sports, and the sport of kings.”
I was under the impression that the Wooden Center is to be
utilized by any student who chooses to take advantage of its
gorgeous facilities. This is not the case, because the racquetball
courts are dominated by raging fascists who control court usage and
make it nearly impossible for beginners to learn and practice this
wonderful game.
This tale begins with our search for a court on which to play
racquetball. There are six courts on the first floor of the Wooden
Center and several more on the second floor. Ridiculously, some of
the courts on the second floor have been converted into workout
rooms, and when Nick and I were looking for a place to play rball,
one court was being used for air gun target practice.
Hey, people who make decisions at the Wooden Center ““ I am
pretty sure a spinning class can be taught almost anywhere. Yet,
one cannot go play racquetball in a field or something. The courts
on the second floor that were actually being used for racquetball
had been reserved by some nice people, forcing us to look for a
place to play on the first floor.
With two first-floor courts being used for lessons, we waited
for the players on Court 3 to finish their match. When they filed
out, Nick and I began to play a match, unknowingly, on a challenge
court.
In the afternoon, several courts become challenge courts, with
players battling each other for the right to continue to play.
Sadly, the Wooden Center’s management does not make this fact
clear, which set up our confrontation with some of
racquetball’s most notorious thugs.
As Nick and I played, the fascists assembled just outside of our
court and intently watched our match through the pane of reinforced
glass. This made the both of us self-conscious, but we continued to
play and I took the first game 15-11. Our second game was just
underway when one of them opened the door to our court and
basically told us we were unfairly monopolizing a challenge court
and that we had to leave or play him and his storm trooper partner
for control of Court 3.
“I was looking forward to a pleasant afternoon of
racquetball with a friend,” Martin said. “We waited
about half an hour for a court, and these (expletive) basically
kicked us off. It was fair in the fact that it was a challenge
court, but I don’t think that those (expletive) would have
gotten off the court if we had come up and said, “˜Uh, this is
a challenge court, get off or we will kill you.'”
So, the storm troopers thrashed us 15-1. They used gorgeous,
expensive racquets and were patronizing as they explained doubles
rules that Nick and I were not familiar with. Throughout the match
they told us that they did not play the sport too often. All the
while, some of their friends eagerly watched the match with
devilish grins on their faces, waiting for their chance to usurp
total control of the coveted court.
The fascists were overcompensating for other personal
inadequacies with their expensive racquetball equipment (just like
Mussolini and his womanizing ways, and short, small men who drive
Ferraris) and their trouncing of two hapless beginners. The whole
experience was terribly intimidating. It seemed that if we had
somehow been able to win, they would have taken their racquets and
beaten us to death just to save face.
“One of the guys told us at the end as were walking away
with our tails between our legs, “˜I think that doubles is a
much more fun game,’ as if he were the racquetball god and he
had to teach us a lesson by humiliating us on the court,”
Martin said. “I was about to tell him that he could shove
doubles where the sun don’t shine, but I was afraid that he
would take his pretty purple racquet and hit me in the
head.”
Don’t worry, we’ll practice.