They're Playing...Racquetball?

Self-Taught Racquetball Player Is in a Class by Himself
N.Y. Times

To understand how Kane Waselenchuk became the dominant player in the history of racquetball, one must embrace the teachings of the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov.

At least, Waselenchuk’s coach thinks so.

No one else seems able to explain how Waselenchuk does it. How he won 137 consecutive matches, demolishing the record of 54 set by Marty Hogan during the 1976-77 season. How he won an unprecedented seven US Open Racquetball Championships. How he has held the sport’s No. 1 ranking since March 2009. Or, simply, how he hits shots that seem to defy physics.

“He developed a way of teaching called Suggestopedia,” Jim Winterton, the coach, said about Lozanov. “In layman’s terms, it says that everybody has the capacity to be a genius, but the traditional education system screws us up. Children play using all their senses and learn all they know before school, and once they get there, it slows dramatically.”

This theory can help explain Waselenchuk’s racquetball prowess, Winterton says, when one considers how Waselenchuk, 30, was groomed at a young age. “There were three things I knew when I first came into this world,” Waselenchuk said. “My mom, my dad and racquetball.”

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I wasn't even aware there was such thing as professional racquetball. I thought it was just a game old, uninteresting business men play when its too cold for golf. Little did I know they've got coaches and trainers and the whole nine yards.

But this does seem a bit pointless. How impressive is it to tell someone you're the best racquetball player in the world? It's like telling someone you're the best Monopoly player in the world. There's no prestige to the sport like there is with football or beer pong.

I do think he has something with this Suggestopedia though. It's pretty obvious to me that I was meant to be the greatest writer of my generation but the education process got in the way. So the next time I lament that I'll never win a Pulitzer I should just blame Pease Elementary.