After being buried for 10 years, club racquetball club sport has returned to the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The club sport came to life with the idea of President Joe Balistreri.
“A couple of years ago, I joined the military,” Balistreri said. “When I was in tech school, there was a racquetball court at the gym, and my roommate taught me how to play. As soon as I graduated tech school, I ended up coming to Whitewater for school. I found out there were racquetball courts and I really wanted to get back into the sport of racquetball.”
Joe and his friend, Sasha Mitts, who would pursue the role of the club’s vice president, would play racquetball on the UW-W courts and they both wanted to expand their passion for racquetball even more. They would invite friends to play with them and have little fun tournament games, which went on for a couple of months, until the grand idea came to mind that it was time to step up.
“We sat down and discussed that we really wanted to have a racquetball club officially, so we needed a super fun club support,” Mitts said. “They had a lot of tournaments. It was a good time.”
With the revival of the club sport, Balistreri and Mitts aim to attract players with casual gameplay while having the hope of maintaining a competitive edge. Last year, the group organized the first intramural tournament in over a decade, attracting more students to become interested and involved in racquetball.
“I joined racquetball because I am good friends with Sasha, I try to come out at least once a week, because it’s a really good workout, and it’s pretty enjoyable, as well as the people here are extremely chill,” said Tyler Snyder, a UW-W sophomore majoring in Criminology. “It’s a great sport, and I would love it if other campuses would actually be able to get together.”
The Racquetball Club has gone a long way to get them recognized and they hope that the club can reach a high potential in going to traveling tournaments out of state to get a foot in the door for a competitive gameplay style, while still keeping a casual style as well. The ultimate goal is to raise awareness throughout the community to recognize racquetball as a sport.
