Over the next month and a half Florida has three planned events on the Calendar. The first of those events is The first event in the USF Tournament Series and will be held in Tampa FL at Rowlett Park on Feb 4&5th. The next event will also be part of the USF Tournament Series and be a little farther South on the Gulf coast in Naples FL at Fleischman Park on feb 25&26th. Even with a full class load members of the USF Racquetball club have stepped up to the plate in organizing events in order to help promote the outdoor game throughout the state.
The Third upcoming event in Florida is a major one and it is back on the Atlantic coast literally being on Hollywood beach. The Beach Bash for Cash on March 16-18 is one of the most popular outdoor events throughout the year. Many of the New York, Connecticut, and some California players make it out for this event.
Rowlett Park Feb 4 & 5 :http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=9317
Fleischman Park Feb 25 & 26 :http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=9264
Beach Bash for Cash Mar 16-18 :http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=9205
The club members at the University of South Florida are stepping up to the plate in promoting the growth of racquetball throughout the state by organizing a series of events in several different regions of the state.
This series of events will also be used as the clubs primary fundraiser for the 2012 year that goes toward team travel and entry fees at various tournaments both at the state and national level. Check out the attached article about what is in store for the state of florida in this exciting series of events.
Here is a link to an article that goes into detail about the first two events of the series.
http://floridaracquetballforum.com/view_topic.php?id=952&forum_id=1
The club members at the University of South Florida are stepping up to the plate in promoting the growth of racquetball throughout the state by organizing a series of events in several different regions of the state.
This series of events will also be used as the clubs primary fundraiser for the 2012 year that goes toward team travel and entry fees at various tournaments both at the state and national level. Check out the attached article about what is in store for the state of florida in this exciting series of events.
Here is a link to an article that goes into detail about the first two events of the series.
http://floridaracquetballforum.com/view_topic.php?id=952&forum_id=1
The WFRA is going to be coming back outdoors this January 21-22 to run a fundraising event for firefighters. This years event will be taking place at CB Smith Park in South Florida. Peter Berger the commissioner of the WFRA will be the event director and has plans to grow the event in comparison to last years. Look for the event website to show up on R2sports by the end of this week. Please contact Peter Berger for more details.
Everyone might remember CB Smith park from the first ever PK Championships several years ago when many of the top players from California came into town and took all the prizes home. I know I had just started playing Rb but I think between Solis/Lane they pretty much left with the keys to the place.
I'll get a picture of the 6 cts up in the next day or so, pretty sure the dimensions are 40x20 and the wall goes back about to 30ft i'd estimate about 3-5ft longer walls than Holiday Park.
see everyone in a few weeks.
Chris
The next big event in Florida is coming up on December 10&11 at Tropical Park in Miami. You want to know why I'm going to refer to this as a big event? 3 Weeks ago I took a little road trip with some guys down to South Florida to play a little ball at Holiday Park on Saturday and planned on going to Tropical Park on Sunday. We picked the right weekend because that weekend the locals had planned to hold a small in house event at the park. We ended up in a event that had almost 40 players who were all competitive and probably 20-30 other spectators. They had a potluck lunch setup, plenty of refreshments and to top it all off the guys smoked a huge pig for the main course. All this for a non advertised event, pretty cool. Remember that just 3 years ago this is the park that only lost in a tiebreaker to the legendary team of Swain/Hogan in the pro dubs finals. It's evident that these guys know their courts pretty well.
I think it is pretty safe to say this should be a pretty big turnout, seeing how there are 2 other parks within 10 miles that didn't even hear about this event and then you factor in the usual suspects from holiday park and the West Palm crew. Think that NY Jesus has already looked at flights from California about $280, hmmmm sounds like a perfect time to get away from your cold weather up north and visit sunny Miami Florida.
Sign up Early- Chris Young
ok so when i get bored at work or in class i browse the iphone app store, last week i found a pretty cool free game called eliminate its like a little version of the xbox game halo, if only i could stop looking at the floor while other people shoot me cause they dont have the inverted up down option. any other rb players try it out??
I work in an on campus office at USF and today when i was going through the mail one letter got me thinking about indirect ways of promoting racquetball to kids in school. in the letter the school was asking USF's president to donate around a dozen USF t-shirts. They are going to make students who are out of dress code trade shirts with the administrator and at the end of the day they would trade back, they want college shirts so that the kids see them and hopefully start thinking about college. i hate to say it but normally i just toss these letters into the recycle bin, big university lack of resources.
just recently i got a really good deal with a t-shirt company to make our team shirts $3 per shirt, just did a simple white shirt that says property of USF racquetball with a racquet and our team website (which is currently under construction.) Since this is technically a university shirt I think the club will start sending shirts to grade schools requesting university apparel. if there is anyone who would like to sponsor some of these shirts for schools we could put you on the club website and if you want we can get things fill out paperwork to make it a tax deductable donation through the USF racquetball club, its only ~$35 to sponsor a school.
i'm thinking each time i get another letter from a school requesting university apparel i could put the school name and location up on the forum so each sponsor knows what school their set of shirts are going to. hopefully this will open up some doors to get a more organized middle/high school program in the state.
Hopefully this makes sense; I’m just spewing out ideas.
what hotel is everyone staying at??? looking for something where we might be able to get a suite where we could entertain.:-"
This years fund raising tournament will be hosted on Feb 20th-22nd, 2009.
this tournament is going to be themed for getting new players introduced to the tournament environment without them having to take out a second mortgage on their house. the price for all three events will be $50 and there is an early registration discount for $5 off if you register by jan 29 at 10pm, also an additional $5 discount for entrants competing in the military division. entry fee includes shirts medals and snacks throughout the weekend and meals on friday night, sat morning, noon, & night, sun morning & noon. this is going to be the best deal for a full 3 day tournament all year.
also we will have special divisions throughout the weekend such as centurion doubles where both partners must have a combined age of 100+, military singles for men and women, and a number of the ever popular florida racquetball grudge matches featured on court 1. Also there will be collegiate singles taking place hopefully featuring the squads from FSU, UF, UM, and USF that will be traveling to intercollegiates in april.
see you in tampa here is the link to get signed up.
http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=5048
since i usually review the matches at work i can't install it since i'm not the admistrator, takes the fun of being at work away.
anyone know when they plan on starting the broadcast for outdoor nationals? i'm sitting at work waiting to see watch some matches & pretend i'm there.
This spring we received our interim budget from student government, I thought that with the funding taken care of we would have a greater number of players wanting to travel to play in statewide tournaments. We had two people play in their first tournament when we hosted one back in Feb., but only one new person played in a tournament outside USF.
In the fall I want to start a racquetball league at our campus rec center, to help give new players a more laid back environment to get used to semi competitive games in hopes that they will be encouraged to play in some local tournaments. I've been involved in a couple different types of leagues, but for college students I am thinking that format similar to the LA fitness style would work well, because it would just be show up and play whoever is there then the points scored could be averaged, and maybe handicap the scores to make up for skill differences. I was thinking having three divisions gold (top) green (beginner men/middle women) White (beginner women)
What is everyone’s opinion on the best league format to use to get this up and running?
Thanks
The University of South Florida club team will be holding our first tournament on Feb 8-10, all you people up nort should plan on making the trip to get some warm weather for the weekend. heres the tournament site
http://www.r2sports.com/tourney.asp?TID=3688
i'm from tampa florida, i've been reading on the forums for quite a while now but i hadn't been able to come up with any questions that couldn't be awnsered on our state r-ball forum but now that i am in the phase of getting a team from USF prepared to go to intercollegiates this spring i am starting to come up with some questions that are more likely going to need people with experience in preparing for this trip and tournament.
