My photo is a picture of my racquetball racquet and ball lying on the floor in the court in the Rudolf Fitness Center.
If you ask me, there aren’t many things better than waking up on a lazy Sunday and getting the day started with a hearty game of racquetball with one of your best buds. Racquetball has become one of my favorite pastimes since I started playing two years ago. Since then I have purchased my own equipment to play at my leisure, have developed a detailed understanding of the rules and techniques, and have developed my skillset in playing the game. Racquetball is fundamentally based on physics. The whole goal of the game is to hit the ball so that it bounces twice on the ground before your opponent can get to it to hit it in return. Concepts of projectile motion and mechanical energy are vital in understanding how the game works. I will explain some basic concepts of the mechanical energy involved in hitting
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Sobek was a professional tennis and handball player, so a game that combined the two sports made sense for his expertise. He and his handball partner began playing handball with paddles at their YMCA in Greenwich. Sobek’s goal when creating the game was to create a “fast paced sport that was easy to learn and play” (History of Racquetball). His original name for the sport was “paddle rackets”. Eventually he developed a new, short racquet design and found a new ball to use. The court remained extremely similar to a handball court. He created the rules and founded the “National Paddle Rackets Association”, which eventually was consumed by the “International Racquetball Association”. Racquetball expanded in popularity in the 1980’s and is now played all over the country. It achieved full medal status in the Pan-American games in 1995. It is not played at the Olympics (Wikipedia). The annual US Open of racquetball is played in October and has been in place since