U.S. racquetball coach to hold clinic in Bangor

Fran Davis of Middlesex, N.J., the United States National Racquetball Team coach, is coming to Bangor Sept. 24.

Davis will be conducting a clinic and accepting challenges from local racquetball enthusiasts beginning at 6 p.m. at the Holiday Health and Racquet Club.

The on-court clinic will start with beginners and proceed through the intermediate and advanced levels of racquetball teachnique.

Open to the public free of charge, HHRC assistant manager Emily Ellis Throckmorton is looking for an excellent turnout.

“We hope to raise the awareness of racquetball in the area,” she said.

“We have many people who’ve played for years, but most are in their 30s and up. We’d like to get younger people involved in the sport.”

Following the clinic, anyone can sign up, for a $2 fee, to “Play the Pro.” Proceeds from that event will benefit the American Diabetes Association.

“It’s a chance to test yourself against the best,” Ellis said of Davis. “I know the guys at the club are all pumped up to play against her.”

A lucky phone call put me directly in touch with Fran Davis.

The U.S. Olympic Committee in Boulder, Colo., suggested I call the American Amateur Racquetball Association in that same city, which I did. The operator there put me through to the public relations office where Davis just happened to be attending a meeting.

This won’t be Fran Davis’ first trip to Bangor.

“I was there several years ago on the pro tour,” she said. While coaching the U.S. team, Davis’ full-time job is making sure she lives up to her motto, promoting racquetball “From Alaska to Aruba.”

She recently returned from three stops in Alaska in which the number of participants doubled from the previous year.

The U.S. National Team competes nationally and internationally. Racquetball is a full-medal sport in the Olympic Festival and was just put on the program for the Pan American Games which will be held in Argentiana in 1995.

Davis believes racquetball will eventually become an Olympic sport, but “it’s just a matter of when” it will happen.

Now played at the college level, more than 60 teams were represented at the AARA’s intercollegiate championship this year. Also, the AARA now has a Junior National Team.

“That team just came into play this year,” Davis said. “We see it as a feeder system for the younger players who can aspire to the junior team and then move on to the national team.”

When she was playing the pro circuit, Davis was ranked as high as fifth nationally. She enjoys facing the local players, she said.

“They like to challenge the pro,” she said.” It usually becomes a battle of the sexes, but the whole program is a fun, educational evening.”

Davis stresses the educational aspect of her job. “Because it is a realatively new sport,” she said, “there are not a lot of good teachers throughout the country, although it is starting to get better.”

Davis’ travels and clinics are sponsored by Head, Penn Athletics, Action-eyes and Tacki-mac. Those who attend the clinic, and challenge the pro, will share in prizes from those sponsors which Davis will award at the end of the evening.