If you watch the U.S. Open golf tournament this week or Wimbledon next week you will see plenty of 300-yard drives and 140-mph serves.
Part of that is due to the fitness level and strength training of modern athletes, and part is due to the changes in equipment. The driver that Arnold Palmer used is tiny compared to the oversized drivers that today’s pros and amateurs use. The same goes for tennis racquets. The wooden Dunlops and Donnays used by John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg 30 years ago had far less power than Roger Federer’s Wilson, which is lighter and a third bigger in the head.
One of the first tinkerers in sports equipment was Memphian Randy Stafford, former racquetball pro and owner of The Court Company. Like tennis, racquetball was radically changed by progressively bigger and more powerful racquets. Some of his old friends jokingly call Stafford “the anti-christ” because of the changes he wrought. This little essay by Stafford, who was 17 years old in 1972, is about goofing around, innovation, and the limitless future of the young as well as the sport he has played for 40 years.
