In the mid-1970s, racquetball was one of the hottest sports on the planet, and Memphis was its epicenter. Today it’s one of those sports, like jumping rope and baseball, that lots of us used to play and few of us still play. It didn’t quite go the way of tube socks and afros, but it was definitely headed that way. How and why does a sport with such appeal to both men and women bloom, fade and perhaps bloom again in popularity?
In 1976, Elvis Presley had a basement court at Graceland, where he played Dr. George Nichopoulos and other members of his Memphis Mafia. Memphis had a half dozen racquetball professionals and a young phenom named Andy Roberts who would later win a world championship. One of the city’s most prominent businessmen, William B. Tanner, was a racquetball fanatic and promoter who built a court on top of his office building on Union Avenue Extended. Memphis State University, as it was then called, and Coach Larry Lyles started a club team that dominated college racquetball for two decades. Baseball legend Don Kessinger took up the sport and built a court complex. In all, there were more than 150 courts in the city.
