March - April 2000 | Vol. 11, No. 2
Luke St. Onge

CHANGING TIMES
by Luke St. Onge

Elsewhere in this issue, we cover the AmPRO industry initiative, which was the featured topic at the USRA’s annual Leadership Conference. It was a great leap forward for our sport to have virtually every segment of the industry represented at the conference — and to have total agreement on a course of action that aims to have an AmPRO certified teacher/programer in each and every facility that has a racquetball court. Without the complete support of all of these groups, an initiative like this would never have gotten off the ground.

Sandy CoffmanEach Leadership Conference depends on a keynote speaker to get things off to a great start. This year Sandy Coffman, of the consulting firm “Programming for Profit” [see pg. 53] was asked to give the keynote address. Sandy, whose roots are deeply set in racquetball, is one of the featured speakers at the annual IHRSA convention and has individually consulted with numerous clubs on programming for profit. Sandy readily accepted the task, and donated her time to come to Colorado Springs to set just the right tone for the meeting. And that she did. Having been in the racquetball business since the beginning, her perspective on the industry was right on and created the perfect environment for all of the entities to move forward with a united front to address the problem. This was truly a passage for our sport and the goals set – and agreed to — at this conference are reasonable and attainable.

2000 Leadership Conference

Many thanks to the USRA State Leaders (pictured above) for making the commitment to be the USRA’s eyes and ears in the club industry … to AmPRO Director Gary Mazaroff for making the personal commitment to make the program functional … to Chuck Leve of IHRSA — without whose help on building the bridge to the club owners, the entire project would take four times as long … to the twelve industry leaders who have agreed to both bring their sponsored players into the program and support it economically. It’s very exciting to see this all come together at such a critical time for our sport.


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