Chris: Having exhausted most of the traditional sports, we decided to try something a little different for the Brawl this week. Racquetball is an odd game, seemingly loved by many but played by few. In fact, I’m not even sure I had been to the racquetball courts in the Rec Center before Monday. If ever there was a clear-cut chance for Glenn to beat me at a sport, this was it.

Glenn: In high school I accidentally joined the varsity tennis team when I was a senior in what could be the set up for a great sports underdog movie starring Michael Cera. I’ve never played racquetball but I understood the principles of the game. In tennis I was always a great hitter but a horrible, horrible server but since serving in racquetball is super simple I figured I actually had a shot at this game.

Chris: I also have limited experience with racket sports. This summer, my family took a vacation to Toronto. One would think we would have spent the whole time sightseeing, but because my parents aren’t getting any younger and hate walking as it is, we spent inordinate amounts of time in the hotel. My youngest brother and I quickly discovered that the hotel had a recreation facility, and in that facility we found a glorious room hidden behind an extremely tiny door (seriously, this thing had to have been intended for hobbits). So began a week-long squash rivalry as good as any in sports. Unfortunately, contrary to my prior beliefs, squash is nothing like racquetball.

Glenn: Amusingly, I knew where the racquetball courts were better than Chris did since I used to fence when I was a freshman. As always I just came dressed in jeans and a t-shirt while Chris had to go back to his dorm and change.

Chris: I have no idea what good racquetball is supposed to look like, but I realized as soon as we started warming up that the match Glenn and I were about to play would not qualify. As I swung wildly at the ball, hoping to make solid contact, Glenn struggled to keep up with the wretched little blue ball. We must have looked ridiculous.

Glenn: It was those damn white walls, I had a real hard time judging distances between the ball and my racket. Often times I would end up coming up short or too long on a swing. I was not doing so hot in our first game.

Chris: I hit my first serve high off the wall and it fell near the back right corner of the room, dangerously close to the wall. Amusingly, this was exactly where Glenn was standing. He stayed in his place and swung at the ball as it fell, whiffing. “Aha,” I thought. “All I have to do is play that exact serve 15 times and he will never hit it.” Complete blind luck on my part, but I had found my strategy.

Glenn: Call it a blind spot. I was too close to the wall so everytime I swung I was almost scraping the paint off the wall. I was forced to adopt an incredibly awkward Jedi stance, holding the racket in front of me with both hands and hitting the ball as it came straight at me. It was only slightly more effective.

Chris: Occasionally, I would miss my target on my serve and land the ball short of where Glenn was standing, allowing him to get a solid hit on the ball. The first time this happened, I watched as the ball went flying off the wall and behind where I was standing. First tip for newbies: If you hit a returnable serve to your opponent, you must run back and towards the middle of the floor as fast as you can. The ball is much, much faster than you are.

Score: Chris 5, Glenn 1.

Glenn: On my first serve I hit the ball pretty much straight against the wall and it rocketed back past Chris. He went for it but luckily missed the ball. I had two points! I was essentially on fire! Then I totally botched my next serve and the ball came up short and Chris got a point from my bad serve.

Score: Chris 6, Glenn 2.

Chris: OK, here’s the deal. Glenn and I knew basically none of the rules of racquetball except what the lines meant and that if the ball hit the floor twice before one of us could get to it then it was a point. This resulted in awkward moments such as the first time the ball hit the ceiling. Are you allowed to hit the ceiling? No? Then who gets the point? This ended with us deciding on a very unofficial ruling and sticking with it for the rest of the game: ceiling, bad; give point to the other person. It was kind of refreshing in the way that it reminded me of creating games when I was a child and having to make up rules as I went. I distinctly remember a game called paperball that involved, well, a crinkled up piece of paper and a moving porch swing. No idea how no one lost their head.

Glenn: As the points kept rolling in for Chris I kinda gave up on winning this first set. I knew that we were playing best of three sets and I wasn’t willing to put in the work or the hustle to try and make a comeback from two points in this set. I would conserve my energy and rally in the next set.

First set score: Chris 15, Glenn 3.

Chris: As the second set began, I realized something. Despite the fact that I had beaten Glenn handily in the first set, I could tell he was genuinely enjoying himself. This was groundbreaking. If there is one thing I expect in this series less than getting beat in an athletic competition, it is that Glenn will never, ever have fun while playing a sport. I gave up on that after golf. As I watched him start to sweat and not get that look of failure and frustration, my heart leapt for joy. We were both enjoying the Brawl for the first time ever.

Glenn: It was actually fun in the second set as Chris and I kept each other neck and neck for most of the match. We were actually getting some tiny combos! I could see our score multipliers climbing in my head.

Score: Glenn 6, Chris 3.

Chris: My lighthearted joy quickly faded as Glenn started to score points, even taking the lead at one point. My competitive instincts took over and I started hustling after shots and reestablishing my dominant serves. At one point I scored on four serves in a row to take the lead back. Though I was glad Glenn was having fun, I was not above ruining his fun in order to win.

Glenn: Good to know. I started moving more to get the ball and while the sweat was an unfortunate side effect, I was happily scoring points to bring my score up closer to Chris. I attribute this 100 percent to all of the childhood games of “Star Wars” my friends at home and I played when we were kids. I was never great at baseball in school, but when my friends and I got together to throw those plastic Chucky Cheese balls at each other and hit them back with our lightsabers I was a master.

Chris: This fact cannot be understated: Glenn was actually superior to me at hitting the ball with his racket (or is is racquet? There are so many things I don’t understand about this sport). Anytime I had to swing over my head or attempt to hit a backhand, it looked like I was drunkenly wandering through my room looking for the light switch. All I could do was swing hard and hope for the best. I also played a few points close to the wall where I hit the ball dead in the corner.

Glenn: I trained a long, long time in Lightsaber Form V (Shien/Djem So for nerds) as a young adult so I was more than proficient at hitting the ball back. It was the hustle that killed me. In my old age (and poor diet) I am not the most agile of players. I could rally with Chris provided that I could get within arm’s reach of the ball. It was a back and forth struggle and usually one of us only led by two points.

Chris: I was able to close out the match the same way in which it began: with my killer (only to Glenn) serve. Tied 12-12, I laid down three straight serves right on Glenn’s head. He was unable to hit any of them back. Was it slightly cheap of me to employ such a simple strategy? Maybe. Did I feel a little bad to have ended such an exciting match in an anticlimactic way? Psh, I won, what do I care?

Final Score: Chris 15, 15; Glenn 3, 12. Chris wins two sets to zero.

Glenn: It was a fun game! And we actually hit back and forth for a few minutes after the game had been decided just for fun. I might actually go back to the Rec and play sometime.