More about me

I grew up in Miami Springs, Florida. I was introduced to four wall outdoor racquetball by my brother Bruce. He was taking a date to play and asked me to come along. The courts were about a mile away from my home. I fell in love with the sport immediately. I would ride my bike up to the courts after school and on the weekends to play. Was taken under the wings of local players and taught how to play. Those guys convinced my parents that I should join an indoor racquetball club because I showed talent. My parents bought me a summer membership to the Sportrooms of Coral Gables (26 courts with a 3 wall championship court that seated over 200. Home to the many pro tournaments back in the early 80's). My mother would drive me to the club every night for challenge court. The Florida Men's Open Champion, Bob Bos was the club pro. Never took lessons from him, at least not officially, but there weren't many times that I was not sitting outside the court watching him and making all sorts of mental notes. I tried to mimic all of his strokes and movements on the court.

I entered my first tournament and won the women's novice division. I also won the next two tournaments I entered, winning the Women's C and Women's B divisions. It wasn't until I got to the Open division did I see a slight slow down. Got hooked up with some other Miami juniors that became a part of a junior team out of Ft. Lauderdale. Every Saturday our parents would drive us to a club about 25 miles away for approximately 4 hours of instruction. From this we began to travel to tournaments together. I was fortunate enough to grow up with Sergio Gonzalez, Bubba Gautier, Tim Hanson, Fred Calabrese, Mark Barrett and Oscar Gonzalez.

All the while through High School I played volleyball, basketball and softball. However, softball was my best sport. When I entered my senior year, I was receiving scholarship offers from different schools around the country. But with a promising racquetball career, I choose to stay at home, attend a community college and pursue a dream of playing professional racquetball. I ended up enjoying about 3 total years of playing professional racquetball before realizing that I was not going to make enough money to make a decent living. During this decision making time, I got married and had my first daughter, Michelle. Later, because of divorce, I decided to relocate to South Carolina to be near my brothers and begin a new career. I took a job with the City of Columbia in the Business License Dept. I also ended up meeting my soul mate, Jimmy. Two years after we were married, I had my second daughter, Melissa. During all this time I continued to play racquetball, mostly recreational but some competitive also. Mostly however, I played competitive softball and along with my husband spent a lot of time coaching our daughters in softball.

In 1999, while playing in a softball tournament, I rounded 3rd base and in an attempt to stop and come back to the base, I tore my ACL in my left knee. Surgery was performed a week later and ended up being a full knee reconstruction procedure. Seven weeks went by before I could even walk afterwards. After three months of rehab, I went back to surgery in an attempt to do a cartilage graft. The results of this surgery would not be determined until at least 6 months to a year later. I continued rehab for another 7 months afterwards. I was determined to return to the racquetball court at some point.

In early 2000, I began to play racquetball again. With not much tournament competition since before the injury, I was talked in to attending the US Open in Memphis. It was the first major tournament I had attended since the 1992 US Nationals. It was exciting and I can remember seeing Rhonda Rajsich for the first time. I was amazed at how she was diving all over the court. The trip to Memphis did nothing other than just pump me up to try to return to this high level of competition. In 2001, the Ladies Pro Racquetball Association had a tournament in Charlotte, NC. I made plans to attend and low and behold, who do I have to play first round? That's right – Rhonda Rajsich. I was excited to play her. I actually took a game off of her (the 5 game format). A friend of mine who was a tournament sponsors and big time racquetball enthusiast was in attendance. He was excited to see how I could compete on this level and asked me about the possibilities of returning to the tour with his help as a major sponsor. After much discussion with my husband, I agreed and the rest is history.

I have so enjoyed my time traveling and playing pro tournaments all over the United States, Canada and Mexico. The friends I have made are countless and I love each and every one of them. I am the biggest fan of making the Women's Professional Racquetball Organization the best that it can be. I want to see it succeed so that young female racquetball players will be more willing to take the initiative to find sponsors and travel on the tour and show off their talent with the hopes of a payback for being a professional athlete. Racquetball players deserve to be compensated just the same as any other professional athlete. I applaud the efforts of Doug Ganim and Dave Negrete who are constantly trying to achieve TV exposure in order to better the sport. Their efforts do not go unnoticed.

I invite each of you to make an effort to attend as many women's pro stops as possible. The women are exciting and have so much to offer. Personally, I look forward to a few more good years to come with the hopes of a top 4 year end season ranking before I officially retire from professional events. I thank God for the support of my family for allowing me to pursue this dream of mine – you guys are the best for the sacrifices that each of you have made for me. I love you all very much. To my Tri-City racquetball friends – you are the reason that I have succeeded to this point. You make playing racquetball so much fun. I hope I can continue to play on Monday nights forever!! Monday night football? Nope – it's Monday night racquetball for me. Thanks you guys.

Thanks for taking the time to share my life with me. Please share any thoughts or comments you have with me by emailing me at brenda@brendakyzer.com Thanks and keep on hitting them hard and low!! See you on the court.