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mental approach to the game,
Yellen says, the big contract
did not make him lazy. He
stayed hungry and continued
to win titles. Although he
won those titles individually,
he has a strong support
system.
Being the best in his profes-
sion, Yellen says, is "very
rewarding. There's no ques-
tion that any athlete in any
sport wants to be the best. I'm
thankful that I have the abili-
ty, I'm thankful that I've had
proper representation and
great people working with me
— my coach and my agent and
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other people. It's always true
that the athlete has achieved
certain things, but it's a well-
rounded supporting cast that
allows him to achieve a lot of
those things."
Yellen was not disappointed
to lose his title to 35-year-old
Puerto Rican Ruben Gonzalez
this season. "I thought that I
might be winding down,
toward the end of my career,"
says Yellen, "until this
35-year-old guy won the
championship. Now I feel like
a baby who's got a second
life."
He hopes to play about "two
or three" more years of pro
racquetball. "I don't want to
hang around the game when
I'm gonna be finishing 30th
in the points and I have no
chance of winning tour-
naments. I think as long as
I'm competitive and have a
shot at winning tournaments,
I'll probably stay around."
Yellen, who was recently in-
ducted into the national
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Mike Yellen prepares to serve.
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a racquetball court. I just fell
in love with the game and
couldn't spend enough hours
down there. There were
definitely days that I was
down on the court eight-to-ten
hours a day just practicing my
racquetball."
Today, as a five-time na-
tional champion, Yellen con-
tinues to work on his game.
He works out regularly at the
Maple/Drake Jewish Com-
munity Center and the
Franklin Racquet Club.
Yellen traveled to Aurora,
Ill., in 1976 to watch his first
pro racquetball tournament.
He wanted to see "what they
were doing at the time, why
they were better than the
amateurs.
"It really just caught my at-
tention and made me, I guess,
try even harder to become a
pro player. It was really neat
being around 'ern and seeing
what professional racquetball
was all about. It really just
excited me. So I went home,
continued practicing, practic-
ing even harder and learned
a few techniques and a few
things I saw the top guys do-
ing at that time and just tried
to incorporate those ideas and
strategies into my game."
Yellen joined the pro tour at
age 16. He won his first tour-
nament in 1980, in Beverly,
Mass. "It felt great," he says,
adding, "You're busting your
tail for a number of years,
really practicing down on the
courts and paying your dues
. . . It was very, very rewar-
ding."
Yellen won the racquetball
grand slam — the Ektelon,
Catalina and DP/Leach
championships — in 1983.
Racquetball, which ex-
perienced a strong growth
spurt in the '70s, is still grow-
ing, but more slowly, in the
`80s. While it is not com-
petitive with sports such as
golf or tennis in popularity, it
has, Yellen says, "its own lit-
tle circle of people that are
gonna know what's going on
in the game."
Although a golfer or tennis
player who dominated his or
her game for five years in the
`80s — as Yellen did in rac-
quetball — would be finan-
cially set for life, Yellen has
no regrets about choosing a
racquetball career.
Yellen is among the top
level of two-to-four racquet-
ball players who earn, says
Yellen, "well in excess of
100,000 bucks a year." He
signed what was announced
as a $1 million contract, the
largest in racquetball history,
with Ektelon in 1984. Yellen
does promotions and exhibi-
tions for the racquetball
equipment manufacturer.
Because he kept the same
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47