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30250 SW Parkway Ave., Suite #10
Wilsonville, OR 97070 Phone:
503.682.3935 |
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| A rally champion in every driveway |
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| Backboard designed for realistic return of tennis balls |
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 | | Photo By Ian Forrest | | Glen Good, who was the head coach of the Wilsonville High School boys tennis team this past spring, designs the Rally Champion tennis backboard at his home in Canby. Good hopes the backboards catch on amongst the four million tennis-playing households in the United States. |
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By Ian Forrest
Glen Good has a vision.
And it involves the four million tennis-playing households in the United States setting up a Rally Champion tennis backboard in their driveway.
More modestly, his hope is that some of those four million will raise his backboard.
Good, who lives in Canby and coaches boys tennis at Wilsonville High School, creates tennis backboards that have been propped up at country clubs, parks, schools and homes all across the country.
The backboard is designed to mimic a real-life tennis player — rebounding tennis balls just like a player would return them. And there’s a big difference between Good’s backboards and a regular wall.
“A flat vertical wall rebounds like squash,” said Good, who took the reins of the Wildcats’ boys tennis program last spring after serving as an assistant to former coach Ken Crowley. “If you tilt the wall and dish it, all the balls come back like somebody hit it over the net to you. It’s exactly like playing tennis.”
The original tennis backboard came about with the Jimmy Connors Rally Champion in the early 80s, but its popularity fizzled along with the sport of tennis within five years.
The number of tennis players in the United States peaked in the late 70s, but dwindled at the exact time the original Rally Champion was released.
“It was an ill-fated launch,” Good said. “They were relying on the continued growth of tennis, nevermind the absolute plummet of the sport.”
The idea was nixed, but Good kept it alive in his own way.
He began to create his own backboards and called his line the Lifetime Partner.
Over a decade later, Good picked up the Rally Champion name for himself.
Now, with slight modifications made over the course of the past 20 years, he has the backboard he’s aimed for all along.
“It’s exactly what I’ve been going for,” Good said.
The tilted backboard now contains a target zone for players to aim at.
It’s also partly made of a material that reduces sound — a key issue in making the backboards viable in residential areas.
The majority of his backboards are sold to parks and tennis clubs, but Good believes the key to making it a full-time business lies with selling it to tennis-playing families, as well as companies interested in propping up the backboards in their parking lots.
“(The backboards) are the driving range of tennis,” Good said. “If a golf player could have a driving range in their front yard, would they do that? Absolutely.”
And would a tennis player have a Rally Champion in their driveway? That’s what Good is hoping for. |
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