Miller Hatcher | Staff Writer
You can see a six-foot, blonde-haired, blue-eyed young man walking to the Buena Vista University Rec Center nearly every day. He’s there late at night or early morning, and the weather does not stop him. Pouring rain, sleet or snow, you will still see him on his way, unaffected. Maybe it’s because of his Minnesotan background, and he thinks, “Weather here is easy.” Or maybe it is the fact that he has goals set for himself, and he will let nothing stand in the way of them. He carries a red, white, and blue Harrow bag, stretching from his shoulders down to mid-thigh. At first, it looks like a tennis bag. It is not, however. Take a closer look and there are 12 gloves strapped to the zipper. It is a racquetball bag, and the person carrying it is student Sam Bredenbeck, a first-year student at BVU, and a world-class racquetball player.
Bredenbeck has been playing the game since he was about three-years-old.
“I found racquetball when my parents and my brother brought me into the sport,” Bredenbeck said.
Bredenbeck’s parents had leased a club in Minnesota, and this is where he found his love of racquetball. Over the years, he has acquired more and more racquetball equipment and now says he has around 25 racquets.
As Bredenbeck grew older, he gained a love for other sports as well. He played baseball, basketball, soccer and golf. Racquetball, however, still held the top spot in Bredenbeck’s heart. He continued to pursue it through his high school years, and eventually found himself winning Junior Nationals in Iowa.
“I was playing with a partner that I had never played with before, and he and I won the national championship,” said Bredenbeck.
In winning that tournament, he clinched a spot on the Junior National team for doubles and singles, and began training at the Olympic training facility in Colorado.
“Most of the days consisted of waking up and going on a morning run and then going to the racquetball courts and training pretty much all day,” said Bredenbeck.
His brother, Jake Bredenbeck, made a pro tour called the World Racquetball Tour (WRT), and recently won the Midwest Championships in Minnesota.
“Sam has great potential. He could be a top player on the WRT with some direction and practice,” Jake said.
Sam says his brother is a significant part of his racquetball career. According to Sam, without Jake, he may not have had a playing partner when he was younger and may not have ever made it to where he is today.
Sam’s training is quite extensive. He says he changes up his workout, but it always involves a lot of cardio. In his bag, you find a jump rope and a set of training ladders for footwork.
“Footwork is one of the most important things in racquetball. You can never get your feet tied up,” Sam said.
You could walk into Bredenbeck’s room at any time and find him doing copious amounts of pushups and sit-ups. Body weight exercises are a must for racquetball players. It is fitting that all of this can be done in the racquetball room, because the athlete puts all the work in during the off-season there and they also play in the court.
Over the summer, Sam will be training with his brother in many different states. He will be in Arizona and then back to Minnesota. After that, he will be driving out to Maryland with his brother in order to get training in with some other top racquetball players. Bredenbeck says this helps because he is able to see different styles of play and not just play with the same people over and over again.
Sam says he trains so hard because he wants to take one last shot at making the Junior National team before his age disallows him. He will be competing in the Junior National tournament in Stockton, California, at the end of June. If he can place top two in any of the events there, he will have clinched his spot on the team and get the chance to compete for the United States again.
“I train so hard because I want to represent my country well,” Sam said.
