The Long Goodbye After 30 Years

Most of my beer friends don't know it, but my top priority when I arrived in the Portland area back in 1989 was to find a place to play racquetball. I eventually settled on Lloyd Athletic Club (then Lloyd Center Courts), where I've been a member for 30 years. My time ends in late October.

Racquetball was my passion in those days. I wanted to join a club that had at least a handful of good players. Location was a secondary concern. I scoured both sides of the Columbia River for months before making a decision.

I chose Lloyd Athletic because it had a large group of active players and was in a reasonable location. Traffic wasn't as much of a mess as it is today. A trip to LAC from my house or office in Vancouver took about 20 minutes most days. That seemed okay.

By the time I moved to Portland in 1993, I was deeply immersed in the culture at Lloyd Athletic. I played challenge court, in leagues and sanctioned tournaments...literally thousands of matches. It was a fun place and I made a lot of friends...even met my wife there. I continued to play most of my racquetball there even after I became racquetball director at a club in Vancouver. 

If you're looking for a beer angle, there is one. As I've noted before here, the club had three tap handles in the old days. They were occupied by Bud, Bud Light and Widmer Hef. We often wagered pitchers on games.  If you were brave, the bet was for Widmer, which was something like $7 a pitcher. Bud and Bud Light were around $5. The club was a great social setting and we drank a lot of beer after playing. There are four taps now and the beer selection has improved considerably.

I've been thinking of leaving LAC for several years. I joined because of racquetball. My body, primarily my knees, can no longer deal with the game. I'll have partial knee replacement surgery in late October. Playing racquetball again will be possible, but maybe not wise. I probably should have stopped 10 years ago. Playing on increasingly brittle joints wasn't smart.

As my time on the court faded over the course of the last five or so years, I started using the club primarily as a place to work out with weights. The workout routine I follow can be done pretty much anywhere. For people who want court sports (the club has racquetball and squash courts), LAC is a good option. But I don't really need the courts any more. 

There's more at work, of course. Traffic congestion makes for awkward car trips to the club. Parking is another issue. LAC has a small lot that's full most of the time. That wasn't a big problem in the old days, when membership was capped at around 300. Even if the lot was full, street parking was free. Today, you pay to park on the street. I avoid parking and driving issues during the summer by riding my bike, but that's not practical for much of the year. It's also increasingly dangerous.

What made the decision more difficult is that new management is doing great things. The club is cleaner and better in many ways than it had been under prior management, which seemed intent on running it into the ground. I doubt LAC will ever be what it once was in a racquetball sense because the game has failed to catch on with millennials. But there's reason to think the place can carry on as a nice fitness club with great social amenities.

Regardless, it's time for me to go. With racquetball no longer a priority, there are workout options closer to home, places I can get to by bike or car in far less time and with less hassle. Once my knee is recovered from surgery, I'll join one of them and see how it goes. Easier access may encourage me to work out more often. We'll see about that.

There are things I'll miss about Lloyd Athletic. Almost all of my racquetball contemporaries are gone, but I still have friends and acquaintances there. And I'll miss the familiar feel. It will be impossible for me to replace or replicate the friendships and experiences I acquired there.

But sometimes you need to move on.

Postscript: I quit Lloyd Athletic two weeks prior to my surgery. Three weeks later, I rejoined the club. The other potential workout places I considered didn't agree with me. So I'm accepting the traffic and parking hassles that come with membership. Still not sure about my racquetball future, but my repaired knee feels good.