Edited by Paul Malischke

Q. What prompted you to hold that first tournament in 1986?

A. I remember it quite well. You Paul had run a tournament the previous year -- Paul's Badger Classic -- and it was a lot of fun. You asked if I would be willing to run one, and since you had done the work the previous year I agreed. The fact that a lot of club members, and even non-members helped out made it relatively easy and enjoyable to run the event. This was probably a major factor in my running the tournament for as many years as I did: there was never any shortage of people to help out, whether for setting up the draw or the nets, providing things to drink, or cleaning up afterwards. You, Mike Rousse, Sara Brenneis, Fred and Wendy Coleman, Sandy Norton, and Lor Thao were always available, and many, many others helped out one year or another. It turned out to be fun, and as I got used to the procedure, easy to do. To make matters easier for myself, I only took 16 entries in each event. Even so, I don't think anyone ever got turned away.

Brooks Brenneis, second from left, receiving a silver medal in the 1985 Badger State Games

Q. The name of the tournament changed slightly every year. What was the pattern?

A. One of the ways I had fun with it was to alter the name of the tournament. At first, I added a B to the title each year, so that at one point it was something like Brooks' Big Bucky Badger Badminton Bash. Then the powers that be informed me that it was not acceptable to use my name for a university-sponsored event. I think it was Michael Brenneis who came up with the title Badminton Reigns Over Other Kindsa Sports. If you print the first letter real large, and all the others real small, what you get is B*** R*** O*** O** K** S***.

Sara Brenneis got involved, along with Michael, in making posters for the event. One of them was so neat that it was stolen, which I took to be a compliment. One of them had Bucky Badger holding a racquet, plus the title, and that one only got thrown out when we cleaned out the attic. We have a picture of it, which I can try to find.

Q. What kind of awards did you give out?

A. For every year but one, we gave out the standard plastic player on a wooden base trophy. First place and runners up for ABC&D divisions. One year I got bored with that system, and bought four expensive pens as the only trophies. They were given to randomly selected winners from among the ABCD winners and runners up. That system was uniformly unpopular -- "I want something to put on my desk so my office mates could see that I actually won something" -- so it was ditched in favor of the traditional plastic figure on a board.

Q. What was the target group of participants for your tournaments?

A. The first year we got some hotshots from Milwaukee and Chicago, but they sensed that this was not one of the USBA local tournaments and after that I made the official motto "A chance to pick on someone your own size for a change." I hoped, and think we were successful, in becoming known as a fun, relaxed event in which virtually everyone who have a chance to win a match or two, and not lose the first one 0,0. We had quite a number of local and statewide regulars throughout the years.

Per-Olaf Anderson, Nancy Hayes, Sandra Norton, and Dave Murray, gold and silver medal winners, 1985 Badger State Games

Q. In 1990, you expressed frustration over repeated losses to George Bauer. You predicted that in 20 years you would finally beat him. Do you still think you will have to wait until 2010?

A. Well, life has unexpected turns in store for us. What I had hoped was that Fred Coleman and I would gradually get better, and that George and his partner Roland Chin would gradually come back to us. Roland returned to Hong Kong to live and as you know George has had problems with macular degeneration. Revenge would not have seemed the same.

Of course, Fred and I had the same feelings about Chai and Steve Engel in the Badger State Games. It was a real pleasure to beat them finally a couple of years ago in the Finals. Part of what makes the sport so enjoyable is the lasting friendships that develop across the net.

Q. What was the biggest challenge? Pronouncing the names over the loudspeaker? Finding the energy after the tournament to write a story about it?

A. As I think about this, I can't come up with a biggest challenge. Pronouncing names was difficult, but people were forgiving, and being able to rattle off Apichai Kookasemkit as if it were Frank Smith was a pleasure. And from the following, you can see that doing a write up was a pleasure not a pain.

Gizhan Saleh and Maria Miller

Q. Your stories about the tournament went beyond the usual "XX beat YY in a hard fought match", and seemed to be an avenue for you to express your badminton philosophy. Have you thoughts about badminton changed over the years?

A. I loved thinking of a clever way to introduce tournament results, and tried each year to take a different approach that would be entertaining as well as thoughtful. I enjoy writing, and take the same attitude toward all of my writing, be it personal, professional, or private. Sometimes I learn a new word and have to find a place for it -- like terpsichorean, or have an opinion I can't keep to myself (and am sometimes reminded that this is not necessarily a virtue).

Playing last Tuesday gave me a renewed sense of what it is that I like so much about badminton. Acosta and I played against Fred and Dave Murray. I was reminded that in the 20 years I have played, there is only one person I have met whom I found lacking in personal appeal. I doubt I could select any comparable size group and only find one person who rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyway, through badminton, I have discovered how truly competitive I am -- and that badminton permits a place for that to be expressed freely. There are no arenas in my life where I can let run freely this competitive spirit. Because I can be as competitive as I truly feel -- mind you, competitive in spirit does not translate to competitive in matches -- there is a freedom to play hard and try hard to win that I cannot express anywhere else in my life. And at the end of a match, as with Fred, Acosta, and Dave Murray, we are not just still friends, but in some way, more friends than if we had not competed as fiercely as we desired.

On top of all this, I have an enormous amount of fun playing. Badminton will never be a mainstream sport in America -- too little emphasis on power and brute strength, and too much emphasis on quickness and dexterity, the strong big guy is at a disadvantage to the quick little guy -- but it can be a lifetime sport, as we can see each week with George Bauer, and as was seen in our match, where Fred was a young guy, and I wasn't even the oldest one on the court. I doubt that my experience is exceptional.

Un-identified player (left) with Hasse Carlson (right)

Q. Did you know that the 1987 event was Mary Blandino’s first tournament, and she later went on to win many events, including the National Senior women's Doubles championship in 2001?

A. No! But if I can take any credit for introducing Mary to competitive badminton, I will shamelessly take it. And while we are on the topic of shameless credit-taking, let me add that, if it weren't for me, Jennifer Coleman wouldn't have appeared in the Faces in the Crowd section of Sports Illustrated. You see, I introduced Fred to badminton. We are next door neighbors, and he saw us out in our front yard playing badminton 20 years ago and joined in. From there we went to West High, and from there to the Nat. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Above photos by Jo Matzner

Sports Illustrated, November 11, 2002