LETHBRIDGE – When you meet Coby Iwaasa, you see an easy-going teenager. Quick with a smile, he’s still a young man who admits to butterflies before every racquetball match he plays.
“I don’t think there’s a game I play where I don’t feel those nerves,” said Iwaasa, before adding with a laugh, “but I just know how to handle them better now.”
However, below that demeanor, lies a fierce competitor.
“That hunger’s been there for as long as I can remember,” said Iwaasa. “That’s the reason I keep on coming back, because every loss that I have just motivates me more because I hate losing and I love winning so much.”
Winning has been commonplace in the recently turned 19-year-old, Lethbridge native’s life. An unprecedented four-time Canadian under-18 racquetball singles champion, he is also a former world junior champion and a has won a world racquetball tour title. But, in his estimation, his biggest accomplishment came in May, when he won his first senior level Canadian championship.
“I could feel all these nerves and excitement because this is my first national finals, but it was just so much fun,” said Iwaasa. “It shows me that I’m capable of it and now I have a lot more confidence going into these bigger events.”
Which includes July’s Pan American Games in Toronto. Iwaasa is one of four men named to the Canadian racquetball team for the eight–day tournament. He will go head-to-head against some of the best players in the world, but he isn’t intimidated.
“I have played many of these players before so I feel that I am capable of getting a medal,” said Iwaasa. “I feel happy to be there, I’m very confident in my game right now.”
Iwaasa is a graduate of Lethbridge’s Winston Churchill high school. He took up the sport at 10-years-old, after watching his parents play, and remembers his first tournament vividly.
“I didn’t win a single game,” laughs Iwaasa. “And that was probably the biggest driving force I had ever since then. My parents saw I really didn’t like losing, I really struggled with it, and they took me to places where I could become better, gave me coaching advice, and they even learned themselves how to help me.”
All that work has paid off. Iwaasa is the first man in Canadian racquetball history to win the junior and senior singles and doubles national championships in the same season. It’s a lofty resume for someone so young, but Iwaasa is still hungry for more.
“The Pan Ams are going to be one of the highlights of my life,” said Iwaasa. “But after it I really do want to focus on the pro tour and trying to become number one myself.”
Which wouldn’t surprise anyone.
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