THE NEW ARIZONA COLLEGIATE BADMINTON LEAGUE HAS BEGUN

Although there are Collegiate badminton clubs and recreational badminton play at universities throughout the US, Arizona is pioneering the resurgence of COLLEGIATE BADMINTON SCHOLARSHIPS for the first time since ASU's National Champion Badminton program, which was dropped in 1993 more than 25 years ago. Ironically, Guy Chadwick was the coach of the ASU Men's and Women's Badminton team at that time and he has now founded and organized the new Arizona Collegiate Badminton League for the Arizona colleges.

Benedictine University Mesa and Arizona Christian University in Glendale are leading the way in offering Badminton Scholarships. Ottawa University in Surprise and Park University in Gilbert are also making plans to join the ACBL with badminton teams and scholarship offerings. ASU, UofA, Grand Canyon, and several Maricopa Community Colleges are also participating as Badminton Club teams in the ACBL.

The ACBL immediately scheduled the first PRE-SEASON during the fall 2019 with the first event hosted by the Arizona Badminton Center in Mesa and held Sat, Sep 28. Eight schools were represented. Follow up events occurred on Sat, Oct 19 and Sat, Nov 2 using different formats each time in preparation for the inaugural regular season coming up Feb - Apr 2020. The word is getting out and more colleges and universities are joining up for a great new experience next year!

Above is a group photo of several of the participants at one of the Pre-Season ACBL events earlier this fall. The new ACBL (Arizona Badminton League) and member schools are already forming new friendships, a great competitive environment, and badminton scholarship opportunities! This is great news for all of the Arizona badminton community and beyond!

The ACBL is founded and operated by the Arizona Badminton Center with acting commissioner Guy Chadwick.

Please feel free to contact Guy at [email protected] for more information.