Does Wayne Dollard Understand What He Is Doing?

By Charles E. Vasoll

First, you may need to be introduced to Wayne Dollard. He is the "Editor / Designer" of "Platform Tennis Magazine" He is also the owner of Dollard Publishing Co. Inc. which produces the "APTA Member Publication".

For the moment, I will overlook the typos and other printing and identification errors. If we write or publish, these mistakes will occur. For example, I erred in my first issue in identifying the artist of "Learning The Wires" as Jim Davis instead of Jack Davis. A faithful reader / viewer brought it to my attention and the correction made immediately. As readers / viewers, we excuse these errors even though we would prefer them to be minimal.

So what is it that Mr. Dollard does not understand? My answer is "his contributors".

I was one of his contributors and I was "turned off". First, I submitted a number of items that never made the magazine. I recognize that space is limited. He apparently did not agree with some of what I thought might be interesting to the membership. Second, my "Hot Off The Wire" column was usually rebutted by someone but I never saw the rebuttal until it was in the magazine. I asked to be shown what was to be written but he never replied. Further, HE often wrote the rebuttal. Is this the "editor’s" place? The final straw, however, is when he removed important paragraphs of my articles and thus changed the strength of it. I gave up.

I understand that he has angered a number of the teaching pros who contributed articles to him for the magazine. Their articles then appeared on a web site that competed with them for the sale of balls, racquets and other platform tennis related items. The pros quickly lost interest in supplying material for the magazine. Can you blame them? They thought they were contributing to the sport through the official APTA news vehicle. Instead, their articles were used by a competitor to infringe on their livelihood.

Volunteers who want to tell a story supply most of the news in the magazine at no cost to Mr. Dollard. In the September 2003 issue, for example, it had been agreed between Mr. Dollard and Bob Brown, Vice President of the "Platform Tennis Museum and Hall of Fame Foundation", that the cover story would be on the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame. This was partly to make up for the inadequate coverage that the magazine gave to the 2003 Hall of Fame inductees, Bob Kingsbury and Dick Squires.

Bob Brown was asked to produce an article covering this intriguing subject. In his usual dedicated manner, Bob began extensive research to obtain photos of as many of the honorees as he could find. He contacted others who he thought would be of assistance in his efforts and many of them responded. When the magazine arrived, Bob was heartsick. None, not a single one, of the photos of those previously inducted into the "Hall" was in the magazine. Even the revised listing of the inductees that he provided was not used. It gave the first name of the married women, Barbara Koegel, instead of "Mrs. William Koegel". The article Bob Brown wrote was not even attributed to him with a "by" line.

Well, it is one thing to "turn off" Chuck Vasoll, lose the teaching pros and make Bob Brown sick but the ultimate disaster is to anger your advertisers. Did you notice in the "From The Editor…" column that Mr. Dollard had the audacity to give special mention to a new advertiser on the next page. Sure, he mentions "Wilson, Viking, Bulletworks, Premier and Reilly-Green Mountain" but it is almost in passing when they have been, and still are, the backbone of the sport.

Does Mr. Dollard understand what he is doing? I don’t think so. It’s about time for the APTA Board to seek a new editor and publisher. The membership has put up with these inadequacies for too long and we are still getting an inferior and biased product.

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