Thursday, August 18th, 2005 my long time friend, Joe McDonald and I went to some local middle school courts in Allen, Texas and starting playing tennis. I found an old Wilson T110 that, no doubt, had long ago been purchased on the way to some family social event. While I had played a few sets over my 50 years against friends and relatives, tennis had never captured my interest as did running, basketball and soccer refereeing. Little did I know that I'd be following that yellow fuzzy ball to so many diverse places, that I'd meet so many different wonderful characters and that my trying to stay vertical would lead me to orthropedic surgeons, massage therapists, yoga and realizing that I'm just not that young anymore.
Joe and I went full steam ahead and played 3-4 times a week during the late summer heat of North Texas and into the more comfortable fall air. I discovered the closest local public tennis courts in Plano, High Point Tennis center, and signed up for group lessons. I quickly found I had a knack for serving, it helps to be 6'3" tall, and my backhand was slightly more dependable than my forehand. While standing in line for my turn did not do much for me it allowed me to make new friends and soon Joe and I were playing doubles against two of them, Rich and Adrian. One set of group lessons was enough for me so I switched over to private lessons with one of the pros at High Point, Ken. Being a quiet down to earth fellow he had the required patience to help me try and figure out what this game of tennis was all about. I took 2-3 lessons from him and considered myself ready for some serious playing. Ha!
Before long Joe and I decided it was time to try out our skills in a tournament and we signed up the Bob Noel Tennis Classic in Mansfield. The tournament is run by Ernie Abraham. At the time I did know Ernie from Adam but over the years I've come to realize that he puts on some of the best tournaments in the area. Even though its quite a drive from McKinney I still try to participate in his tournaments whenever possible. I signed up for singles and Joe and I entered as a doubles team. We actually won the consolation finals, which was cool as that made us the "best losers"!
The following week we entered the Oak Creek Championship in Carrollton and Joe ended up beating me in the finals. We wrapped up the year by playing in the Cotton Bowl Classic and I made it to the semi-finals in singles before losing out to the eventual winner, Evan Lukasik. Joe and I played double and, in a round robin format, the only match we won was against Rich and Adrian.
Starting 2006 Joe and I decided that we needed more challenging matches so we decided to play at the 3.5 level. Talk about more challenging! I lost my first 14 singles matches with my first victory not coming until April 28th, 2006 against Rufus Vernon at the Brookhaven Country Club tournment in the consolation draw. But as the summer heated up I started playing better and was having some success. My biggest win came at the Plano Open when I defeated Jacques Delira, who was ranked number two in the state at that time. I also did well at the Tyler Major Zone making it to the consolation finals.
Things would go south in August as my plantar fasciitis was triggered while playing a doubles match at the Walnut Creek Summer Sizzler. Over the next few months I would become an expert on PF and spend lots of time at the doctor's office and at rehab. During the fall I started practicing yoga after another tennis recommended it to me as it had helped him. I immediately fell in love with the practice and combined with new orthodics I managed to get things somewhat under control by the end of the year. However, through out 2007 I never felt I was 100% and my abilities, and certainly match results, were not improving.
In the latter part of 2007 I joined the Eldorado Country Club and started taking lessons from one of the club pros there, Chris Faust. Although I only stayed with the country club for about a year, Chris and I would work together into 2009. He eventually left Eldorado and started working for Stonebridge. During my time at Eldorado I was introduced to league tennis. Even though he was not a club member Joe also joined the team for one season as we were short on players. Honestly the team pretty much sucked and I rarely won a match. But it was fun to be part of a team.
Over the course of my first four years in tennis I had made many new friends and eventually a group of those friends got together and made some new teams. Ed Ratcliffe and David Prather would captain those various teams. It started in the middle of 2008 and I continued to play into 2009 until my back issues got the best of me. Click here to access information about the teams I played on and my rather dismal individual record.
One highlight of team play was the great run the 3.5 team made in the summer of 2009. We took second in the City Championships and made it to the sectional playoffs. It was rather bitter sweet for me as I had to watch most of the matches from the sideline as my back was getting the better of me (not that I was going to get a lot of playing time in the critical matches anyhow).
