[PUBLISHER] column
AN ODE TO TENNIS About 30 years ago, I lost Webb, where I walked on a bet. What that bet actually to what was then a Division was has been lost to time — II tennis team in much the or the effect of advancing age same way that I made the on my longterm memory — high school squad, but the result was I had to which is to say try out for the Marion High they needed a RANDY CAPPS School tennis team. warm body. randy@johnstonnow.com Now, I was athletic enough I actually to play the game but had played never picked up a racket until the early a bunch out of spring of my junior year. I made the necessity and lost team, mainly because there wasn’t much a ton. I played for competition for bench spots, and started a couple of years, learning the basics. then decided that I kept at it, and got good enough to graduating on time play doubles as a senior. I was paired was more important than with a freshman, who was greener than tennis. I was burned out and I was, but we won far more often than took a few years off from the sport. we lost by following the prime directive I played quite a bit in my early 30s, of winning tennis, which is the idea of then I took another decade off as my hitting one more ball back in play than weight got out of hand. I picked up a your opponent. racket again last fall, reconstructed my I left Marion and went to Gardnerdodgy forehand (thanks, Mike) and
YOUR JNOW
TEAM Volume 6, Number 5
A Shandy Communications, LLC publication
Publisher Randy Capps
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started playing again. It’s a thinking man’s game, which has always appealed to me, but it also makes me feel young again. It reminds me of hitting balls in my hometown, on the public court with no bathrooms, or of the time my first coach at GWU banished me to a side court with a ball machine and told me, “Don’t come back until you’ve learned how to hit a backhand.” It’s a game that taught humility to a young man who needed some and one that still offers lessons and hope to a much older version of the same guy. Even as my shoulder or my knees ache after a couple of sets over at South Johnston, I’m still glad I lost that bet. Whatever it was.
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