For the love of the game
My kids ask me if I won my first tennis match in competition. And I tell them that I don’t actually remember exactly -- though I suspect I probably lost.
Around eleven or twelve years old, I played my first ever tennis match at the City of Sterling Heights Parks and Recreation annual tennis tournament. While I don’t remember the score of the match, I do remember meeting the Director of the tournament, Coach Larry Harte: his thick glasses, gaunt frame, buck teeth, longish curly hair spilling out from beneath a worn baseball cap. In between managing the operational mechanics of the tournament, he carried on lively conversations with just about anyone -- the players, parents of the players, spectators -- espousing some little known truths about tennis or tales about legends. He was a bona fide tennis sage who seemed to know everything about tennis.
I played a fair amount of tennis as a kid. My parents introduced my siblings and me to the sport back in the 80's (my first racquet was wooden, named after Jimmy Connors), taking us to the park on Saturday mornings. We’d play points irrespective of how many times the ball bounced or if the ball landed inbounds or not -- you’d just have to get the ball over the net with your racquet. We used to watch tennis on TV -- Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe. My first favorite player was Ivan Lendl. Later on, Michael Chang.
When my older sisters began playing varsity tennis for the Orioles of Warren High School, I'd often tag along at their practices -- when they'd let me. The tennis courts at Warren High were situated far behind the school, in a wide open corridor along the Red Run drain. My friends and I often joked that playing at Warren High was like playing in a wind tunnel, as the winds would blow unobstructed along Red Run. However, since there was little to block the winds around us, there was also little to block the views of gorgeous sunsets that we'd see, playing into the late southeastern Michigan evenings, until it got so dark that we couldn't see the balls anymore.
Every now and then I'd catch a glimpse of Coach Harte hitting with a few of the top players from the boys team on a far off court. Standing a few feet behind the baseline, they'd crush the balls back and forth -- harder than it seemed possible. I'd gaze on in admiration, beneath the orange sky, wondering what it was like to be able to hit the ball like that. Back then, there was no YouTube -- everything I learned about tennis was from library books, Tennis Magazine, watching Grand Slam matches on TV, and Coach Harte.
After I hung out around the girls team long enough, people got to know me, including Coach Harte, and he would eventually invite me to play with him and some of his players. I was intimidated at first, but no matter how embarrassing it must have been to be so out-classed by the older players, I was eager to learn. And so far as I can tell, that's all that ever really mattered to Coach Harte -- if there were kids willing to learn tennis, he was willing to teach.
As far as I know, Coach didn’t offer private tennis lessons. He taught clinics for the City of Sterling Heights (and ran the city’s annual tournament), and he coached high school tennis. Over the next couple of years, he’d invite me and some of my friends to train with his team in the summer. He’d invite us to play exhibition matches. More often than not, if we went to Warren High School after dinner to play tennis, there was a pretty good chance we’d find him there. In the winters, he’d sometimes join us during weekend “early-bird” walk-on sessions at 6 am (open to non-members) at a nearby indoor tennis bubble. That is -- when he wasn’t delivering newspapers.
Back then, we’d often tease him about his job with the Detroit News. To be fair, while my job as a newspaper boy consisted of routes of one or two streets, riding my bike, Coach would deliver trunk loads of papers to entire subdivisions while driving. But why do you need to deliver newspapers, we’d ask him? What are you doing with that extra money? He’d tell us that he had a sports car. We didn’t believe him. We’d hear rumors that he was buying land somewhere. Now, in hindsight, I wonder if he delivered newspapers simply because we didn’t pay him enough. In fact, we didn’t pay him anything. In all my years learning from Coach, I don’t recall that he ever charged my parents a single penny.
By the time I entered high school in tenth grade, I was good enough to play 2nd singles for the boys varsity team. You could argue that maybe Coach was just preparing me and my friends for high school tennis, so he’d have a better pipeline of players. And that might be true. But the amount of time he invested in kids who were simply willing to learn the game, who didn’t really have much money for private tennis lessons, had much more to do with his love of the game and of Coaching than anything else.
It’s all in the state of mind
Earlier this year, I went digging through my garage to look for a three ring binder -- my tennis binder. My older kid had just begun to play competitive tennis matches for the first time, and for the first time in decades I wanted to see that binder again. At the end of every high school tennis season, Coach Harte would give each player a personalized folder of newspaper clippings, photographs, a ledger of match scores, conference awards and certificates, our personal goals that he had us write down on index cards, and motivational quotes. Over my three years playing high school tennis, I kept the contents of these folders and put them in my tennis binder. Then, I stored my tennis binder away in a box.
Decades later, my kids laugh at the pictures -- my glasses and braces, our uniforms, even the tennis courts are different colors than they’re familiar with now. They notice flaws in my form. Your toss looks too high, they say. They’re quite interested to see that I won some matches but also lost matches -- some scores are lopsided, others are close.
I also seize on the opportunity to have my kids read some of Coach Harte’s old motivational quotes. What’s “positive’itis’” they ask me?
By the time they’re through, truth be told, they lose interest for now. However, I’m thinking of making a copy and taping it to their bedroom doors -- something I imagine Coach Harte might do.
For anyone involved with youth sports, it’s often the values and principles, teamwork and friendships, that prove to be among the most rewarding experiences and lasting takeaways. For me and decades of high school tennis players from Warren High and Warren Mott, Coach Harte was the one that taught us those values.
Alright, for Jamocals
In my senior year, Warren High School merged with C.S. Mott High School to form Warren Mott High School. I played first singles for my team, which had a lot of good players and really strong depth. While we won our county’s Class A conference championship, we fell short of qualifying for the state tournament. While we had a strong year, we were still not in the same class as the tennis “power-house” schools. And similarly, my individual ranking was good enough to rank at the district level, but not the state level.
At the end of the day, Coach used to say that we did alright, for Jamocals. It was an expression he’d use to describe himself and his players -- the type of thing he’d say that would grow on you, but then one day you’d wonder -- wait, is that even a word? Humble, scrappy, hard-working, not privileged, though not necessarily unprivileged, either.
As a Jamocal, I didn’t win any noteworthy awards for my tennis alone. But I was fortunate enough to win my state’s scholar athlete award for boys tennis, which recognized a combination of both athletic and academic success. The scholar athlete award winners from my sport and others were honored at a Detroit Piston’s game at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and we got to go court side at halftime to receive our plaques. As a basketball fan, I’ll never forget that experience.
While students and one parent each were gifted tickets to the game, coaches were not. I’ll also never forget how Coach Harte nevertheless made his way to the game, then down to the court, and through the crowds, to join me, taking pictures and beaming ear-to-ear.
Earlier this year, as my kid began to play matches, I found myself offering all sorts of advice -- and coaching -- on everything from what to say after winning or losing -- and that it’s not all about winning and losing. Having not played much competitive tennis since high school, so much came back to me about the competitive aspects of the game, while I also suddenly gained a much greater appreciation for how challenging coaching can be. Some of the hardest conversations are about what to do when an opponent calls a ball out that was in -- especially on a pivotal point of the match.
As I was flipping through my tennis binder with my kids, I discovered buried in the back of a stack of papers in the rear pocket, the letter of reference that Coach Harte had written on my behalf for the scholar athlete award. As I read the letter now, I realize that the most resonant aspect of the letter is not about the academic or athletic accomplishments -- it’s actually the end of the letter, where he writes about sportsmanship -- how to credit opponents for victories, how to graciously accept defeat, how to remain humble in victory. It was as if Coach Harte were shaking his head and smiling, saying, “Look, we didn’t win that award just based on academics and athletics, we won it based on sportsmanship. That’s what you should keep teaching your kids.”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all about Coach, is that even after losing touch with him after all these years, and decades after playing on his teams, he still coaches me today. I am forever honored and grateful to have been -- and even still be -- coached by Larry Patrick Harte.
Coach Harte, may your soul rest in eternal peace. You’ve done alright, my friend. You’ve done alright.
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