Serving for the Match : Tennis: Something about the tradition-laden Ojai tournament inspires residents of the community in Ventura County to lend a hand.
Locals call it “The Ojai.” Appearing virtually every year for the past century, it always casts a spell on this wealthy community. The Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament struck again last week. Hundreds were affected. Among them:
* Cheryl Grass. A volleyball coach at Nordhoff High, she usually dresses in shorts, but there she was, wearing her Sunday finest on a Thursday and handing out cookies to strangers.
* Xander Cameron. The senior at Thacher School awoke before dawn and swept tennis courts.
* Lynda and Dusty Craver. Kids they had never seen before were using their guest bathroom.
* Kit Miller. An actress, she was surprised to see her photo on the front page of the Ojai Valley News, in which she is polishing old trophies. She wonders, was that the best shot they had?
* Fred Lamb, the tournament manager. A tall, slender man in his 70s, Lamb felt the urge to put on his attention-getting floppy red felt hat.
* Caroline Thacher. An Englishwoman who has lived in Ojai since 1972, Thacher was acutely aware of The Ojai’s presence. “I feel like crawling into a dark hole and staying there,” she says.
It’s difficult to find anyone in the Ventura County town who isn’t touched by The Ojai, which is not just any tennis tournament. Begun in 1896, The Ojai is the country’s oldest and largest tournament played at the same location. It has reached legendary status among California tennis players for its tea-and-cookies tradition and community involvement. Most of the town’s movers and shakers are among the 500 volunteers who run the tournament.
“If you live in Ojai, you want to be part of all the Ojai tradition,” Lynda Craver says. “And this tournament is the biggie.”
This year’s tournament, which ends today, is the 91st. Nothing much has really changed over the years, “and that’s the beauty of The Ojai, tennis as it used to be,” says Joseph Bixler, who first played here as a Los Angeles High freshman in 1925.
Former Ojai stars include Pancho Gonzalez, Billy Jean King, Jimmy Connors, Stan Smith, Bill Tilden and Arthur Ashe. But they played in the tournament as amateurs. Despite occasional offers from promoters to turn The Ojai into a “big-time” event with cash prizes and a pro division, the tournament directors have kept it strictly “a handshake and a trophy,” says Jack Morrison, one of the directors. “Any other way, it just wouldn’t be The Ojai.”
The Ojai means a walk back through time to a gentler, more refined era. Although the tournament is held at numerous sites, Libbey Park--in the center of town--has been the main location for nearly 70 years. It’s where players and spectators wander under ancient California live oaks and sip afternoon tea inside a white tent.
“The tea tent is in keeping with the English tradition,” Cheryl Glass says. “It lends the tournament a formal air.”
Over the four days, some 1,500 cups of tea and 8,000 cookies are served by a select group of 100 local women working 30-minute shifts. To become either a “pourer” of tea or a “passer” of cookies, a woman needs to be well-connected. Competition is reportedly intense.
“It’s a privilege to pass cookies,” Glass says as she stands under the tent awning, holding a silver tray full of butter cookies. Some day, she may even get to be a pourer.
“Pourers are the highest rank,” Morrison says, nodding toward a gray-haired woman sitting at one of the two silver tea urns. “That’s the president of the garden club.”
A sign in the tea tent tells people not to walk away with the dishes. “Those are real china cups and saucers,” Morrison says. “Cost nine bucks a set.”
Libbey Park has eight courts, all maintained by the tournament committee, and the bleachers are painted green by the Lions Club in exchange for the hot dog concession. Early in the tourney, the Pacific 10 Conference championships, part of The Ojai for years, took place at the park, but only a few dozen spectators watched. A lot of people just soaked up the atmosphere or schmoozed.
“I must have seen 400 people I know,” says Bixler, sitting at a bench in the shade of a sprawling oak and wearing a blazer and tie and straw hat. His official badge says “Ojai Tennis Tournament’s best friend.” Starting in the early ‘50s, he had Caroline Thacher’s job, holding it for more than 20 years, “until I became president of the Southern Cal Tennis Assn. and was able to sit around here like a stuffed shirt smiling at people,” Bixler says.
A volunteer hands him a free cup of freshly squeezed Ojai Valley orange juice, another tournament tradition. “I just love this tournament,” Bixler says. “You can always count on it. Been called off only four times--three times for (two) world wars and, you won’t believe this, once for hoof-and-mouth disease. Strangest thing. The whole valley was closed.”
Cattle diseases aside, working at The Ojai has always been a good idea, not to mention a civic and social responsibility and a nifty way to meet people. Jane Weirick, who retired here with her husband two years ago, got a swift introduction to the local social scene by becoming involved with the tournament.
“Everybody gets into this thing,” she says.
Weirick worked as a “paper stuffer” with Caroline Thacher before the tournament and in transportation during it. One of her duties was to drive people to the 15 homes with courts used in the tournament. She wound up one afternoon at the home of the Cravers, in a luxury development called Rancho Matilija.
In the back yard of the Cravers’ baronial Spanish ranch, a 16-and-under match had just concluded and Xander Cameron was phoning in the results. Cameron is one of the 200 volunteers from the Thacher School, which is heavily involved because the Thacher family started The Ojai nearly 100 years ago. As a senior, Cameron gets to pick his tournament job.
“The freshmen are always ball boys,” he says.
At Thacher--a 101-year-old private prep school--participating as a volunteer isn’t taken lightly. Assemblies are held and the benefits of community involvement are discussed by the headmaster. The students are basically told “you will volunteer,” but “most everyone is happy to go along with it,” says Natasha Long, a junior. “It’s a tradition with the school.”
The descendants of the original Thachers are still connected with The Ojai. Seven Thachers work at the tournament and three are members of the board of directors. Caroline Thacher’s husband. Dr. John Thacher, is the great-grandnephew of William Thacher, the founder of the event.
Caroline took over as chief secretary from her husband’s aunt, who had held the post for 25 years. It’s a job that starts in January.
“I’m going to take a vacation to Spain after this,” says Thacher, who worked 12-hour days to get ready for the tournament. “There’s always panic and a lot of headaches at this end. On the first morning of the tournament, we found out that the telephone at the registration desk was not working--we weren’t hooked up to the outside world.”
But the matches seemed to go off without a glitch. “It constantly amazes me to get through a tournament of this size in only four days,” Lamb says. “We had something like 700 matches the first day alone.” Lamb, who represented Thacher School in the 1938 Ojai, is known for his floppy red hat, which he wears so people can spot him easily.
Not everybody enjoys The Ojai for the tennis or the tea. A few teen-age boys were straddling their bikes at the entrance to the Libbey courts. What did they like most about the event?
“It brings in all these college girls wearing short tennis skirts,” Chad Smith says. “Wait till the weekend,” Brock Johnston says. “The place will be loaded with coeds. Who cares about anything else?”