Local Coach Shows How USTA Could Serve Sport
At about the same time as the U.S. Tennis Assn. is conducting a workshop on minority participation in tennis, a group of tennis coaches and enthusiasts is struggling to make real what the USTA only talks about.
Ricky Carr, a former college scholarship player, is one of many tennis coaches around Southern California and the nation trying to get tennis into communities that have been traditionally ignored by the sport.
Carr is starting a tennis academy in Long Beach, using three hard courts at an apartment complex, along with borrowed and battered gear.
“These kids can’t pay for tennis lessons, they can’t afford the equipment,” Carr said. “It’s not that there aren’t courts for disadvantaged kids. The big problem is coaching and equipment.
“It’s not like basketball and football. In tennis, you have to buy a racket and tennis balls and shoes. Give these kids the choice of buying one basketball, which they can keep for years, or tennis equipment, they take basketball. Plus, everyone around them is playing it.”
Carr attended Dorsey High and played at Cal State Long Beach and Texas Southern before spending two years playing professionally on the satellite tour.
“I played until I ran out of money,” he said, laughing.
Carr teaches private clients but, like Richard Williams and several others in South-Central L.A., saw a need to project tennis into a diverse community. Right now, his group of about 25 kids uses Carr’s old rackets and whatever they can scrounge. Finding and keeping enough tennis balls is always a problem.
Carr doesn’t charge his students and says he’s in contact with the Southern California Tennis Assn. to investigate grant money or get donated equipment.
“We can do this,” he said. “We need to do this for the kids. They love it.”
Considering that the USTA has an annual budget of $112 million and a self-proclaimed mandate to “Grow the Game,” it’s a shame that local tennis programs have to struggle so much to put down their roots.
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Jennifer Capriati’s feat in reaching the final at the tournament in Chicago last week should not pass unnoticed. The 20-year-old has not won a title in nearly four years and her first full year on the tour has produced spotty results. Worse, Capriati’s deer-in-the-headlights approach to public life has made her skittish and rendered her post-match news conferences monosyllabic exercises in futility.
There was no shame or surprise that Capriati, ranked 50th, lost in the final to fifth-ranked Jana Novotna. Capriati turned in the surprise earlier in the tournament when she beat Monica Seles. Seles would not have been playing if her shoulder was bothering her--she doesn’t do that--so assume she was at full strength and credit Capriati with beating the top player in the world.
It may be that tennis is starting to become fun for Capriati. If that is the case, it will be a pleasant change. Capriati has been surly, unprofessional and rude at times this season. She has also felt the hot gaze of international media and the less-than-welcoming embrace of her fellow professionals. She has handled it all with mixed results, on the court and off. In fact, late Sunday she withdrew from the Advanta Championships in Philadelphia with no explanation.
Still, Capriati has come a long way on a difficult road. If she can come to enjoy the journey, so much the better.
Tennis Notes
For the fourth consecutive year, Pete Sampras will have the No. 1 ranking, joining Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe as the only players to have done so. Sampras has built a career based on winning Grand Slam tournaments. His season was salvaged by winning the U.S. Open in September, giving him one Grand Slam title for the season. He also says he doesn’t pay much attention to rankings, except the year-ending rank. Based on his avowed goals, Sampras’ season has been a success.
Steve Largent’s career path has meandered, to say the least. The NFL Hall of Fame receiver joined the crowd of athletes who moved successfully into politics. Largent was reelected last week to his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. A few weeks before the election Largent was in another kind of race. He and his doubles partner were competing in the USTA League Tennis national championships. Largent, who said he discovered a tennis court on the top floor of one of the Senate office buildings during his first term in Washington, will have at least two more years to practice. He and his partner lost in the quarterfinals.
The USTA has nominated Olympic gold medalists Lindsay Davenport and Andre Agassi as the USOC’s sportswoman and sportsman of the year. Davenport, seeded ninth, upset highly favored Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. Agassi became the first American man to win the gold medal in singles since Vincent Richards in 1924.
Richard Abel, a longtime ball boy at the Newsweek Champions Cup at Indian Wells, will take part in a unique exchange program that will send him to the ATP Tour Championships at Hanover, Germany. Abel has been a ball boy at the Newsweek tournament for 10 years and is a freshman at UC Santa Barbara. A ball boy from the German tournament will work the Indian Wells event next March. . . . The Whittier Narrows Tennis Center will conduct a free tennis festival Thursday from 7-9 p.m.
