Last week in the Chronic-(what)-cles I talked about my first car. I racked my brain for appropriate material for this week’s edition and came up with another moment from my youth.
I began playing tennis around 6 years old. It was a sport my parents felt I could play for a long time like golf. For a 6 year old I was not bad, genes helped, my Mom was quite a tennis player and my Dad was an all around athlete who excelled in swimming (he really wanted his boys to give swimming a shot) and football. As I got older and took more lessons my game improved. When we moved to Ohio I started playing in tournaments. Because I had a summer birthday I was always the youngest kid in my division. In the 12 and under I would be the only 11 year old, in the 14 and under the only 13 year old. My first year I would get beat by the older kids but I was always able to hold my own. The next year I would usually win the tournaments because I was older than my competition.
Growing up playing tennis you knew all the kids. You played in leagues on weekends and took group lessons so their was a familiarity. Some kids excelled and really took the game seriously and some, who had talent, were more content to see how far they could hit a tennis ball or if their Boris Becker imitation was spot on (my Becker imitation was perfect).
I fell into the latter group, I never exerted more effort than I needed to and was content with winning on occasion. One such occasion was the district qualifier in Springfield. I was playing a kid that I normally beat with ease. Because I had beat him before I thought it was going to be an easy match and I coasted. It almost cost me the match but it cost me two racquets instead.
When things did not go my way on the court I would get slightly upset and start yelling and slamming my racquet on the ground. A number of times my Mom threatened to yank me off the court if I continued to act like McEnroe. This usually worked and I would stop the theatrics. This time she was a little late in warning me. The first racquet broke after I slammed it into the court.
I did not know it was broken until I tried to serve and then I heard this cracking sound. I looked at my Prince Response and saw it almost folded in half. My Mom did not say anything because she figured I would learn my lesson after breaking a $150 racquet. I didn’t learn because I had another one. Later in the match I got irritated again that I was not blowning my opponent off the court. After another missed shot the replacement racquet got slammed in the ground. This time there was no need to even look at you could hear the crack on all the courts (yeah I made quite the spectacle). My Mom had enough she walked over to the fence and told me if I did not straighten up she would yank me off the court and I would forfeit the match, a match that I was winning quite handily. I got my act together and went on to win the match and the tournament.
After the summer my interest in tennis began to wane. I play on occasion with my wife (she crushes me) and I can still do great imitations of Boris Becker and John McEnroe’s serve but I am sure tennis courts and racquets everywhere breathed a sigh of relief when I hung it up for good my sophomore year in high school.
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