What a racket!

#MoreThanAGame

I became a tennis player out of necessity.

I was, when growing up, what was then called a tomboy. I just had great athletic skills; didn’t matter the sport.

I also was blessed with the best backyard in the neighborhood to stage games, which guaranteed acceptance into those games, mainly baseball and kickball.

But there came a time in second grade at school when the boys stopped letting me play. To console myself, I went off in the opposite direction of the kickball field and started honing my throwing skill by throwing rocks. This was a big no-no.

The school, not wont to have kids throwing rocks, told my parents, who took me to a psychologist or psychiatrist; all I remember is looking at inkblots and then somehow coming out of the session with my parents finding out that the rock throwing was because the boys had stopped letting me play. It had been frustrating. (Remember that.)

That’s when I turned to tennis. You didn’t need a lot of people to play tennis. You didn’t even really need two people. I got a racket and I bounced a ball and I hit it against a wall — day after day after day. I taught myself how to play. Not too surprisingly, I was pretty good at it too. So good that my parents signed me up for the Pauline Betz Addie-Chuck Taylor tennis camp one summer, held on the grounds of what now is the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., where the children of famous politicians attend, including Malia and Sasha Obama.

I lived in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., so a counselor would drive out each weekday morning and pick me up — in a glorious Thunderbird, top down! What a breeze! It was about a 45-minute drive downtown to the camp.

The campers were divided into four groups: 1, for the least experienced players, up to 4, the most experienced. I started out in group 2, and I was OK with that. It seemed to be the right level.

We started every morning doing calisthenics — that is, most of us would do calisthenics, but not Nicky Vanocur, the son of then-NBC newsman Sander Vanocur. Nicky would show up every day in a stretch black limousine, conveniently timed to arrive just after calisthenics had ended.

It was a four-week camp, and the first week went exceedingly well. I was having a lot of fun. But for some reason that I don’t remember, in the second week I was dropped to group 1, the least experienced group, which included … Nicky Vanocur. I was really upset, because these were the younger kids and I was better than them. I just didn’t understand what was happening. It was frustrating. (Ring a bell?)

But I was looking forward to the third week, because that is when Pauline Betz Addie — a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, including 1946 at Wimbledon, married to Washington Post sports columnist Bob Addie — was going to show up and rate some of the players to find out who had special talent. Everyone was excited about it. Trouble was, the morning she was coming, I had an orthodontist appointment, and I couldn’t persuade my mother to change it. What a missed opportunity!

I arrived at camp shortly after my group had been assessed. But unbeknownst to me, the camp seemed to be aware I had missed out and arranged a one-on-one session with Mrs. Addie. I was so happy!

The next day, when I got to camp, I was no longer in group 1. I was not returning to group 2. I had been jumped to group 3! I was overjoyed; someone had recognized my skill! It was fantastic!

Until it wasn’t.

When I was in group 1, I had been the oldest, but in group 3, I was the youngest. I was 10 at the time, and everyone else was 12, 13 or 14. When we would get on the court, they were more interested in socializing, while I was really into the tennis, pure and simple. It felt like once again, I was being locked out. The others were more interested in flirting and talking amongst each other. We played a lot of doubles, and I remember being frustrated — there’s that word again — because I would be waiting for someone to serve, and they would just be chattering away about something.

One day, it got to be too much. I was so upset waiting around for a ball to be served that I took my racket and smashed it into the ground. This was the tennis racket that my mother had gotten as a present from her favorite aunt. It was a Spalding Pancho Gonzales wood racket, with a press, which was needed in those days to keep the wood from warping. It was named for Richard “Pancho” Gonzales, a charismatic two-time U.S. National tennis champion.

It was a beautiful instrument — and I smashed it to smithereens. On the ride home that day, I begged and pleaded with the counselor not to tell my mother what had happened. So instead, he told her that the racket had broken when I went to hit a ball in play. I just couldn’t face up to telling my mom the truth; I was so ashamed. I loved that racket, and I knew it held sentimental value for her. I had lost control, and now it was no more.

I kept up with tennis after that summer and eventually played No. 1 singles on my high school and college teams. These were the days before athletic scholarships for women. I played intercollegiately, just not on scholarship. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it immensely, and I played tennis throughout my adult life.

At some point, though, it kept nagging at me that I needed to do one thing. I kept putting it off and putting it off, until finally, in my mid-40s, I got up the courage to tell my mother how her racket really had been broken. She laughed it off; she couldn’t believe that I had kept it a secret for so many years. A huge burden of guilt was lifted from my shoulders when I told her, but I still wasn’t wholly satisfied with myself.

I can only imagine what that Pancho Gonzales tennis racket would be worth today. Not so much in terms of money — you can find it on ebay for $42.99, with press! — but in terms of what it represented to me. That racket had been my gateway into keeping up with sports, even if I couldn’t play with the others anymore.

Today, I don’t think many people even realize that there was such a thing as a wooden tennis racket; everything now is the latest in graphite or aluminum, even kevlar. But in my memory bank there will never be anything sweeter than the sound of hitting a tennis ball with that Pancho Gonzales wood racket.