Fiend at Court Unplugged
The most absurd thing I have ever encountered while pitching in to dry a tennis court occurred a couple of years ago at a USTA League Sectional Championship event. As I was picking up a court drying implement, I was accosted by a woman who attempted to prevent me from using it. It was the first and the only time in my life that I can remember being discouraged from helping out with a wet court.
The details make the story even more bizarre. The device that I had picked up was a “Rain Shuttle” device, which is essentially a large curved squeegee blade with a handle. The operation of that tool is slightly more complicated than the more ubiquitous foam rollers. When used correctly, a Rain Shuttle is very effective for spreading out large puddles, which was exactly the target of my endeavors.
My initial assumption was that the woman was unfamiliar with the device so I played off her command by indicating that I wanted to give it a try anyway. She doubled down on the prohibition, tacking on “I am from the Section Office” to the assertion that the device was broken. By that time I was adjacent to a puddle, so I just ignored her. It worked fine. The woman stomped away.
The episode gave me a lot to ponder in retrospect. First, I have no idea if this person was actually with the Section Office or not. She was not one of the Section Office staff that I recognize by sight. She was not wearing an umpires uniform or any visible identification. Claiming to be with the Section Office does not necessarily make that a fact. Clearly other things in her exhortations were demonstrably false.
At the time, it made me wonder. Is there some special court drying knowledge that is imparted when joining the Section Office? Why in the world would anyone think that being with the Section Office in any capacity provided them with superiors insight on court drying? Is there a training class? Can I get access to this training class?
I can think of very few instances when it is appropriate to prohibit someone from helping dry a court. One of these would be lightning. Another would be if the drying activity itself would be potentially damaging to the court. (“Please put the flame thrower away!”) The third is if there was a safety concern. None of those were in play in this situation.
In Texas, it is virtually impossible to reschedule the League Sectional Championships. In this case, there were literally no open weekends between that event and nationals available to hold a make up event. When that happens, the berths to the National Championships are decided by lottery. I know that for a fact because that is exactly what happened at that event. On Sunday, the championships were declared to be a wash out. A witnessed drawing was conducted the following week… at the Section Office.
This leads me to an alternate theory on why someone would discourage a person from picking up a squeegee at a League Sectionals Championship. As a bonus, this idea is equal parts plausible and crazy.
For some teams, advancement to Nationals is the ultimate objective. A complete rain out is in the vested interest of any team without a realistic chance of advancing to nationals. In some cases, winning a drawing is more probable than winning with the racquet.
In other words, put down that squeegee.
I warned you in the headline. It’s a crazy story.
