Fiend at Court Unplugged
The USTA is in the midst of a restructuring effort that has been accelerated due to financial strains brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic. Currently the USTA is re-imagining the structure of the organization to get closer to players at the local level. The restructuring of the USTA was previously covered in “Job Cuts at the USTA.”
I continue to slog through the USTA history book penned by Warren Kimball. In related news, I have decided to henceforth refer to that book by the subtitle “Raising the Game.” This is necessary because I want to avoid typing the full “United States Tennis Association” every time I refer to it. I want to believe that this decision is to improve the clarity of my writing. To be transparent, there might be a little bit of laziness factor also in play.
In “Raising the Game” Kimball writes about the explosive growth in USTA membership during the “seventies boom” between 1972 and 1983. USTA leagues were demonstrably the primary driver of the growth. What is astonishing about this expansion is that league play was driven from the grassroots up primarily via a nationwide network of volunteers.
The creation of the NTRP ratings system and guidance on how to conduct leagues came from the USTA Education and Research Office. However, the USTA did not embrace or promote the league initiative at the national level until after that growth had effectively already transpired. In 1980 the USTA belatedly acknowledged league play as a potential membership driver with a mention in the organization’s official magazine.
Putting some numbers behind it, individual memberships in the USTA became a thing in 1958. Before that time period, clubs joined the USTA rather than people. In the first year of individual memberships, the numbers for juniors greatly exceeded those for adults.
Between 1978 and 1980 the numbers of adults and juniors ran roughly even. In 1981 adult memberships pulled ahead of juniors by 10,000. By 1992 there were 291,000 adults and 165,000 juniors with active USTA memberships. Participation in tournaments does not even begin to touch these numbers. The growth was clearly driven by league participation.
So who were these volunteers that drove the explosive boom in USTA membership? The modern manifestation of this is the USTA Community Tennis Association (CTA) system. These are the organizations that ultimately conduct, organize, and promote tennis events and development programs at the local level. If you are playing in a USTA league, it is probably sponsored by a CTA.
I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between the USTA national office, the individual USTA sections, the local CTAs, and the local league players. As the USTA us re-imagining the structure of the organization to get closer to players at the local level, I am doing the same thing at the grassroots level looking from the bottom up.
Declining numbers is a very real problem for the USTA. In addition to the immediate financial crisis that COVID-19 has imposed, I am deeply concerned that the downstream effects will continue to have a depressive effect on play which was already in decline.
When I was 17 and I walked away from tennis forever… forever turning out to only be 28 years, I would not have cared. As a seasoned adult once again embracing the game that I love, I am deeply concerned. As an engineer I have an insatiable desire to try to fix it. Engineers are like that.
I do not harbor the illusion that I have all the answers. At the same time, I do think that my life experience gives me a unique perspective that can bring some value to the conversation. I know that not everyone will agree with me or have the same perspectives. It is more important to have a critical discussion than agreement in an echo chamber.
The umpire who gave birth to me was a stellar example of a grassroots volunteer who enthusiastically enabled the explosive growth in tennis. It is a understatement to say that my mom was an active and engaged volunteer. To put some perspective on it, she was the Texas Section office volunteer of the year back in the early 90s. It takes a little more than showing up at a tournament desk once or twice to gain that recognition.
As a former player returning fully to the sport, it is apparent that a lot has changed in the interim. In may ways I feel like an outsider looking in and up from the grassroots level. On the other hand, I know a lot about the heyday of the USTA and the machinations of the section office and CTA organizations.
I don’t want to tell anyone how to run their house. On the other hand, this is the house I grew up in, both figuratively and literally. It would pain me to see it slide into full disrepair.
- Kimball, Warren F. (2017) The United States Tennis Association: Raising the Game, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska.
- Community Tennis Associations, What is a CTA?, https://www.usta.com/en/home/organize/partner-organizations/national/what-is-a-cta-.html viewed July 2, 2020.
