When the USTA unveiled the NTRP League program in 1980, growth was initially slow. Some of the reasons for that were enumerated in yesterday’s post. In his excellent book on the history of Tennis in Texas, “Cattle to Courts,” Ken McAllister, described how the leadership in USTA Texas was initially apathetic about the new format of play. Given the success of League play in the interim, that might seem surprising.
I was an active Junior player in the 1980’s when the USTA League format was initially unveiled. At the time, if you weren’t playing tournaments you were simply not a serious tennis player. In fact, to this very day, I object to being characterized as a “club player” because that is what we called people who didn’t regularly play in USTA sanctioned tournaments. The phrase still holds derogatory connotations to me galvanized from those formative years of my tennis life.
In his book, McAllister describes similar attitudes within the USTA Texas leadership. When describing the implicit bias toward the superiority of tournaments, the words “old guard” and “conservatives” are used. Yeah, that’s me… at least when it comes to tennis. In fact, this passage in McAllister’s book, led me to a startling moment of self-realization.
I hung up my racquets when I aged out of juniors in 1985. 28 years passed before I re-engaged with the competitive tennis ecosystem. This essentially puts my own tennis spin on the story of Rip Van Winkle. I was plopped down with conservative old guard attitudes about tennis into a world where USTA League was the dominant form of tennis engagement. It took quite a while to restore my bearings.
Against the present reality where tournaments have been driven to the precipice of extinction, McAllister’s account becomes a tragic saga. According to Cattle to Courts, the accessibility and convenience of League play were the arguments that ultimately prevailed. The old guard conservatives became convinced that the strategic priorities of tennis needed to change.
That is how League play became the top objective for the USTA. Building Community Tennis Associations (CTAs) were an interrelated close second. Tournaments brought up the rear, almost as an afterthought. In fact, if you examine that list, it isn’t really strategies, but rather tennis delivery mechanisms.
True strategy is how those three things work together to maximize the value of the tennis ecosystem. There is still time to fix those years of neglect, but probably not for long.
- Cattle to Courts: A History of Tennis in Texas, Ken McAllister, 2019, pages 16-18.
