Chapter Two: Widening Our Nets

I tried to play football in middle school. Disastrous describes it most accurately, painful would be a close second. Once, when attempting a tackle on our man-child running back in practice, I caught my middle finger in the netting of his practice jersey and he dragged me 15 yards, by my finger, right into the end zone. I was terrible.

Well, I could memorize plays well, so all wasn't lost. But fourth-string quarterback of a 7th grade team isn't that illustrious of a position. So my dreams of football died quickly. By 8th grade I had decided to play tennis in high school.

My high school tennis coach, Tony Wright, was a self-taught lover of the game. He never played growing up, but learned the game as an adult and started the tennis program at Angola High School in the early 70's or late 60's when he started teaching Chemistry there. He had passion for the game.

Late in my career at Angola High School, Tony started letting me take control of the varsity singles players during our practice. This experience was a blast for me (although I do wonder how effective I was as a 18-year old coach). But I loved the game, and I passed that on to my younger brother. He eventually became a better player than me, majored in Sports Management at Taylor University, and began to help manage a tennis club in Greentown.

I went to college, and my coach, Stan King, introduced me to a whole host of new tennis players. Amadeo Marino, an Argentine with a fiery temper. Andrew Lanctot, a laid-back and cerebral player who won consistently against those more "physically" talented. I learned to know some of my opponents well: Matt Taylor, the coach's son from Taylor University, was my favorite because he was a serve and volleyer like my dear Pete Sampras!

Upon graduation, I met Dan Bodiker. He had called the college looking for a tennis coach and gotten my name from Stan King. He then called my uncle, who had attended Bethany and played soccer for Bod, to learn more about me before interviewing me for the job. When I showed up to interview, Bod had all the players sitting on the curb outside the gym to meet me. Before asking one question, he introduced me to "my" team.

Throughout the years, I've grown into a tennis scene, meeting more and more people. As my brother went to Taylor, I met his teammates and friends. As I coached, I began to know more of the opposing coaches, gained respect for many of them. Soon, players I played against in college were coaching against me at schools like Bremen, Goshen, Penn, and then Northridge. The network of people I knew kept widening and widening.

And this season, those nets came back to support us in a big way. When we needed a sign-off for Nate Brendle's transfer, I was able to talk to Evan Atkinson, Nate's coach at Northridge and an usher at my brother's wedding, and let him know that Nate wasn't transferring for tennis reasons but academic instead.

When we needed help at tennis camp, instruction and another pair of eyes to run drills, who was able but my brother himself. And where did we hold tennis camp? With who's permission? Well, my old tennis coach Tony Wright made the Angola courts available for us, while we were able to stay at my old church for lodging!

And when we needed an assistant coach for the season, I dropped back into the nets of relationships that I've formed over the years and asked Michael Steury, one of our former players, to come back and help out.

We're not even getting into the new relationships that got formed this year. Nate's transfer introduced us to his whole family, and their generosity and hospitality as his mom became the "team mom" for the year, organizing meals and all sorts of other things. And as new freshman joined as well, all new tennis families were able to jump into our widening nets.

This is one vision that I've always had for Bethany tennis, and I felt it more than ever this year. I desire us to be a family, one with wide arms embracing all the different relationships we have. From players to parents to opponents and opposing coaches, I want everyone to feel welcome and respected when they think of us. In turn, the love flows both ways, and we reaped the benefit this year in major ways.

And I like to think that we paid it forward as well, traveling over to the Regional to support the Falcons of Fairfield in their ultimately successful quest for a Regional title. Matt Ebersole was a loud cheerleader for the team that vanquished him, making friends with his opponents parents and sitting right in the front row as they clinched a Regional championship. I know that's jumping to the end of the story, but relationships were the things that set the story up in the first place.

From Tony Wright to my brother to my players to our parents, we received so much support from our "nets" this season. That was awesome, because we needed it.