I thought carefully of who would be the recipient of my letter, and without any hesitation I decided upon my high school tennis coach. Immediately as I gently placed the pen on the pristine paper the words began to flow with ease. They came from my heart and not my brain, I guess that prompted the ease of it all. You see this all started way before high school, and greatly impacted my life. I was about seven or eight years old, and often had to wait in the 1966 Mustang until my mother was out of work. I quickly finished my homework, sat in the driver's seat and imagined driving to far away places and meeting the most fascinating of people. I quickly grew bored and began to explore around the area. The tennis courts were close by and I ventured in that direction. I hid under the bleachers and watched day after day. Finally, the coach asked me if I wanted to give it a try, I shyly wandered out and explained that I did not have a racket. He was quick to give me a large smile and hand me his. The high school kids let me play with them and of course to do so I picked up balls ,but I did not mind, I was hooked. I looked up to those kids and wanted to be just like them, well actually I wanted to be better. The coach spent many hours teaching me the skills, and telling me about his life. Eventually, my sisters made it out there, and it became a family thing. My parents could see that we were pretty good and began to take us to tournaments. The coach still spent many hours with us all, and with each child in our family he gave great care and encouragement. We went on to play college tennis, our tuition paid for, which definitely made life easier on our parents. Because this man took the time to talk to a shy little girl, because he believed in her, and gave of his time, I feel that I am who I am today because of it. My family was a cohesive unit because of tennis, and I learned to be a better teacher because of him. Thank you and much love to you Bill!
D
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