I left the window open last night and the air was fresh and clean, out in the halls though, it was choas as new campers scrambled to get ready for breakfast. I could hear Mr. B. out in the hallway talking to campers, one kid asking if he could call home. Three, two, one…knock at the door; Mr. B. is standing there with a homesick 9 year old. I take the kid to breakfast dropping him off at a table of 9 and 10 year olds and the problem is solved. Later in the day I ask him if he wants to call home, “what for?” definitely, end of problem.
Mr. B welcomed all the kids to camp in his talk and then lapsed into a long talk about how this isn’t all about tennis. The kids are here because their parents love them and want a life for them that will challenge them, and sharpen them for the world. That tennis is a great way to connect with good, talented people, that tennis is a sport you can do for a lifetime, and perhaps the most interesting point: For the most part one cannot play a perfect match of tennis, just as one cannot have a perfect life, that once you think you have either mastered; it caves in on you. You can get frustrated and quit, or you can get up and find a way to win. One can pursue the perfect set and might come close …but odds are there’ll always be a mistake, a ball in the net, a missed serve, a ball hit out. He talked about how this game mirrors life, that life can knock us on the seat of our pants, but we must compete to live and while things may look perfect it seldom is, but to strive for perfection, strive to be the best person you can, to practice and work at it; is noble…and he called tennis a very noble game.
I watched the kids during the talk, they sit on the baseline and they draw and play in the green clay as Mr. B talks, you can see the wheels turning in their minds. When FXB talks its silent and his voice booms over the lower courts all the way to the cornfields across the street. I remember once in the first session I overheard a little 10-year old say that Mr. B’s stories were better than TV and that reinforces a thought that I had, that his talks are so visual and so real that you think it happened to you, that’s the mark of good storyteller.
We started video taping the kids on the expensive sony reel to reel video deck. We have a machine just like this at Idaho State and they are the best and the most expensive, I think our department paid 3500.00 for ours…Mike Kunz and I give the gear the white glove treatment, we’re the only ones that can touch it.
After feeding for an hour I got to go up on the balcony with FXB. We were shooting these girls from Tappan that Mr. B teaches during the year…Dunja and Randi Henrichs. He was talking about how talented Dunja was, she has beautiful strokes, kind of a tomboy, and then he lapsed into this story about BJK.
Mr. B told me than in the summer of 1959 he went to the Eastern Grass Court Championships where this 16 year old kid from Long Beach was up against Wimbledon champ Maria Bueno. He said that this little girl with cat eye glasses stood barely 5’6 and had as he described it 'more freckles than fear'. FXB said she did the unimaginable, she took hold of the match and that from the start he saw something special in the kid. Instead of being intimidated against the number one player in the world, that this Moffit girl walked on the court like she was going to win. He said that she attacked so well that it put the champ on her heels. He said that in the end Bueno had to change her game and attack to pull it out but the match was the talk of tennis that summer. Afterwards he talked to Billie and said she was red faced and mad and he was impressed with her fire. He said that he introduced himself and told her that one day she was going to be good, and that with some work she can beat anyone. They struck up a friendship and Billie started staying with Brennans every summer. FXB said they would pack up the station wagon and coach Billie through the summer circuit. He said that she so fit into the big Brennan clan that she was dubbed the 10th kid. Just three years later she beat Margaret Smith in the first round of Wimbledon.
Terence had a good day at camp, I couldn’t help but notice his Fred Perry shirt with the BJK monogram on it, further evidence of the days when women players won clothes instead of money. Just like I asked Coleen Brennan during adult camp, I asked Terence is there a lot of Fred Perry stuff at the house? Terence said a closet full. BJK fought for the money, could careless about the clothes.
We got through the taping and then broke for lunch. It was a good lunch day…pizza and the kids were excited. Some were impressed with the fact that they could drink as much chocolate milk as they want and glasses were stacked up.
I sat with the camper Jon Mudd that I met the day before, he’s a junior in High School, He is tall and decked out in Fila Bjorn Borg stuff, he has a Donnay racquet and even the headband. The first thing I noticed about him is that this guy is a comedian. He had me laughing the whole time with his impressions and jokes. On tape he has excellent ground strokes and can hold his own with the best tennis players in camp, he’s a good athlete.
At 4 I played Mark Sanderson and beat him 6-4. I decided to hit off pace balls at him…he’s a power hitter and that screwed up his timing. He went back to the room because he was tired, I stayed and then hit with Pat Rountree, who is hitting very well.
I helped Pat with court duty and we brushed the courts, dragging the long brooms from end to end and then we turned on the sprinklers and sat on the balcony at sunset until the puddles started to form. We talked about her family in Toronto and her studies at York. She told me about their cabin up north on the Georgian Bay and how she usually spends her summers up there. I told her that I had met Peter Burwash a few times, he’s a famous coach that has a camp at Parry Sound. She was acquainted with him, the tennis world is so small. What a great gal.
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