How I started tennis
Being single at 30 is when people start questioning you. It's also when shit starts to get real. You're not old per se, but you're not young either. At 30, I had just moved back with my parents after running out of money in Oregon and finishing my master's degree at the University of Oregon. But more than money, I ran out of hopes and dreams. The visions of being famous, rich, or at least married with two kids working a meaningless desk job disappeared. I moved to San Francisco when I was 22 with dreams of finding myself. And to an extent, I did, only that guy hadn't really done much other than contemplate his own life, which was now heading back to where it started. I wasn't down or depressed, though.
I just didn't have a vision.
To me, vision is when you wake up in the morning before the alarm clock. It's a fire inside, a passion, a love for something that excites you to take on the day. We all need a vision to survive the mundane, or the mundane will swallow you until you check out of this world quietly.
After moving back with my mother and her boyfriend in Levittown, New York, a place where vision is hard to find, I got a job at a digital advertising agency. A job is not a vision, though, even though many people will pretend they're excited to move around shapes on a screen or numbers on a spreadsheet.
But a job is a paycheck, and I took that money to get a studio in Bayside, Queens. An apartment complex called the Bay Club. A place I knew well because I grew up there. For years, my father had a place there when I was young. I would run around the hallways, and the doormen knew my name. When you have no vision, you often return to what you know because it's familiar and feels right. Sometimes, though, it is right.
Better to go where you know than where you shouldn't go at all.
I set up a desk, a mattress, a television, and a small painting of a bird. It was now home. I sat at that desk for almost 10 hours daily, talking to clients and colleagues about projects I didn't care about. Sometimes, a brand would come to us and demand a million digital clicks. When I asked them why, they said they needed to guarantee these numbers to their boss, but the real reason was that they also had no vision.
They were no different than me. Passing time and trying to pretend they had something to show for their effort.
So, one day, I walked downstairs and noticed three tennis courts sitting in my apartment complex. Nobody was on them but the sun. I walked on them and immediately felt something. It was the closest thing to a pulse I had felt since returning to New York. I immediately went on my phone and started looking up tennis lessons in Queens for adults. After several calls that led nowhere, I found a local company specializing in kids’ tennis lessons. A man named Walter picked up, and his passion for the game radiated through the telephone into my ear. I told him I was not a kid, but I needed tennis lessons. After about 10 minutes, I gave him my credit card number, and he said someone would meet me at the courts I was standing on the following Tuesday.
Then I waited till Tuesday. But there was a hint of sauce in my walk now. I had something on the calendar to look forward to. A touch of hope. And when Tuesday came, I turned my work notifications off and stormed to the tennis courts 20 minutes early to stretch. I didn't know what was about to happen or if anything would happen because it was now 5:10, ten minutes later than our scheduled lesson, and there was still no tennis coach in sight. I thought about quitting before I even started, and then my phone rang. It was the front gate of my apartment complex, and since no one ever came to visit me, I knew it had to be the tennis coach.
Rino was his name, and he taught me the game of tennis stroke by stroke: the forehand, the backhand, volleys, overheads, and finally, the serve, which I would practice by myself for hours in between meetings. I have since taken several tennis lessons here and there to hear a different voice or work on something specific, but no outsider has cared more than Rino. He gave all his neurons, like my girlfriend and I like to say.
A good coach doesn't have to be the best coach in the world. They just have to truly give a shit about you, have a good understanding of the game, and be able to communicate with you in a raw way.
The first coach I ever had was my father, and it wasn't for tennis, but I knew he cared about me, and we could go deep on subjects without any ego or distraction. He didn't have to tiptoe around the messages he wanted to convey, and because I knew his heart was in the right spot, I would listen.
He was our football team's coach once when I was 11, and we played the championship game against the best team in the league. I woke up cocky and began to talk about how many touchdowns I would score. He looked me in the eye and told me I needed to respect the game, appreciate the moment, and focus because it would be a miracle if we were to win. The team was better than us, a lot better than us, and he told me that when I was 11 years old. Instead of running around Cunningham Park like I ran the place, I was brought back to reality, which made me focus and breathe with a little more purpose, and I played the best game of the year. I only scored one touchdown, but it was the one we needed to win.
Rino told me I was a natural athlete and had a bright tennis future. After 10 weeks, our lessons were up, and he told me I didn't need him much anymore. Rino said, "Now it's time to go play."
Play matches, find hitting partners, enter tournaments—the game of tennis is meant to be played. A lot like life, people can get lost in a textbook. You can spend your life studying the Torah or Bible, but still be a mean spirit to the old lady next door who just wants someone to listen to her for a moment because she doesn't have anyone else.
I haven't stopped playing since, and I pray to God I never have to.