After open heart surgery, two back surgeries, and a hip replacement, I
was beginning to get straightened out (2001).
My good friend Athletic Director Alan White called me into his office,“Tom, you’re looking much better, and by the way you’re adding the
women’s team to your job next fall.”
Good friend, did I say? Actually I’ve taught women or girls all my career.
The tennis boom (late ’60s) hit when I first started teaching and in Wilson,
North Carolina, alone I taught three generations of girls, women, mammas,
and grandmas. But I’d never coached the college women’s team.
Thirty-seven years of men’s tennis, now they let me coach the girls. What
bothered me wasn’t all I’d observed about the women. (There are some
“horror” stories out there). It was coaching two teams at once. I later said
you had to have a M.W.A. degree to do it (Management While
Wandering Around).