Having spent the past several years in a (to-my-knowledge) unique configuration of jobs, working simultaneously as a high school tennis coach and a local newspaper sportswriter, I have unavoidably developed a distinct perspective on the field.

Story after story coming through our newsroom has drawn my attention to the unhealthy cultures permeating many sports — perhaps none more than football, which occupies an exalted space in the public consciousness of the 21st-century United States.  When these chronicles of degeneracy are discussed at our sports desk, I will inevitably spy an opportunity to turn the conversation in one very particular direction.

“Now, suppose that we were instead to invest in a sport with a worthier culture — for example, tennis…” I might say, tongue half-in-cheek.

Sadly, I have yet to convince the Tribune to convert its football beat writer positions into tennis-oriented equivalents, or replace its regular NFL pages with ATP roundups.  Nonetheless, to be a Don Quixote on behalf of my chosen sport would be an honor, and I intend through this piece to sally forth in that direction.

Baked-in goodness

In many sports, overtly uncivil and abusive behavior from athletes, coaches, and spectators alike has become a regular and more-or-less accepted feature of press conferences, games, and public discourse.  This is, of course, reflective of the times we live in more broadly, which have seen the basic societal ethos of decency stripped away.

It is in no small part thanks to this deeply bipartisan (or in another sense, deeply partisan) turn toward overt nastiness that society now exists in such a degree of tension that fears of mass violence attend one public event after another.  Across the sociopolitical spectrum, there has been a palpable loss of the fundamental sense that people “on the other team” are still people, inherently valuable and worthy by default of being treated at least with simple decorum.

Sports may not be the primary source of this disconcerting trend, but I believe they can help point the way toward reversing it, for many people develop and reinforce key values and attitudes through athletic participation.  Where other sports can regrettably play into the bleak societal current, tennis is famously a gentleman’s (and ladies’) game, coming with baked-in standards to keep it so.

Consider: 

Spectators in attendance at a basketball game are often encouraged by screen graphics and cheerleaders to drum up distracting noise as a visiting team’s player attempts free throws, and the worst misses are celebrated with chants of “AIR BALL! AIR BALL! AIR BALL!”  By contrast, in tennis, there is a prohibition against distracting noises as a player is preparing to serve, and an expectation that cheering will be reserved for quality shots and rallies, rather than unforced errors committed by one’s disfavored player or team.

Tennis, in other words, recognizes that while one (or the object of one’s support) may be striving against a given opponent, that other person is also worthy of respect, and greater excellence is the thing to strive toward and celebrate, not another’s failure.  I would like to posit that people taught this ethos in the course of their athletic participation will also find themselves more inclined to apply it in other parts of their lives.

Tennis and health

The Copenhagen City Heart Study, one of the largest covering the health upsides of athletic participation, conducted from 1991-2017 and published by the Mayo Clinic, found tennis to be the single most beneficial sport. Study subjects who kept up a regular tennis hobby lived an average of 9.7 years longer than sedentary people with otherwise-comparable lifestyles. 

Tennis exists in a sort of sweet-spot whereby it is substantive-enough exercise to burn meaningful calories and strengthen hearts and lungs, but not especially likely to result in concussions or other physical trauma.  Moreover, it is known as a lifetime sport; many players get their start as schoolchildren and stick with the game well into old age (as I hope those who’ve come through my program at Pullman High School will do). The Copenhagen study authors also speculated that the “social interaction” inherent in the game (generally distinctly positive in tone, as discussed above) had a hand in boosting the mental well-being of their subjects.

Should clout not be mustered on behalf of a game this measurably beneficent? Is there a better objective case that a game should be enfranchised, bankrolled, raised up to the youth as something to aspire toward involvement in?

Entertainment value?

There may also be those who say that everything I have written above is well-and-good, but that there is simply no expecting people to embrace a game they might just find boring.  To that, I respond that for someone who lacks insight into the nuances of the sport or knowledge of the scoring system, a football or baseball game may also appear dull (and, in certain cases, perhaps it is); certainly a typical game in either of those sports is liable to include only a handful of truly spectacular plays over an hours-long duration.

Once a basic knowledge of the game has been established, tennis is, in my opinion, one of the most fundamentally entertaining sports.  A good match will feature literally dozens of highlight-worthy rallies, often involving players covering all the lengths of the court and exploring a variety of tactics (attacking or defending from the baseline; rushing the net; alternating between power and finesse; etc.).  The scoring system, admittedly somewhat-confusing-at-first though it may be, can add to the edge-of-your-seat quality of a match, as it creates high-stakes pressure points and keeps the potential for comebacks alive past the stage they might have become implausible in a spot with a flatly cumulative score rather than a “Game, set, match” system.

I suppose these last couple paragraphs have been a long-winded way of saying, “Give it a chance.”

The specter of pickleball

Mind you, discussion of tennis in the present day all-too-often turns to its young relative, pickleball, which has itself been a notably fast-growing sport in recent years. Should I step aside in favor of what some have proclaimed as the wave of the future in net sports, or denounce it as a passing fad? 

To my mind, the 78 x 27-foot court across which strokes may be fired at blinding speeds (with the fastest professional serves exceeding 150 miles per hour) mark tennis as a worthier athletic pursuit and tennis matches a higher drama than pickleball, played on a 44 x 20-foot court with wiffleballs.

I confess that in my less-charitable moments, I have regarded pickleball as a sort of invasive species, encroaching on our territory and sapping our resources (as with some public tennis courts converted into pickleball courts). That said, I suppose that were pickleball to settle into a role primarily as a game for aged tennis players to graduate to, I could accept it as a benign companion — never a replacement.

Concluding thoughts

Of course, some might argue that in calling for tennis to take its place among the pantheon of mainstream sports, I am being insufficiently careful-what-I-wish-for. Would the rise of tennis truly have a positive influence on society, or would society’s rottenness infect tennis, causing it to lose some of the very qualities for which I have herein praised it? As more people took up the game, some bringing preexisting attitudes at odds with those it is known for, would we find on-court brawls and tennis riots becoming heard-of phenomena, and see the cherished code of conduct thrown by the wayside?

I would surely not presume to have definitive answers to these questions. We live in a profoundly complex world where influences flow between and mix with one another in ways that are often at-best dimly foreseeable. Regardless, quixotic though this pitch may be, I feel that letting tennis take its turn at the cultural helm could hardly steer that ship further astray.

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