It was not a sport I grew up with, being well beyond the finances of my struggling family back in the Bronx.  And there were not many tennis courts anyway in those crowded neighborhoods.  I accommodated myself early to the three working-class sports that we could afford — baseball, basketball, and football — and so knew nothing of tennis.  

The first inkling of my abiding ignorance occurred watching my son on the Junior Varsity team at the Jasper High School.  The system and language of keeping score and determining winners were, I thought, inscrutable, and I spent the first couple of years bridging the chasms in my grasp of the sport.  I soon learned of singles, doubles, ones, twos, and the bizarre scoring method: "love" (for zero), fifteen, thirty, and forty (points one through three), "deuce," "set point," tie-breaker, and so on — all quite alien to someone who grew up knowing only of the New York Yankees and the peculiar traditions of our national pastime.

There were also tennis lessons, which seemed interminable.  In baseball, football, or basketball, one didn't have "lessons"; rather, one just played.  Not so tennis.  In this sport, lessons apparently are required if one wants to be "good."  With the year-round lessons and tournament, the time requirements were not insubstantial.  My weekends no longer belonged to me, nor my summers.  And if one's children were also involved in marching band, well then there was no such thing as a free weekend or summer — ever.

There was the "tennis family": the other boys, the coaches, parents, and their families.  This, too, was novel.  Overnight, I grew a much larger family.  We saw each other regularly, especially during the season.  This became the family of my son, too.  He swore fealty and allegiance to them.

The physical training requirements of tennis were significant.  Cardiovascular fitness was a must if one were to endure those long, grueling matches.  Especially singles.  Tennis was demanding not just in terms of skill, nuance, and artistry, but equally in stamina, quickness, and power.  And so I observed a pudgy kid become lean, swift, and very strong.  

There was also the crucial element of will.  In all of sports, there was, I thought, nothing as punishing as singles tennis; facing one another across that vast, green expanse, the two young gladiators thrashing one another remorselessly, each swing a titanic effort, pouring their full measure into the return, struggling savagely even for a single point.  Here I watched an often distracted child become focused, intense, and able to muster great force of will and determination.

It was not my choice, tennis.  I had preferred baseball.  My sport. And he had earlier shown much promise.  Furthermore, he was a switch hitter, like Mickey Mantle, my boyhood idol, whom I had watched as a boy at Yankee Stadium.  Baseball to me was life itself, and so it seemed for him.  But in the end, he chose tennis.  At the time, I was disappointed, but on this, it turned out, his instincts were correct.

The early-morning matches in late summer and early fall were spectacular.  There were the warm-ups, announcements, introductions, and anthem, which were stirring.  Before us, then, appeared the broad savannahs of sparkling, emerald courts, marked off in white, the braided nets rimmed in ivory, the black and red score cards, which we watched breathlessly to determine who was ahead — so splendid a meadow, as I had never beheld, all residing beneath a canopy of blue and an ascending sun, radiant like a medallion.  Here young men battled, with honor and mastery — the pride of their families and schools, the best of their year.  Yes, these were sublime moments.

Then came the sectionals, regionals, semi-state, and state, in Indianapolis.  There was a separate track for One Singles and One Doubles, and my young ward and his neighbor represented our school and community with passion and flair, falling in the end only to mighty Carmel, finishing at number two in the state.  Yes, a regret for them, but for me an accomplishment that ranks among my most cherished memories.  

Tennis is an elite sport, a bracing yet gentlemanly form of competition that, perhaps more than any other, is won or lost as much in the minds of the players as on the field.  It requires fanatical focus, intensity, and drive, and on the court, particularly for singles, it is based squarely on the individual.  It is competition at its most elevated, sport at its most ideal, transcendent and exacting, equally athletic and cerebral.  

Like any great endeavor, it stands on a platform of strong families, personal responsibility, discipline, and initiative.  It is a microcosm of what is good in our fair city, of its strong values and local institutions.   

I salute our school, its students, coaches, and faculty, its traditions and history, and the many opportunities it provides for our sons and daughters to mature, succeed, and become leaders. 

Dr. Richard Moss is a board-certified head and neck cancer surgeon practicing in Jasper, Indiana for more than 30 years.  He was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018.  He has written A Surgeon's Odyssey and Matilda's Triumph, available at amazon.com.  Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, GAB, Gettr, Truth Social, and Instagram.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.