This spring, the Gainesville Area Community Tennis Association (GACTA) sponsored the ninth season of its no-cut GACTA Middle School Tennis league, which provided 140 local middle school students, from beginner to advanced players, an opportunity to play tennis in a team format for their middle school. For the first time in its history, the Oak Hall middle school team (Chris McDonald coach, Rose Pickens, parent-coordinator), captured the league championship. Jordan Glen School, (Dave Porter coach, Nicole Christie, parent-coordinator), finished in second place.
“The GACTA middle school league could not exist without the hard work of volunteer parent coordinators,” commented Anne Koterba, board president of GACTA and long-time coordinator of the middle school tennis program. “They recruit players in a grass-roots fashion, organize players (the “no-cut” policy allows for large teams) for each weekly match, and work with other parent-coordinators to provide the best match experience for the players.” This year, eight public and private middle schools participated in the program: Jordan Glen, Oak Hall School, Oak View, Westwood, Kanapaha, Lincoln, Fort Clarke, and Howard Bishop Middle Schools.
The GACTA middle school tennis program is sustainable because the hard costs are covered by a modest participation fee, local private and public tennis facilities generously provide teaching pros for practices and courts for matches, and parents provide a great deal of volunteer help. The participation fee also generates enough revenue to provide scholarships for students from low-income families, as well as support GACTA’s Aces in Motion tennis outreach program for at-risk youth. Currently low-income students constitute around 10% of the league’s players.
The no-cut feature of the program allows even true beginners, who may never have played tennis before, to experience match play. “We really want the kids to have fun playing for their school, no matter what their level of experience”, said Addison Staples, Executive Director of GACTA. “That’s what this program is really about,” Koterba said. “We just want kids of all backgrounds realize how enjoyable the game of tennis can be, so they will want to go out and play. Although tennis can be an individual sport, we like to emphasize that it can be a great team sport as well, whether playing for your school’s team or playing as a doubles team.”
This year, the Jonesville Tennis Center (JTC), Joyce Oransky Tennis Center, (operated by USTA Florida), Oak Hall School, and the Haile Plantation Golf and Country Club provided courts for match play for the middle school league, and all of these facilities, as well as the 300 Club, “adopted” teams for practices.
For more information on GACTA’s programs, please see www.gainesvilletennis.org or go to Gainesville Tennis or Aces in Motion on Facebook.
