Not without a fight

For the next week, we will be featuring an honorable coach from a different sport each day. Today, read about how tennis' Rita Gladstone received the Volunteer Coach of the Year Award.

During the 2008-09 school year, the middle schools in Volusia County, Fla., needed to trim their budgets, so they decided to cut all after-school sports.

Then came Rita Gladstone, the  U.S. Olympic Committee's 2008 Volunteer Coach of the Year. With her leadership, 100 middle school students began a wildly successful after-school tennis program this spring without having to pay a thing.

"The program did not cost the school system a dime," said Doug Booth, the executive director for USTA Florida. "The parents drove the children, there were volunteer coaches at each school. The way we got the superintendent to sign off on it was to say that it will cost you nothing."

The program started with Gladstone, who organized the USTA planning, met with the principles and helped find volunteer coaches for each school. It ended with six weeks of team tennis competition, introducing the sport to many children while also encouraging current players to keep playing.

"It was so successful we had other counties coming to us wanting to institute the program in their counties," Booth said.

The program's success was no fluke. Gladstone has served as the Area League Coordinator for the USTA Junior Team Tennis program in Volusia County since 2003, where she took a program that was basically non-existent and created a program that has influenced hundreds of kids to play tennis.

"That program went from zilch to there's probably about 300 or 400 children playing now," Booth said. "The No. 1 thing is, she has a passion for tennis. She grew up playing tennis as a young player and knows the value of the sport and just has a passion for introducing that to young children. She wants all children to have an opportunity to try tennis and, if they enjoy it, to have an opportunity to play it."

And that is exactly what she has done, although the number of 5- to 17-year-olds who played Junior Team Tennis in Volusia County last year is more like 550, according to the USOC.

Gladstone has a more modest take on her success with that program, but she doesn't deny that she has a passion for the game.

She was a top junior tennis player growing up before playing a collegiate career at the University of South Carolina. After college, she even had a brief stint on the pro tour and a world ranking.

Now, her husband Andy is the coordinator of competitive tennis for USTA Florida and her kids Paul, 12, and Mira, 9, are active tennis players. Gladstone credits her family as being motivation to get involved and stay active in the Junior Team Tennis program and with tennis in general.

"We had just moved to the Daytona Beach area, my kids were younger at the time, they were 6 and 3, so I wanted to get involved in something that I could do and still be with them," Gladstone said. "And through my husband, they (USTA) were looking for someone to help organize the league and they had a new tennis facility where the matches could be played.

"Of course over the past few years as my kids have gotten older, I've kind of gotten involved in a couple different perspectives from a volunteer to a coordinator to a parent.  I think having both my kids in the program is motivation to wanting to keep seeing it grow and help the quality improve as well."

Gladstone credits a new facility that opened in central Daytona Beach as a major reason for her success, but she admits she has been aggressive in promoting the program. Now she describes the Friday night matches at the Florida Tennis Center as being like a high school football game, with the 24 courts sometimes not being enough space for all of the players.

"The parking lot is packed with all the kids and their parents," she said. "It's kind of in everybody's schedule now to play on Friday nights through the school year. But the central facility and the fact that all of the matches are played in one location makes it an event and a place that kids want to be."

Gladstone volunteers most of her free time to tennis in some capacity-she also goes to local schools to teach tennis and promote health and wellness, among other things-and she does it with the same drive that Booth saw when watching Gladstone as a junior player.

"You can watch these children, the life skills they learn on the tennis court, never giving up-Rita Gladstone was the epitome of that in her career," Booth said. "Nobody wanted to play her when she was 14, 15 years old, because she would never give up the fight. Players would see her on the draw sheet and would say, 'Oh, no!' If you were going to beat her [you] really had to beat her, she wouldn't let up."

It would be near impossible to be as active as Gladstone is without having a passion for tennis. Watching her kids and other kids learn the sport and enjoy themselves on the court has been plenty of motivation for Gladstone.

"I come at it from a double perspective; a parent first, so for me I am very happy that there is a program that my kids enjoy so much, so that's a huge motivator," she said, "And I really enjoy seeing the kids play and get excited abut playing, and I think tennis is the best sport on so many levels, and so that's a motivator. So I truly really am passionate about getting kids playing and having them experience tennis on a team."

Of course her personal experience doesn't hurt. Through tennis, Gladstone got a college scholarship, met her husband, and now has an opportunity to be involved with her kids. The Gladstone Family was even named 2008 USTA Florida Tennis Family of the Year.

Gladstone has no plans stop volunteering, and Booth can't imagine any volunteer more worthy of recognition.

"I don't know who the other nominees were, but knowing the impact Rita has had on my child-I have an 11-year-old, and he is playing tennis because of Rita," Booth said. "The thousands of children who have learned the game of tennis and who have been influenced in a positive way by Rita, these kids have learned a sport they will play for their entire lives, and they will always look back and say Rita Gladstone taught me how to play.

"Without her in this community, we would have lost the opportunity to expose thousands of children to this sport."

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Chrös McDougall is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.

Additonal words from the sidelines:
1. What made you want to get into coaching?

"It's so rewarding to see players learn, improve and enhance their lives through tennis.  You immediately see fruits of your efforts."

2. What has been your most fulfilling moment as a coach?

"Filling 24 courts with players-seeing beginners who three years ago could not sustain a rally now competing in tournaments and knowing they'll be players for life."

3. What do you enjoy most about being a coach?

"Energy from the kids, smiles, hearing 'one more point please!'"

4. Do you have a motto or them to live/coach by?
"Contributing to a team, they will stick with tennis for years to come."

"Get 'em to play and they'll stay in the sport. I'm a firm believer in getting kids on teams, letting them experience 'playing tennis' not just 'learning tennis.'  No matter the level, if you get the kids playing 'real matches,' keeping score and feeling they're contributing to a team, they'll stick with tennis for years to come."