My Summer of Tennis: The evolution of a recreational player into a pretentious poser

                   I’ve always enjoyed a rigorous level of physical competition because it’s the truest way to test strength and power:man v. man. Up until this summer, I only assigned this idea to physical sports like football and basketball because it seemed more “manly.” But this summer, I tried something entirely new: tennis. In high school, I played football mainly because I liked running into people at full speed in effort to knock them on their asses. My perception of tennis players was of dainty athletes stricken with fragile frames because their evolutionary ancestors weren’t attractive enough to mate with the alpha males. I can soundly say after three intense months of playing tennis this summer, I completely refute this notion and despise myself for ever believing it to be true.
                  Tennis is a game of physical chess. A game that relies on the mind much more than the body. Football, admittedly, requires some level of intellect, but mostly, the quickest guy with the most creatine saturated muscles wins out. At the beginning of the summer, I was merely a recreational player, but today I stand before you as a pretentious poser.
                  I don’t remember how I become so infatuated with tennis, but I know it began with a friend of mine (let’s call him Marco for identity sake) pushing the idea on me. I obliged because I had grown tired of my rapidly declining basketball ability and I was looking for a way to highlight my athletic will and competitive appetite.
                  Marco and I rolled up to the tennis court in my 2002 Camry that night, blaring a little rap music, both smoking cigarettes with the windows down. We looked up at the tennis courts to see a group of players varying in talent and style while we choked down what remained of our cancer sticks. We were in the middle of discussing the merits of smoking before partaking in an athletic spar, agreeing that nicotine calms the nerves and therefore increases ability. Pseudo science at its finest. A 60-year-old toad of a tennis player who stopped his game and turned to us in the parking lot abruptly interrupted our conversation. He started barking at us with an acrimonious tone, but we couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying. I figured he was upset about the inordinate amount of decibels my system was pumping out so I turned the music down. After exiting the vehicle, he continued to make indignant gestures towards our presence. Was it the music? Was it the fact that Marco and I were smoking cigs in a public place? No - the headlights on my car, which automatically turn on after a certain level of darkness is detected, were affecting his ability to serve properly. We offered up a very sarcastic apology and proceeded to the court furthest away from this righteous tennis asshole. I already had a preconceived notion about tennis being a sport for elitist pricks and this old gee solemnly confirmed my notion. My enthusiasm for the sport was already eroding at the core, but after a few days on the court, it didn’t take long for me to empathize and fully understand why the old man was so upset.

Equipment
                During the first four weeks of my tennis career, Marco and I were playing with identical youth rackets from the early 90’s. The steel frame made for a choppy swing. And the strings, though presumably once taught as a drum, were sagging after years of use and storage abuse. My shots were guaranteed for as much precision as a Nerf gun. In addition, the balls we were using had seen better days. They had been purchased around the same time as the rackets and had a noticeable amount of family dog slobber on the once neon green (now a pale gray) tennis ball fabric. These balls had a more pathetic apex than a pogo stick that had been destroyed by an insistent overweight childhood friend. Regardless, the equipment limitations were not enough to stifle our obsession with the game, as we played up to 5 times a week over the first month. As our games progressed, we decided it was worth the investment to purchase some new racquets and some fresh balls. In effort to keep the competition as level as possible, Marco and I purchased identical Wilson racquets from Target. The packaging had a picture of Rodger Federer and touted specs that included “V-matrix” technology for a larger sweet spot, an enlarged head for greater power, and a convincing tag line that claimed the racket was ONLY FOR SERIOUS PLAYERS! I couldn’t charge that racket on my credit card fast enough. We also bought a couple of canisters of fresh Wilson tennis balls. I think I might be addicted to the sound the can makes when it is cracked and the rush of sulfur hexafluoride fumes that pollute my brain with a temporary euphoric ecstasy. These investments became the core catalyst in my evolution as a player. At this point, I figured tennis is as much about looking adequately equipped as it is about actually having talent. Now that I had my flashy racquet and a surplus of balls which I treated like Nelly treats his Air Force Ones (rock em’ once and leave em’ behind for the savages), my confidence began to swell.

Attire
                 On the first day of my tennis experience I showed up wearing a pair of basketball shoes, shorts that could have doubled as a pair of pants at the right outing, and a sleeveless Orlando Magic t-shirt. The shirt did not stay on my back for long because the hell-like heat of summer forced me to free my hairy torso to the public tennis community. Marco liked to play shirtless as well, so in every way, we were more suited for a game of pickup hoops than a tennis match. The other tennis players weren’t noticeably offended by our presence, but with a quick glance over the remaining courts, it was obvious to see that bare-chested tennis playing was not the status quo. (Unfortunately for everyone else I enjoy bronzing while swinging the racquet.) After our equipment upgrade, we began to change the way we dressed on the court. The standard uniform became modest shorts that were firmly stationed one inch above the kneecap, pristine white tennis shoes that were tended to on a nightly basis with a spare toothbrush, and a white collared polo shirt. The old adage for success in the business world is “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” We applied this concept to our tennis game, and although we were playing at public course, our combination of class and flash stood out like players who were worthy of a country club invite. (Almost all of the points that have been scored on me this summer have come from the result of my incessant day dream in which a person of nobility notices my apparent knack for tennis fashion and calls me a “helluva ball striker,” which subsequently leads to a invite to his country club where I am treated to dinner and offered a large sum of money and/or a job.)

Etiquette
       Tennis is a simple game on the surface, but underneath lies an abyss of dynamic ethical codes and eloquent etiquette. It’s not like a game of bowling, where the only rules you need to know are don’t wear your street shoes on the alley and don’t ash your cigarettes in the finger holes of your opponent’s ball. No, tennis is much more complex. It can take decades, even a lifetime to fully understanding the ins and outs.
What I have learned
1) Its not appropriate to return a serve that is close to being out and then calling “OUT” after seeing how poor your return was.
2) Say the score after each point, always. Scoring discrepancies may start with an inordinate amount of quippy Frasier humor but they always escalate to fist fights.
3) There is no place on the tennis court for trash-talking or even playful banter. The only appropriate exchange between two players is a congratulatory statement after a nice shot when the ball is no longer in play.
4) Profanity does not belong on the tennis court. It took me a while to get over this because I like to release my frustration with a loud “Fuuuck” followed by smashing my racket repeatedly into the concrete and chain-link fence.
5) Keep the ball in your court by any means necessary. There is nothing worse than having a distant player’s ball roll onto your court in the middle of a serious volley. An awkward exchange always follows were the culprit tries to apologize and the victim is forced to hide their anger with a bevy of niceties.
6) It is not appropriate to yell out “Deuce Deuces Gleaming” when the game reaches its end-point tie. Most players will find you ignorant and miss the obvious reference to rap culture’s obsession with 22-inch rims.
7) Bending over to pick up a tennis ball is a tell sign of an amateur tennis player. In order to be taken seriously you must master the “foot scoop” , which involves pinching the tennis ball between your racquet, and the arch of your foot, and swiftly popping it up into your palm in a fluid motion. The foot scoop takes a level of dedication and hand-eye-foot coordination but the dividend you will receive in the form of respect from seasoned players is uncanny.

             Not only did I enforce these rules within my own game, but I also found myself becoming wildly frustrated whenever someone on a different court was not following them. I hated when I pulled my racquet back in effort to deliver an ace of a serve and a ball rolled into my court, or a car alarm would go off in the parking lot, or (god forbid) the slightest glimmer of sunlight blinded my concentration. I remember a time (actually the last time) that I played golf with my grandpa when he flipped out on me for moving during his back swing. (I was a pubescent 12-year old and I had a perpetually itchy crotch.) But frivolous excuses do not matter to someone who has already invested their life into the prestige and etiquette of a sport. I now fully understand why that old man was upset at me for leaving my headlights on while he was trying to serve. To him, I was an amateur punk who had no respect for the years he had put into his game mastering his cross-shot, his drop shot, his look, and even his ability to hide the presence of immense perspiration under his flesh cavities. I know I have only been playing tennis for three months, but I now embody much of what that man stands for. I wanted people to respect my need to maintain the games’ prestige. Tennis has no place for punks. Come ready to play the way tennis is supposed to be played: with class and dignity.

Poser:
              But I now stand before you (or write before you) as a changed man. Not only has my idea of tennis as sport drastically changed, but also has my lifestyle. It didn’t take long for me to buy into the vanity of the sport and for me to become complacent with myself as a player both in appearance and ability. This all changed the other day, however, when I realized I was nothing more than a poser giving the appearance that I had any real skill. Marco and I were approached the other day by a shirtless tattoo riddled individual named Victor. He looked and dressed like I had only three months earlier and I instantly disregarded his dedication and respect for the sport. He came onto the courts alone and asked to play with us. We obliged out of common courtesy (and curiosity for that matter) and attempted to play him 2 vs. 1. Simply put, Victor destroyed us, and he did it with flash rather than class. The array of shots he was able to hit was unbelievable. At one point he returned a deeply placed forehand shot with a between-the-legs hit that had velocity and precision. I was in awe of the way he could hit the ball with a breadth of spin and speed. He beat us 6-2, with the only points scored on him coming from the result of double faults while he was literally trying to knock the cover off of the ball.
                      I stood there feeling absolutely defeated. Victor exposed me a for what I was: a tennis player who looked the part, but had no real talent (reminiscent of my 12-year old skate board posing self when I attempted to 50-50 grind a 3-inch pipe in my driveway after being challenged by a group of serious SK8ers. I racked my back, my sack, and my dreams of being a talented border all in matter of seconds. It didn’t matter that I had a pair of red Chad Muska skate shoes with a stash pocket in the tongues, or that I had a 200 dollar board/barring/truck set, I was a poser and in that moment I was exposed as a fraud.)
                      I fully expected Victor to treat me with disgust and with a thug-like mentality after he robbed me of my confidence momentum and complacent attitude (A heist on par with when the World Wildlife Fund stole the WWF acronym, thus depleting the seemingly unstoppable entertainment mogul Vince Mcmahon from defining the 21st century with a wrestling zeitgeist. If it wasn’t for Harry Truman we’d all be speaking German or Japanese right now, and if wasn’t for the World Wildlife Fund we’d all be piling into retro-fitted football stadiums to watch our favorite “athletes” tackle, grope, and fondle each other while wearing lycra g-strings.) But he could not have been more kind in his post-game chatter. He told me that he had been playing for a long time and that he thought I was good. He said I had a lot of potential if I just kept at it, benevolent words of encouragement from the man who just shattered my dreams. I realized tennis is not about etiquette and vanity, but rather it is about having fun and doing so however you deem necessary. The next time I came to the court I ripped off my shirt (collars are nooses), cussed like a Kid Rock song (before he turned into a CUNTry singer), and had the time of my life.

The Absurdity of Youth Fundraising

In my life,  the biggest regret in my attempt to achieve coolness is the self-worth I derived from fundraising back when I was in middle school.  My school may have been atypical, but where I’m from, a level of status was guaranteed with your ability to fundraise.  But fundraising, unlike other factors that determine a person’s coolness, is not a product of the obtuse minds of 12 year olds, but rather an enslaving activity forced upon us by adults. 

Fundraising is the most asinine activity that adults could ever make their children or students do. Take away all of the promises of parties and hover-craft rides and  all that remains is an institution enslaving an underage work force to generate revenues under the guise of it being “cool.”.   It’s almost as if our educators stole a trick from the opening chapter in Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer.”
             Follow this logic:
Painting fences is work.  Work sucks. Kids look up to those who have more “coolness” than them. Have someone “cool” convince a child that painting fences is cool and those who are not painting fences are therefore un-cool.  Suddenly the masses want to do the WORK for free (and get the alleged status bump) while those perceived as “cool” sit back and reap the benefits. Replace painting with fundraising and let that sink in.

As a twelve-year-old, someone who was older (and therefore cooler) could have convinced me to do anything.  So in order for fundraising to gain legitimacy, the idea and the encouragement needs to come from someone.   Someone older (but not too old).   Someone daring.  Someone who could be perceived more like an older brother than an adult or a teacher. Enter: the Fundraising Ringleader.

            Every great fundraising initiative has a seasoned sales person to sell the idea of “cool” to the kids.  I'll refer to this person as the "Ringleader" from now on because he really was a master of showmanship, rather than just a salesmen.  The prototypical ringleader is a male with a rad birth name (or a hoaxy stage name) like Chaz, Taz, or Barkley; he needs to have dark hair, preferably a substantial amount of non-pedophile-esque facial hair, skin that is bronzed to the likening of an iced black-tea diluted from the sun’s sweltering heat, chest hair that protrudes from his strategically unbuttoned dress shirt, a thick lather of product in his hair, and of course, a pair of Ray Band shades. His personality needs to have the enthusiasm of a Regis Philbin but also the subdued smoothness of a MarkWhalberg.  Essentially, the Ringleader needs to be a modern day “music man.”  Riding in on a golden chariot, causing an insatiable buzz around a group of highly motivated yet misguided teens with the promises of money, novelties, and above all else, elite “coolness.” Through my years as a member of sports teams, youth groups, and as a student, I have seen many of these salesmen, all of which are eerily alike in too many ways.  I first encountered this type of person as a bright-eyed 6^th grader in my middle school Gymnasium.  The spectacle the Ringleader put on for the crowd was like a cross between a circus and the halftime show at an arena football game; there was music, demonstrations, and bizarre stunts, all that was missing was a t-shirt cannon and a near naked "danceteam".  They always seemed to have a glare in their eyes suggesting that they were more of a one-faceted personality than a true person.  They never humanized themselves to the crowd by only talking about life in the abstract,  throwing around words like “team” “family” and “camaraderie” like a youth-league t-ball coach trying to rally the morale of a depressed, winless team.   However, this person who feasts on the ability of the young to peddle magazine subscriptions, wrapping paper, and novelty candies in order to make a living cannot be compared to a well-minded coach.  But his ploy works.  Twelve-year-olds are easily convinced with promises of vanity items, a status bump, and ludicrousincentives.  These incentives were purposely constructed to be unobtainable, but the striking Ringleader made it all seem so feasible.  The epitome of these hyperbolic incentives was called the Money Pit.

MONEY PIT
            The Ringleader’s pitch on the logistics of actually selling the products is always concise and ambiguous because in order to entertain an ADD infected youth the spectacle must be simple, loud and aesthetically pleasing.  Now, I do not remember exactly how many magazine subscriptions I needed to sell in order to get inside the money pit but it was my proudest goal as a ripe teen. During every fundraising presentation, usually in the final ten minutes, the Ringleader would signal to his stagehand to roll out the money pit.  The money pit really was just a glorified transparent trash bag with breathing holes and a leaf blower attached to circulate a mass of George Washingtons, but it was a show worth seeing.  I had aspirations of one day skydiving, winning a Superbowl, and even curing cancer before my 30^th birthday, but those weren’t on the top of my to-do list at 12 years old.  Getting the reward of grabbing cash in the money pit was something I could achieve now; I decided that it was imperative to attack aggressively. The money pit seemed like the most obtainable surreal experience of the moment.  It is difficult to have foresight at a young age (I once swapped my Game Boy Color for a bag of War-Head sour candies), but I knew my future would be brighter if I could just get in that money pit. As soon as the Ringleader would roll out the pit the crowd would begin to thunder, flexible limbs would reach for the ceiling, pubescent chanting and screaming always ensued, anything to draw attention to one ’s self in hopes of being selected as the oneluckycandidate to get a chance to walk home with some cash.  But money was not nearly the biggest part of the equation.  The real appeal was that if you were selected as the one amongst 400, you were instantly catapulted to the rank of school celebrity and became the envy of every student in the room.   Unfortunately, I was never selected in my three years of middle school, but still it was always entertaining to watch someone else partake.  Everyone watched in amazement as the lucky individual danced for his/her dollars.  Everyone in the crowd instantly became a critic, cringing at every strategy flaw and dollar bill that slipped through the participant’s fingertips.   (I suspect that the origins of mostwomen whobecame strippers can be traced back to Money Pit fundraising demonstrations in middle school.) 

 For the Ringleader, it was a simple ploy to turn hopes and dreams into a perceived possibility.  By demonstrating the glitz and glamour one can have by selling a certain amount of worthless trinkets, he essentially was able to generate everyone’s interest to GET OUT AND SELL! And we did, willingly. 

Incentives

            The incentives offered by the salesmen progressively became more outrageous as the years passed.  These prizes ranged from twenty dollar carnival games to limo rides and the money pit;  I swear one year they offered a customized VW Bug shaped to look like Pikachu.  But, of course, anyone who has actually tried to unload hundreds of dollars of crap on friends and family knows the incentives are made to be unreachable…for most.  The biggest fundamental problem I have with forcing kids to fundraise is that it reiterates a socio-economic class system that is already in place, but most young-adults are too involved with the innocence of youth to comprehend its evil presence.  Fundraising brings this idea to the surface because kids from less fortunate families do not have a surplus of rich adults to sell to.  The network of a 12 year old is only as strong as his/her parents.  The Ringleader always made a point of saying “never sell to strangers,” when in actuality, that was the only way someone from less means and a broken network would ever have chance to dance in the money pit or take their friends on a wild ride in a stretch Hummer after school.  On the other side of the coin, the rich kids begin experiencing their birth right entitlement in the world with little to no work.  This is where the fundamental problem lies: in order for the poor students to reap the same benefits as the rich, they must work ten times harder.  This is a sad revelation for the youth because the reality of this becomes more evident in everyday life after this point.  A network of connected people with buying power/influence will always lead to the path of success in fundraising, applying for colleges, finding employment, and life in general.

            After the selling ended, revenues were tallied and prizes were divvied up.  Most of the incentives took place at the “Mega-Party,” the lowest incentive which required only fifty dollars in sales.  Though I never stepped foot inside one of these parties (my extended family is tiny and my parents have never had any wealthy friends, which means I never even got close to the fundraising goals), it has been described to me as the12 year old equivalent of a Playboy Mansion outing.  So essentially, think Chucky-Cheese meets the Discovery Zone with unlimited Mountain Dew Code Red, Meat-lovers pizza, and ice cream.  The party always took place during the last who hours on a Friday afternoonin the same gymnasium where the Ringleader first made his pitch.  Those who did not make the minimum amount of sales were forced to sit in study hall rooms blankly staring at the wall, reading three-day old horoscopes and trying to figure out what the hell “sudoku” means.  Those who did not comply with the above stated options were forced to copy words and definitions out of the dictionary.  Some daring souls tried to sneak out of the study hall room and work their way into the mega-party but the parents of the top sellers heavily guarded the gym doors. There is no way the elite would allow that type of injustice and social welfare.  Outside the room, you could hear the screams of elated young adults bathing in their affirmed coolness and position in the class system.

Sports Teams
            School fundraising was only one facet of exposure and a type that you could avoid with limited consequences besides exiling yourself from an elite club of cool.  Fundraising for sports teams was a whole other machine to grind with.  Sport teams required participants to fundraise in order to pay for equipment and (most importantly) to secure a relic of your game jersey with your name on the back at the end of the year.  Admittedly, Seroogy’s Bars (a locally produced version of Hershey’s chocolate bars) always seemed to be the easiest product to push because they were cheap and delicious. However, during the early oughts there was a growing concern for a health conscience population that led to the direct demise of candy bar sales and thedepletion of self-esteem for youth athletes around the country.  In the world of middle school sports, your fundraising revenue was somehow directly related to your playing time and your perceived commitment to the team.  Skipping practice, missing games due to academic misconduct, and even having a meltdown on the mound in front of your coaches and fans were all secondary to the consequences of not meeting your fundraising quota.  How can you expect a kid to perform on the athletic field or even the classroom when they know that the candy bar money is due to tomorrow and they still have seven dark chocolate almond crunches to unload?  Nobody likes almonds; no one is buying that candy bar.  The child is fucked.   

            If you didn't sell all of your candy bars in time, you had to come up with the money somehow.  This obligation obviously fell on the parents of the athlete.  (A feat that would bring family shame equivalent to a third generation male baring the same name as his father and grandfather from a strict catholic family coming out of the closet at Thanksgiving.)  I ended up taking advantage of my parents as much as possible by forcing them to buy all of my candy bars. Thankfully, they recognized my general apathy (laziness) towards everything and agreed to take care of it.  My brother, however, was a very pragmatic individual who liked achallenge.  Every year in the summer, he set out to sell as many candy bars as possible.  He fared decently well until one summer when our neighborhood became saturated with Seroogy’s Bar sellers from the same league/team as my brother and he could not meet his quota. In an act of desperation, I witnessed my brother line up his remaining thirty candy bars and run them over with his 95’ blaze-orange Schwinn.  He came running home and told my parents that he had fallen off of his bike and destroyed his supply.  My parents saw through his obvious lie and told him he needed to try to recoup the losses by selling the candy bars at half price.  A lot of crying and destructive activities ensued.  My parents were stuck with thebill and a child whose self-esteem had been completely ruined by fundraising.  I can still remember that my brother’s slugging percentage dropped over 200 points during the dog days of summer that year.  His personality, and especially his baseball prowess, was never the same after that. 

Youth fundraising needs to stop, but how? CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN. Well, we all know that doesn't yield anything valuable these days.  I personally vow to never purchase a coupon book, a frozen pizza, a roll of wrapping paper, or whatever else Ringleaders around the country dream up during my lifetime (unless we are talking girl scout cookies).  I refuse to put a child through what I went through; a false sense that my fundraising revenues somehow made me a better person in society.  Someday when I have children, I will make sure that they never are forced to sell anything for any reason.  That is, if the stress and gut busting ulcers caused by fundraising during my formative years haven't render my semen impotent.....Cheers.