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Imagine being outside on a summer day surrounded by people who all share a love of the same thing. The only sounds are of feet skidding on green “clay”, the contact of ball and string, and the occasional outburst of applause. You are hot and sweaty, but it doesn’t matter because you are in your Happy Place doing what you love.
Ten years ago, a long-standing tennis tradition in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, disappeared. Yes, this week’s episode is personal.
A few weeks ago, my brother, Jeffrey Goodman, came up with the idea of reviving the Shreveport City Tournament, one that had taken place on the public courts at Querbes Tennis Center dating back to 1933. In its prime, The City had every junior division in both singles and doubles, every adult division in both singles and doubles, a Men’s Open, a Women’s Open, plus mother-daughter and father-son doubles. Querbes was THE place to be if you had any interest whatsoever in the sport of tennis. You were guaranteed to see the area’s best junior and adult players go at it for the ultimate title, City Champion.
This week Jeffrey talks about the challenges of bringing the tournament back, why it is so important to preserve these types of events, and how others can take similar action in their local communities. Here is a bit more information:
The City Championships
The kickoff weekend to bring back one of the premiere sporting events in our area, The City Tennis Tournament, is coming. Dating back to at least 1933, it was the premiere annual gathering for all of the tennis players in our area. Dormant now for almost ten years, a group has banded together to bring back this truly special and key multi-generational event.
The kickoff weekend tournament will take place from 8/17-8/19 at Bossier Tennis Center. In honor of the marquee event of the old “City”, we are having a Men’s Open Singles division. The other division will be Men’s Open Doubles. Prize money will be given to the top three people in each event.
Like the original City, the event will be a showcase for the best junior tennis players and the best adult tennis players in our area. Next month’s tournament will feature the best high level tennis we’ve had for our local players in years.
As part of this initiative, we also want to bring more attention to the current efforts underway to revitalize Querbes Tennis Center, the headquarters for many years for The City. At a time when Shreveport has two players (Ryan and Christian Harrison) in the top 250 of all players in the world, we are committed to preserving the extremely rich tennis history of our area.
We are naming the event “The City Championships” with the idea that once Querbes completes its revitalization, we intend on holding the event twice a year, once at Bossier Tennis Center and once at Querbes.
Although we are only starting with two events, the ultimate goal is to get back to the original City format of all age divisions, boys, girls, men and women, singles, doubles and adult mixed. We would also love to honor the event by bringing back the Father/Son and Mother/Daughter events.
Also, we have decided to expand the event to allow any players north of Alexandria to participate. We would like the event to promote tennis for all of North Louisiana.
To register for The City Championships, click here.
To visit the Facebook Page, click here.
To contact Jeffrey directly, email him at [email protected].
To read more about Jeffrey’s film career, click here.
A big thank you to STØNE for our music! You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic
If you’re so inclined, please share this – and all our episodes! – with your tennis community. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
