Tom Thomson School
For three days on June 12-13-14, each of the students at Tom Thomson School in Burlington had the privilege of trying tennis. The project was the brainchild of Bruce Cates, vice president of Burlington TC and a tireless advocate for introducing tennis to kids. Two teachers at Tom Thomson School have children in the junior programs at Burlington TC, and provided the necessary liaison with school principal Rob Iannuzzi.
ACE Tennis supported the program with racquets and hoppers of balls, along with three nets which were set up in the school’s playground. Over the course of three days, teachers led their classes to this pop-up “tennis world”, on a schedule that included six classes each day. Over 400 students from K to grade 6 experienced the fundamentals of the game, with most able to experience controlled rallies by the end of their session.
It was extremely impressive to see the keen interest of the students and their enthusiastic response to the coaching. It’s definitely a case of a picture telling a thousand words, though it’s not possible to include any because of school policy in this regard. You’ll have to imagine eager smiling faces and lots of energy!
The marathon coaching endeavour was led by Bruce Cates, with support from Stephen Spencer from start to finish. JP Morgan came in to help when he could. Stephen called the three-day experience “profound and heart warming” … a fitting tribute to the joy of sharing tennis with children, but also to the persistence and fortitude of Bruce Cates.
The ever-present question following this sort of remarkable project is “what next?” We wish every child would be able to continue playing tennis for the remainder of the summer. Somehow this is easier for families in sports such as soccer or baseball or basketball or swimming. But we have excellent summer programs at our downtown clubs : Burlington TC, Tyandaga TC, Aldershot TC and Appleby TC. Let’s hope many of the families are able to follow up and find a place in one of them. So far, there are no organized programs in any of the open-access parks courts.
