Seeing is Believing
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| POTW: Trent Tolbert |
In addition to his experience as a tennis player, Trent has also spent the last few summers instructing kids ranging from 4 to 14 years old at his tennis club.
Last September, he put his skills to good use and co-founded the Native American Tennis Festival in Tahlequah, Okla. About 90 children from numerous Native American nations showed up for a day of tennis instruction and games. “Most of the kids had never seen a tennis racquet or played before. They didn’t know anything about the sport,” Trent said.
With experiences like this under his belt, Trent feels ready to hit the road with David this summer and show even more Native American children the many benefits of tennis. “I’ve been lucky. I haven’t been on many reservations. I want to go out and see the living conditions and see if I can help them a little bit. It’s just a cycle of poverty over and over again,” he said. “It’s hard to really get out of the reservation, so I’m hoping that if I can give the kids something else to do, it could help their health.”
And David is ready to show Trent what life on the reservations is really like. “Some of the people have to drive 45 miles on gravel roads just to pick up their food for the week. The Navahos I stayed with, they don’t have electricity, and they carry all their water in buckets from the springs. Trent will see this kind of stuff first hand,” David stated.
He also plans on exposing Trent to various Native American customs, such as powwows and sweat lodge ceremonies. “A powwow is a reunion or cultural get together where everyone drums, dances and sings,” David said.
As for a sweat lodge, David said it’s really a purification process and considered a sacred ceremony. A group of people will sing, drum or shake rattles in a man-made lodge. “You’re sweating and it’s uncomfortable, but the experience changes your life forever,” said David, who’s been in about 100 sweat lodge ceremonies.
On the court, Trent will learn the tried and true methods David has developed for best teaching Native Americans tennis. “I find that group games are the best tactic. They enjoy being part of and doing things for a team because the ego is really suppressed a lot in the native situation,” David said. He plans on having Trent work with the kids on ball and racquet handling and playing group games.
Based on what he saw at the Native American Tennis Festival, David’s confident that Trent will be a great role model for the kids on the reservations. “They react very positively to him. They see him play and how good he is, so they identify with him,” he said.
He’s also hopeful that Trent’s participation will change any preconceived notions the kids have about tennis. David said, “They probably think that tennis is a white man’s sport. We’re trying to show them that it’s not necessarily that, that it can be enjoyed from the first day on and that you don’t need to have a lot of skills to enjoy it.”
Just the Beginning
David’s had many successes on the reservations, although many may consider them untraditional victories. “We’re building life skills more than trying to develop a champion. We want to show them a different way of life and maybe bring some light into their lives, rather than all this depression and teenage suicide,” David said.
He’s seen glimpses of this happening over the last few years, things that he can look back on and smile. “I got a call from the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota that the police were called over to a school to get the kids off the tennis courts at 10:30 at night,” David recalled, laughing that this is the new kind of “problems” the kids are causing.
Another call from the Rosebud reservation was from a man coaching a girls' tennis program there. “He said, ‘David, I’ve got 15 girls out for the team this year. I don’t have enough racquets!’”
David, of course, was thrilled to hear that the program was so successful that the biggest issue was now lack of equipment and gladly put racquets and shoes in the mail the very next day. He’s able to provide such things to the growing programs, thanks to funding he received last year from sponsors like the Chumash Casino and Wilson Tennis. But that was last year, and he’s once again on the search for funding for the upcoming year.
While David is an old pro at working on the reservations, this summer will mark a new beginning for Trent. He will most likely learn things about himself, as much as he will about the Native Americans and their culture. Based on the time they’ve spent together, David believes that Trent has inherited many of the American Indian characteristics.
“Trent is a serious young man, but he does have a keen sense of humor and an inner strength, which he’s got to have with Native Americans,” said David. “They have an inner smile. He’s inherited that. He doesn’t know that yet, but he’ll find it out.”
Interested in Volunteering?
For more information on volunteering or funding Trent and David's efforts, e-mail David at stt@pronet.net, or visit Standing Tall Tennis.
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