How Tennis Heals

For Sergeant Ronald Finucane (pictured on the right), it’s easy to recall his introduction to the sport.

“It was an accident,” he said with a laugh. 

Some accidents are a good thing. And in the case of Finucane, it’s evolved into a passion and a friendship he won’t ever forget. 

Finucane remembers growing up in Westville, N.J. in a small home and without many resources. Of the few channels they had on the television, one was The Tennis Channel. As soon as he discovered the channel, Finucane watched every tennis match he could and took in all the other tennis-related content available, including player documentaries and the always-memorable What’s In My Bag? Clips. 

You name it, he watched it. But Finucane’s love for tennis evolved away from the television screen, as the sport became his escape and his outlet. It was a way to disconnect with what he describes as a difficult childhood. 

“It was the one sport that I didn’t have to rely on anybody,” Finucane said. “Tennis was the first sport where no one judged me at all. I didn’t need a partner, I just needed a brick wall.”

Armed with his love of math, strategy, and all he learned from The Tennis Channel, he decided to try out for his middle school tennis team. 

Finucane did not own a racquet, so he borrowed one from a player on the varsity team. With his loaner racquet in hand, he took to the courts, making his dream of actually playing tennis a reality. He was thrilled to learn he had made the team.

Early on in his high school tennis career, one of his team’s matches moved indoors to Ron Jaworski’s RiverWinds Golf & Tennis Club, where he met someone who he says changed his life: Nancy Wilkins.

Impressed with Finucane’s playing style, Wilkins and a couple other staff members asked if he’d like to attend summer clinics at RiverWinds. 

Good news, right? Well, not initially.

“I was very upset because my family had zero money and we didn’t have any vehicles at the house,” Finucane said.

That first feeling of disappointment quickly washed away after Wilkins offered to pick him up for practices. She also offered that if he cleaned the courts at the end of each day, he could come to summer clinics.

“I wasn’t used to people being so kind, it scared me a little,” he said. 

“I knew he didn’t have any racquets of his own,” Wilkins said. “So I strung up a couple of my Head Radicals, put them in a tennis bag and brought them to where he worked.”

After that first summer practicing at RiverWinds, at the age of 15, Finucane became emancipated from his mom and stepdad, who he refers to as Dad, and bounced around to eight different high schools in southern New Jersey.

“The one thing that kept me going at all of the different schools was that I was really good at tennis,” he said. “And my time spent at RiverWinds made that possible.”

Unfortunately, toward the end of his high school career he tore his achilles tendon and was unable to play at the same level as before. He ended up graduating high school early and focusing on his music. An equally talented musician and tennis player, Finucane joined a band and worked the night shift at a local Wawa. 

It was there his life took another change.

“Every morning an army recruiter would come into the Wawa at 5 a.m. and one day I asked him a question,” Finucane said. “He brought me down to the station, I took my Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, had a physical, and the next thing I knew I was in the Army.”

He didn’t just take his ASVAB, he aced it (pun intended), leading to what he calls a dream career with the Army. He’s traveled all over the country as a 35A Intelligence Officer (a Signals Intelligence Agent, to be exact). In the 12 years he’s worked with all of the three letter agencies, such as the CIA and FBI, and now he finds himself back in his hometown as an Army Recruiter.

Finucane certainly is coming full circle, so much so that just last week he called Wilkins, wondering if she remembered him. 

Of course she did.

“I was holding back tears when I saw Nancy again,” he said. “She changed my life.” 

Finucane still has the racquets and tennis bag Wilkins gave him all those years ago, and refers to his summer spent at RiverWinds as a “wonderland” where everyone was smiling and happy, a stark contrast from what he was used to. 

Now, along with his full time job as an Army Recruiter, Finucane is looking to pay it forward and help coach for at least one of the many high schools he attended.

“Tennis made me feel purposeful and important,” Finucane said. “It made me feel like there was something outside a lot of darkness. It was medicinal.”

If you or anyone you know is interested in joining the Army, please reach out to Sergeant Finucane (Fin for short) at ronald.j.finucane.mil@army.mil or 267-569-6662. If you are looking to learn more about playing opportunities in your area click here.