Unstoppable Women in Tennis: Dana Costa
Think you know how to multitask?
Meet Dana Costa, who might just be the best out there.
Costa, who lives in Pittsburgh, is a full-time mom, wife, tennis player, tournament director, volunteer, and much more. In recent years, she’s been truly an unstoppable woman in tennis and well beyond the tennis court.
How does she do it?
“There is a lot of coffee involved,” she said with a laugh.
Costa is the President of a USTA Community Tennis Association (CTA) in Pittsburgh, Pa. called Highland Park Tennis Club.
The volunteer-driven organization aims to develop and grow tennis throughout the multicultural city of Pittsburgh and Costa is a driving force behind the scenes.
“I’m always looking for new and innovative ways to grow our organization and bring new programming and new light to what I feel is a great organization,” she said.
Since she took over as President four years ago, she’s been doing just that.
In 2019, Costa and HPTC partnered with Envision Blind Sports, an organization providing sports and physical activities for those who are blind or visually impaired. That summer, HPTC ran its first-ever blind and visually-impaired tennis clinic. It involves tennis balls that make noise, raised lines, and lots of volunteers helping participants along the way.
It has since captured much attention around the area and further. Costa mentioned she has many people reach out to her on how they can help her grow the program. They ran a six-week progressive clinic again this past summer with double the participants from 2019.
There are only two programs in the United States with blind tennis and she has the goal of gaining national attention in order to help grow the program. Most recently, HPTC and Costa were featured in the USTA Adaptive Tennis Newsletter.
Costa was originally inspired to start this program by her 7-year-old daughter who has a visual impairment. As a mom, she wanted to make sure children with visual impairments like her daughter have the opportunity to play tennis.
Costa enjoys playing tennis with her husband and two children as well. She even met her husband through HPTC and got her to first pick up a racquet.
“When we started dating, if I ever wanted to see him, I had to learn how to play the game!” she joked.
She mentioned her husband is a big supporter of her projects with the club and helps with its programs too. HPTC also runs programs like adult tournaments, free junior clinics, lessons, and social events.
“What’s unique about Highland Park Tennis Club is that we are not a physical club,” she said. “We use the public park courts in Pittsburgh and we are the most utilized courts in Pittsburgh. Highland Park is such a great community.”
Even when they are not able to play tennis during the winter months, Costa and the members of the organization continue to stay close-knit and run food drives to help support the community.
As a mom to two active children, volunteer and community advocate, she is unstoppable in her drive to make a difference in her community in Pittsburgh and nationally.
Cruise Control Gear is sponsoring our USTA Middle States Summer Series: Unstoppable Women in Tennis. We will continue to highlight the incredibly strong women who are forces on and off the court in our Middle States community.
Related Articles
-
Dedicated to the GameJune 30, 2023For more than 30 years, Stephanie Howard has made her life about growing tennis. The 2022 Middle States Teaching Professional of the Year is dedicated, hardworking and loves what she does. Howard is the Director of Community Outreach at Princeton Tennis Program (PTP). PTP runs programming at Community Park and at the Eve Kraft Tennis Center in Princeton, N.J. Read More -
Juneteenth CelebrationJune 26, 2023Germantown Cricket Club continued its annual celebration of Juneteenth by opening its doors to the public to celebrate the history of Black tennis. This was the third straight year that the historic, Philadelphia-based club hosted the community to honor the holiday. Read More -
In His Own WordsMay 26, 2023A 13-year-old from Allentown, Pa., Derek Yao was recently recognized with a Middle States Junior Sportsmanship Award. In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage (AAPI) Month, we asked Derek about his background and what AAPI Month means to him. Read More
Sign up for our Newsletter
Download the USTA App
