Suzie Brown, Coach & Vaccine Volunteer

In the pandemic, the way we play tennis is different. Masks on the side of the court… A racquet tap in replacement of a match-ending handshake. And players daily lives have changed.

Suzanne Brown, a junior high school tennis coach in Greenville, Ohio, is now also a full-time volunteer at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic.

The clinic operates out of a medical practice where her husband works.

“The first COVID outbreak in the county [happened] at a nursing home that he covered for years,” Suzie explained. “He lost sixteen patients just like that, and at the point he was like… This is not the flu. He was like, I have never ever lost this many patients so quickly.”

When vaccine became available to the state, Suzie got out there and immediately began helping.

“I really enjoy it,” Suzie said, “I’m passionate about that.”

Her long days at the clinic end just before her school coaching begins.

Suzie is in charge of 18 junior high students this spring — a huge number compared to past years, and maybe a testament to the rising popularity of tennis in the pandemic. She has been watching many of the players on her team play since they were kids in USTA youth tennis. Not learning the game until she was an adult herself, Suzie’s grown in her tennis skill alongside them.

When Suzie was their age, she was a cheerleader, and it was just the beginning of Title IX being implemented at schools. The federal civil rights law prohibited sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program receiving federal money.

“I had friends in high school who played tennis,” Suzie described, “and one of my good friends, Ellen, she played on the boys team. I thought that was so cool that she was good enough to play on the boys team.”

It wasn’t until she was 38 that Suzie picked up her first tennis racquet and took a lesson at her local YMCA. Nowadays, she’s a stiff competitor who plays mostly singles. One of her proudest moments has been playing for a senior team that went all the way to the state championship and won.

“Our basketball team went to state three times when I was in high school, and won it once, and they were in the finals three times… So I just never would have imagined as an adult I would ever be able to do something where I was a state champion of any kind of athletic event.”

Her favorite part of the sport, lands somewhere between the competition, and learning something new.

“Just trying to figure it out, that way to compete against another person has just really captured my imagination,” Suzie said. “I really enjoy tennis, and I want everybody to love it!”