Happy New Year Heart of America

Happy New Year Heart of America!

We are coming off a year with exciting news. At the beginning of 2021, USTA Heart of America was #8 in the country for Adult League Registration Growth and #6 in the county for Unique Player Growth. For those of you who don’t know where that ranks, there are 17 sections in the USTA and 6 of those sections have districts. Total count within those districts is 42....you do the math. Being in the top 10 is a tremendous achievement and USTA Heart of America had the highest growth numbers than we have seen in years. Our local juniors are also amazing and becoming top nationally ranked players. Keep your eyes on the courts for players Cooper Woestendick and Sydney Fuger just to name a couple. Plus, our adult league teams are rising in numbers. I can’t wait to see what’s on the horizon.

For those of you who don’t know me well, I started out playing tennis when I was eight years old. I played as a Junior in the Missouri Valley for USTA Kansas. I then moved on to college tennis at Hutchinson Community College for one year and then transferred to Creighton University for my last three years. I didn’t keep up with tennis too much after college, but I knew there was something missing. Tennis is much more than a game. It’s an outlet for many people and a network of amazing players and friends. When I started playing again, I always wondered how the USTA national ladder worked with regards to who enforced the rules, who gets to change the rules, how to make our area better and how to create more opportunity. Therefore, I started captaining teams and getting more involved. I did some volunteering then I was asked to be on the USTA Heart of America board about 10 years ago. Since then, being on the board has been an amazing learning experience. 

Growing the game of tennis, creating opportunity and engaging volunteers has been my focus while being president of the board. And even though this will be my last year and we have been growing in league numbers and volunteers, I feel there is still much more to do. I want to thank each of you for what you have done for our district. It took every adult player, junior player, junior parent, volunteer, club pro and staff to make our district what it is today. 

Lastly, I encourage each of you, if you are not currently, to get involved in some way with our district. Whether you give a day of your time to a tournament or volunteer on a committee, it is a way to give back to this game. You can use this link to let us know how you would like to volunteer. You will find it very rewarding and may want to get even more involved. Looking forward to a wonderful 2022!