President Jack Wardell: Gratitude, growth and new opportunities for USTA Iowa

With 2025 ending, we want to take a moment to celebrate the past year and look ahead with excitement to everything 2026 will bring.

First, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Brenton Kuchera for his outstanding leadership over the past four years.

Brenton has been an exceptional steward of our organization—dedicated and passionate in his commitment. We are deeply grateful for all he has given to USTA Iowa, and we look forward to keeping him involved with our association in the years ahead.

As I begin my term (again) as president of the Iowa Tennis Association, I wanted to share some exciting news happening with USTA Iowa. USTA Leagues are growing with the help of our indoor club partners.

Community Tennis Associations (CTAs) are booming across our district with several new ones started in 2025. Thanks to the USTA Iowa Strategic Plan adopted four years ago, CTAs are standing on a solid financial footing to grow their missions. The Iowa Tennis Association has partnered and invested $57,071 since 2022 in our old and new CTAs.

To end this communication, I want to highlight one special offer we have developed for 2026. USTA Iowa will be partnering with the U.S. Soccer Foundation to bring a unique offering to three cities: Cedar Rapids on March 22, Ames on April 19 and Moline on June 7.

The free offering is called Recruiting Girls into Sports, a four-hour presentation that will address six new strategies for organizations and recreation departments to incorporate when offering athletic programs for girls.

USTA Iowa will finish the last two hours making the session tennis-specific—introducing a new introductory Red Ball Tennis program for girls ages 7-9. The district will be supporting this new tennis offer this summer.

We’ll finish the last hour with training participants to be low-level coaches, mentors and helpers with expert instructors from Women Coaching Racquet Sports, which is based in Des Moines. Your local CTA will receive registration information in January about the presentation.

Wishing you all the best in 2026. 

Jack Wardell

USTA Iowa President