League and tournament competitor, certified official Sheila Goins goes all in on tennis

Sheila Goins is a self-proclaimed “tennis addict.”

She played a lot of sports as a kid. She ran track in high school, which made playing organized tennis all but impossible because the seasons coincided. She’d go to courts and just hit around with friends, but she never played competitively. She didn’t even know how to keep score.

But once she picked it up after marrying a former high school tennis player, she was all in.

That pretty much fits her personality.

“I’ve always had a lot of activities going on,” Goins said. “I don’t tend to do a lot of things that I don’t really love doing. And if I love doing it, I’ll give everything to it.”

Do you need some examples?

She took up the sport while living in Chicago, playing singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Ten years later, living in Iowa, she began playing in USTA Leagues. One of her early teams advanced to the national championships. It was such a great experience that she was hooked.

Not only has she been an active USTA player, Goins also has been involved behind the scenes. She is a certified USTA official. She additionally served on the section’s self-rate appeals committee. When she and her family moved to the Kansas City area for family reasons, she was the executive director of USTA Heart of America for two and a half years.

She’s still competitive, playing on several league teams. In 2023, she represented the USTA Missouri Valley in the NTRP 55 & Over 3.5 singles division in Surprise, Ariz.

Upsides of Tennis

Goins believes tennis is a great way to stay in shape.

“Studies show that people who play tennis live 10 years longer than people who don’t,” she said. “The former president of USTA is a physician, so USTA emphasized the health benefits of tennis during his tenure.”

Tennis is also Goins’ favorite way to meet people. She said tennis is a nice way to meet people when you are new to a community because you automatically have something in common.