National Parks & Rec Month: Recognizing Rolla

Leslie Echols, USTA Missouri executive director, ran a mixed doubles tournament on Monday, May 22. Jernigan said that tourney pulled players from the drop-in nights, the celebratory event and public registration. It capped what was a fun and eventful month of tennis for Rolla.

“The real thrust of this is not so much to do anything other than to grow the game and the sport here, and to get more exposure in tennis,” Jernigan said. “Our courts are used regularly by our high school, as we have the home facility for the program. Our university (Missouri S&T) will often have students and intramurals to use the courts. We get a lot of usage that way. We just wanted to reach out and try to go beyond those things.”

Rolla High School boys’ and girls’ tennis coaches Josh Vinyard and Cody Martin led instruction at the National Tennis Month event the afternoon of Sunday, May 7. Members of the Rolla High School tennis teams and alumnus Evan Barth chipped in to ensure the day went smoothly. A total of 14 players attended the two-hour session, as the youngest participant was 10 and the oldest was 80.

Echols and Alywn Mushonga — USTA Missouri and USTA St. Louis tennis service representative — ran the programming on Saturday, May 6 with Mushonga helping Sunday as well. Six kids attended the two-hour block on Saturday, which featured instruction, match play and games. Twelve adults then came for a two-hour session that included social and competitive play.

To read more about Mushonga’s participation in the Rolla event and some of his other recent community involvement, click here.

“This was our first time having something like this,” Jernigan said. “The people who attended as well as us being the hosting facility and organization were pleased with the event. … Everyone who took part was very positive about the quality of the instruction. Alywn and Leslie were great. We have a really good high school program, and we’ve had that for some time. Our coaches, Josh and Cody, are very good and very relatable.”

Jernigan gave a shoutout to the Rolla Friends of Tennis organization — an active support group for all things local tennis — for their ongoing work in promoting the sport. He also thanked Andrew Smith, Rolla Parks & Recreation supervisor, for his efforts in making the May tennis activities a reality.

“We both expressed our appreciation to USTA for contributing so much and the high school coaches for doing their part as well,” Jernigan said. “All those groups came together to try to put this on with the idea that this would be the next step for us. We’re just hopeful and excited. And looking forward to keeping the momentum going.”

Rolla has done that by holding a youth tennis camp hosted by the Rolla High School tennis coaches in June. The City of Rolla has also expressed interest in hosting Junior Team Tennis at some point as well.