Buck-Horton Makes Tennis More Inclusive

On the Missouri side of the river, the Triple A Golf & Tennis Foundation has played a vital role in providing funding for tennis tournaments, travel expenses, racquets and indoor court fees to disadvantaged junior players. Horton is also a board member for this organization.

The foundation most recently announced the roll out of a subsidiary organization - Triple A Breakpoint Tennis and Life Skills Academy - designed to work with inner city youth. This new organization has a long-standing partnership with Mathews-Dickey Boys & Girls Club.  Horton said the new 501c3 will bring more exposure to Triple A, as well.

“Triple A Breakpoint is more of a ‘boots on the ground’ organization for us,” she said.

Its mission is to build positive self-esteem, confidence, mindfulness and a pathway to post-secondary success for less advantaged youth through in school, after school, and summer tennis and educational programs. The curriculum looks towards integrating life skills with the sport of tennis, focusing on social-emotional skills.

A high school student birthed some of the most impressive work to bring tennis to a diverse population of youth. ACE Academy was established in 2015 by Aryan Motwani and provides camps during the summer for elementary and middle school students who want to learn the game. But it does more than that—at the end of each session, the students will gather to take what they have learned and connect tennis to life lessons.

Horton is extremely impressed with Motwani’s work ethic and desire to give back to the community.

“He’s doing such great work and puts so much passion at such a young age and spends most of his summer giving back, so I have been wholeheartedly supporting and defending his efforts.”

Net Rushers Tennis Association is also doing impressive work to bring tennis to underserved youth. Its mission is to promote the game of tennis in the St. Louis metropolitan area by providing virtually free and low-cost tennis instruction to culturally diverse youth. 

“These programs include people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds - mainly black and brown people. Training allows them to be very competitive in the mainstream population and above all, they offer free programs. Also making tennis fun is what allows you to get talented young kids to stay engaged with the sport,” Horton said.

Horton said despite the great work being done at the district level, there is still opportunity to be better.

“We can be better by providing more opportunities for people from underrepresented communities to be involved and participate in tennis, including but not limited to people with disabilities, multicultural communities and LGBTI communities,” Horton said.  “We can provide advice, information, guidance, support and resources for all clubs and communities that want to become inclusive to people from underrepresented groups. We can provide access to opportunities aligned to those offered to mainstream tennis players. In addition, leaders in the tennis industry need to be able to step out of the box and meet people where they are.”

Horton also noted many local small organizations need assistance and struggle in areas like applying for grants. She said there needs to be representatives available to assist those groups, as well as more engagement with multicultural stakeholders like the Urban League and Beyond Housing.  

Additionally, she said there needs to be opportunities to educate the club owners and coaches. For example, for over a decade, Terry Ward at Frontenac Racket Club provides several months of free court time during the winter months to a diverse group of high performance players.  

“I personally would like to see a partnership for the deaf and hard of hearing community. My ultimate purpose of this is to use tennis as a vehicle for kids to earn college scholarships and for adults to have a recreational outlet.”