Second Serve Tennis

Abilities Tennis Association of North Carolina Heading to US Open!

• Second Serve with Carolyn Roach & Erin Conigliaro • Episode 286

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Tennis has always been a sport that brings people together, but few organizations exemplify this unifying power better than Abilities Tennis Association of North Carolina (ATANC). Led by Executive Director Lou Welch since 2014, this remarkable organization has created a thriving community that promotes fitness, fosters community, and champions inclusion for athletes with intellectual disabilities through the adaptive sport of tennis.

You can learn more about Abilities Tennis and sign up for the newsletter at the following: www.atanc.org and listen to Madison Keys kind message here!

For adaptive programs throughout the country please visit: USTA Adaptive Programs

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Speaker 1:

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I'm here with Erin, and we are honored to have Lou Welch here with us. Lou is one of those people that you just want to be a better person after meeting her Right, erin. Yes, she has won every award imaginable. She has the executive director of Abilities Tennis Association of North Carolina since 2014. She's on the adaptive committees at the state, southern and national level. So, lou, we just we feel honored to have you on our podcast. We greatly appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I am so honored to be here and I appreciate you and Erin having me and giving me the opportunity to talk about Abilities, Tennis of North Carolina and all that we have going on right now.

Speaker 1:

So can you start off and tell us you know, for our listeners that may not remember we had you on at the very beginning of our podcast, but can you remind our listeners about Abilities? Tennis Association of North Carolina.

Speaker 2:

So the mission of Abilities Tennis is to promote fitness, foster community and champion inclusion for athletes with intellectual disabilities through the adaptive sport of tennis. And we have throughout North Carolina. We have 30 clinic locations, six tournaments. We are a community tennis association, a CTA. We're one of two in North Carolina that are statewide. But big shout out to North Carolina Tennis because they give us so many opportunities because of our position as a CTA. We're always invited to whatever meetings are going on. We're given opportunities to network. We work with the local CTAs, we partner with them, which allows us to set up all these clinics throughout the state. And it just wouldn't be as successful or we wouldn't be as busy as we are if it wasn't for North Carolina tennis. So we're very grateful.

Speaker 1:

That's great. And then you also do things at the Southern level. You're on the Adaptive Committee at the Southern and National level. Do you know, can you give us any information for listeners that are all across the country that maybe want to get?

Speaker 2:

involved? Yes, so the National level. On the USTA website there is a section that will inform people how many programs are out there, and there are over 300 programs, I think, listed on the website and so people can look that up and see what's going on in their area.

Speaker 3:

It's really good to hear for our listeners that are listening across the country that there's you know stuff nationwide. Really, you know we always say tennis is tennis for all, right, so you guys are championing that, certainly, and then all these other adaptive programs are coming out because of that. But I want to ask you too about a lot of our listeners and a lot of just tennis players in general want to get involved in volunteerism. We do it through, you know, being on committees for USTA and helping grow tennis that way. But a lot of people really want to be in the grass. You know, do the grassroots stuff right, be on a court. So can you talk about specifically North Carolina's people, their ability to get involved in your organization?

Speaker 2:

Yes. So thanks for setting me up with this question. We would love to have as many volunteers as we can get. I will say right now we have more than 1,400 volunteers across the state and it's an effort to set up these clinic trainings. So all volunteers are required to go through a training. It is a two-hour workshop and every year we have anywhere from 15 to 17 trainings across the state and this training allows people to learn a little bit more about what IDD is and how to work with this population, what we do on court, what works well, and it gives everyone an opportunity sometimes to even go through the clinic with some of our athletes, but it allows them to go onto the court, into the clinic, with confidence. So we are really thrilled with the way the volunteer program has grown, but we can always use more, and so please get our newsletter. It's a monthly newsletter which will keep you informed with our dates and times for all of the upcoming trainings.

Speaker 3:

So, on a national level, I have to tell this cute story because Lou and I were recently in Greensboro and she came up to me right when she got there. We were at the Carolina Cup, which I think we've talked about on the podcast before, but she came up to me and she handed me her phone and she said listen to this voicemail that I got on my way here, so I'll say who it is. And then I want Lou to tell the story, but she got a call from Madison Keyes' mother, what who's highly involved, I know.

Speaker 2:

Madison.

Speaker 3:

That's so cool. Who's highly involved in their Madison started a foundation called Kindness Wins and they give grants to people that are kind and doing good things through tennis, and so I love that. She got this phone call and was like you've got to listen to this. So tell us what they did, what they're giving to Abilities Tennis of North Carolina, and then we'll kind of go into a little bit about the US Open and stuff coming up with that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so that was a pretty exciting day. I received an email from Kindness Wins saying that they wanted to give us a grant and there was a form and I really thought it might be some type of a scam, and so I looked up the emails and just made sure that it was a real foundation and it is. Kindness Wins is pretty cool. They go into different areas often that have been hit hard by a catastrophic event, like Helene for us, and so they saw that we were a grassroots tennis organization that provided tennis clinics in that section of the state, and so they wanted to give us a grant. So we filled out the application and, pretty, I received the email from Christine Key saying that she wanted to talk about how to transfer the funds to us and all. So thankfully I listened to my voicemails, because I often miss them, but anyway. So I called her back and we just had a lovely chat. She was just a super nice woman and initially they were going to give us $1,000 and then they upped it to $2,500.

Speaker 2:

But even more important, probably to our organization is the fact that Madison, once she returned from Europe this summer, has recently done a video for us promoting our organization and our fundraiser Footprints on the Court which is coming up this fall. And it is just talk about kind. That is such a kind thing to do for our organization and it's been just a lot of fun. Things like that that come your way. It really gives the whole organization kind of just a jolt and just the excitement that keeps keeps us going. So big shout out to Madison yeah, it's such a win-win situation.

Speaker 3:

It's like Lou and the organization locally is doing good and then someone, like you know Madison Keys's foundation comes along to do something good. So it's just. It really just all goes hand in hand with getting people into our sport, keeping people in the sport and what do funds like that? I know this was not on our question list that we talked about, but what do what kind of an impact does that make? I'm sure it's. You know X amount of athletes get to have clinics or something.

Speaker 3:

Because one of the things we didn't say and I think is really important is this is free. These clinics when these, when these athletes come out, this is all done through volunteerism and it's free, but it takes money, you know, to run Abilities Tennis of North Carolina. So what kind of an impact does that make? And just money in general, because we are going to talk at the end about, you know, all the couple of fundraisers that you have and you know just the type of exposure that you get through this organization. Yes, so, as we all know just the type of exposure that you get through this organization.

Speaker 2:

Yes. So, as we all know, funds are super important, especially when you're running an organization that does not charge anyone to participate. All of our tournaments, all six, cost anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000. We provide food, t-shirt, medals. Sometimes we have to pay for courts and equipment and those sorts of things, so it adds up and beyond that, we are also paying many of the tennis pros to run our program, which has taken it to the next level. Honestly, our athletes, because of the tennis pros teaching them their level of play, has gone up exponentially. It's been very exciting to see we have some great volunteers also who are doing an incredible job. But just all that to say. The funds are very important. We also have grants for the athletes. Some of them want to go to tournaments, but it's expensive to go stay at a hotel and get food, and so we offer grants for all of our athletes should they need it.

Speaker 1:

And Lou, you have some exciting news to share, I've heard, so can you share it with us?

Speaker 2:

Yes. Well, this is a good segue when we're talking about money and how much it costs to do things. We applied to go to Net Generation on court at the US Open and we were one of two adaptive programs chosen to go up to the US Open. We will be on Arthur Ashe September 1st, that's Labor Day. Right before the night match, we'll go on and do a 10-minute demo where we will have 24 athletes with us, 24 parents or caregivers that will be out there. All in all, in our group, we'll have 66 people there, and so we're paying for flights, for hotel, for food, for everything. So the entire trip will cost $70,000. And so we've saved up for five years for this event. The last time we went was in 2019. And we just had such a great time. It was a life-changing event for all of our people. That year, our athlete flipped the coin for the Djokovic-Londero match. This year, of course, we don't know yet who it'll be, but one of our athletes will be flipping the coin for the Monday night match. So that's also just super exciting. Oh, that's incredible. So that's also just super exciting. Oh, that's incredible.

Speaker 2:

So just one story around the athletes going to the US Open, there's an athlete who lives in Hendersonville, and he and his mom have never been out of the state before and they are so excited about it. Their abilities coach in Hendersonville has helped them with some of the logistics of getting the ticket. Just talking through what they'll go through going to New York. He and his wife will be keeping their service dog for them over the weekend. They will be taking them to the airport and bringing them back.

Speaker 2:

It's just really encouraging to see our community come together to support each other, and the emails that I get from the mom will just bring you to tears of how it's really affected her son and how he has this excitement that she's never seen before. He is so motivated on the tennis court. He has a passion, something that he loves to do that fills his time and his days. He's doing research about all the great tennis players and she just says it makes me so happy to see my son really coming into his own. And so thanks to Abilities Tennis for what you're doing for our whole family.

Speaker 1:

You guys really are doing an amazing job to do this. I mean, I get on fight not fights, but I get mad over line calls and then you listen to something like that and you just it makes you rethink everything.

Speaker 3:

Sorry, it's always the line calls I'm gonna fight someone.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's true, it's so different.

Speaker 3:

I know it is.

Speaker 1:

I think, recreational players, we need to listen to this because you know, you see, like all the good things that tennis can give.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, yeah, and I was going to say what a difference for that mother too, because you know, as someone that's been taking care of someone that probably needs lifelong care, you know what a relief for her, too, to see her son, you know, getting this experience and it must hugely alleviate, you know, stress for her and bring her joy to see all these things that are bringing, or you know, new things that he's experiencing and things that she probably thought he would never experience ever in his life. So, yeah, the flights you don't think about the logistics of getting all of these athletes to New York and it's amazing that you guys have saved up for all these years to do it. It's not like this was just put in your lap. You had to work, you know, you had to do hard work to get all these athletes this experience, and they'll probably be talking about it for years. They won't stop talking about it on court. So I think it's just amazing. So let me go through. I think it's just amazing. Yes, so let me go through Abilities.

Speaker 3:

Tennis of North Carolina has a lot of stuff going on Every month. Like you said, there's so many, you know clinics and trainings and everything else. But I'm going to go down a couple dates and then Lou, if you want to add a little bit to this, but the big thing, you know, coming up right away is this US Open. They're on court on the first. So if anybody's watching, you know, I know I've seen stuff they don't put it on TV but you can kind of see. When you watch those pre-matches you can see these events going on. So tune in before the Monday night match and watch this 10 minute hit on court.

Speaker 3:

And for the coin flip, like Lou mentioned, september 5th, locally at North Hills Club, they are having a national qualifier. So their athletes will compete on the 5th of September to go to the national campus in Orlando for their National Adaptive Tournament, which is October 24th and 25th. Anybody in that area can go out and watch and cheer these athletes on, find out more information. And then again locally, november 13th to the 16th, we're doing an Abilities Tennis of North Carolina, their annual fundraiser which is called Footprints on the Court. Carolyn and I were the 4-0 champions a couple years ago of that. That is a sanctioned level four tournament in Raleigh, north Carolina. And then in December they also have the Winter Chill which happens at NC State, and I know all those the tennis players get involved and that's a really fun event. I've done that years. I think it was last year I volunteered, but I went a whole week early.

Speaker 2:

I remember that, I remember that.

Speaker 3:

I was so excited and I took a friend with me and we were getting there early and I pull in the parking lot. I'm like where are all the cars? I've done this event before. I know I'm at the right building. And then I looked at my email and I was a week early. So that's how excited I was about that event. Do you want to talk about any?

Speaker 2:

of those. Yes, we'd love to have you come to Footprints. It really is a fabulous event. We have so much fun. Also, at the silent auction, or maybe the live auction, we'll have a signed racket by Madison Keys. Oh, wow, and yeah, it's just a great weekend and a lot of people who come from all over the country to play say it's one of the best tournaments that they go to. And also one thing about September 5th that is one match it is the finals for the National Adaptive Tournament and that will be David Marquina playing with his abilities athlete from Durham, and then Jason Kinder will be playing with Jetty Honda, and so we'd love to have you all come out. That is going to be a spectacular match, so please come watch, come out. That is going to be a spectacular match, so please come watch.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I can't wait to be there. And Lou, to finish this off, can you tell us your most memorable moment on the court?

Speaker 2:

I may have even said this the last time I was here, and it continues to be one of my favorite moments, but it was in 2014 when I first started, and I see it every day in different ways.

Speaker 2:

But I was at a tournament and I was watching one athlete ace another athlete and the athlete who had been aced runs to the net to high five his opponent and say you are playing so well, keep it up, I love seeing you play this well, and so I see it all the time and it's really helped me personally. And then I see the juniors who play unified doubles with our athletes, and our kids are often under so much pressure with school and whatever sports and for them to be around our athletes. No one can teach them better how to be happy for other people. No one can teach them better how to be happy for other people, and the genuine joy that they share with us is worth coming to the courts to be around them, because it's like nothing else and it's just taught me so much how to be happy for other people, even when we lose.

Speaker 1:

We greatly appreciate Lou coming on the podcast. We've included a link to their website in case you would like to volunteer or donate, and we've heard from Lou how those donations make it possible that these athletes go to the US Open. We cannot wait to watch them. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservedpodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.