Tennis Boost @ HBCUs

An excerpt from the NY Times - 

Tennis Programs at Historically Black Colleges Receive a Boost

The U.S.T.A. has initiated a grant program with the ultimate goal of enhancing opportunities for players of color, especially women, to become coaches and grow the game.

By David Waldstein 

David Dinkins, shown in 1989, enjoyed playing with tennis greats
and still hit the court into his late 80s. Credit...Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

Rochelle Houston had an advantage. Her father, Joe Goldthreate, is a legendary tennis coach in Nashville, who taught her not only how to play the game, but how to coach it, too.

Houston is now the head of tennis at Florida A&M, which until recently meant she coached both teams. But the men’s team was cut in 2020 due to a lack of funding, and the women’s team makes do. It certainly does not enjoy the lavish facilities and recruiting budgets of many large Division I programs.

That is typical of many, if not all, of the 38 historically Black colleges and universities that have tennis programs. To help address that, the United States Tennis Association has initiated a grant program to contribute funding to those college programs, with the ultimate goal of enhancing opportunities for players of color, especially women, to become coaches and grow the game.

“There is a desperate need,” Houston said Wednesday from her office in Tallahassee, Fla. “We don’t have a lot of funding. We barely get by. This program will help significantly.”

The grant is named after David Dinkins, the former mayor of New York who was a board member of the U.S.T.A. and longtime tennis player, fan and active supporter. Had it not been for Dinkins’ advocacy and intervention, the U.S. Open might not even be in New York anymore, and might not have its showpiece venue, Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest in tennis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/sports/tennis/us-open-hbcu-dinkins.html