Kicking Grass Part 1: The Strange Subculture of Age Group Grass Court Tennis
Note: Regular readers may have come to expect a certain level of data and analysis in these pieces, and maybe even deep and abiding truths. This one has none of that. It’s just about a world I am excited to “play” in.
My wife and I have a long-unfulfilled dream of starting a magazine called “Subcultures.” Each month the magazine (well, really the two of us) would embed deeply in the arcane world of fanatic followers of – something, anything really, the more obscure the better – then give readers a glimpse of what that world really looks like behind the scenes. The possibilities are endless – there’s the world of hopping cars, of varmint hunters, Renaissance Fair jousters, war re-enactors, hot pepper eaters – years of material. More recently, we’ve resigned ourselves to putting the idea onto the rack of “not gonna happen” for a few reasons: The world of magazines in general stinks these days; to do it right we’d have to either get a boatload of paying subscribers or find new advertisers each month; and it’s already been done, really well, as a television show (if you haven’t seen “We Are the Champions” on Netflix yet, treat yourself – is there really not a Season 2?).
My fascination with the arcane and subcultural started during a year I got to spend at WRAL-TV in Raleigh as the “Tarheel Traveler,” a reporting gig where I got to meet the coolest people in the state of North Carolina – the cleverest fisherman, the best glassblower, the smartest pit barbecuer. I spent time with a frugal guy who built his dream home out of discarded Harley Davidson motorcycle crates, a blind hiker walking the Appalachian Trail with his dog Orient, the women’s world hollerin’ champion. Quick descriptions really don’t do these folks justice.
I left almost every encounter jealous of three things these folks had that I desperately wanted: their rich passion for something, a deep talent for doing it, and, often, a coherent moral philosophy far beyond mine.
What’s a subculture you’ve come to know and love? I may not be able to do a magazine issue on it, but it might be fun to learn about for a future post.
Those experiences are as good an explanation as any for why I’m heading out to Philadelphia to compete in the “National Men’s 60 and Over Grass Court Championships.” It’s my second year playing this tennis tournament, and a chance to re-imbed in an obscure subculture I am just getting to know.
Does it really qualify as a subculture? Oh yeah. Let me count the ways.
1. It’s played on grass courts. Only a tiny fraction of tennis is played on grass courts anymore. It’s just too expensive. There’s a huge investment of time that goes into the three-times-daily watering, draining, rolling and the twice-daily chopping of the (70% perennial rye, 30% fescue) grass to a near-golf-green length (8mm, give or take). Let’s be real: It’s only possible to do that kind of maintenance if you are willing to invest huge amounts of money and water and have a club with a golf course and groundskeepers who are experts on grass curation. Even then the surface is mostly gone in the US – as far as I can tell there are only about 15 grass court clubs remaining in the country.
But for some reason, three of those clubs are in Philadelphia, and all of them are called “cricket” clubs (cricket was apparently all the rage in Philly in the 1840’s-1870’s), and while the cricket pitches largely disappeared by the 1910’s, all of these clubs have 24-30 beautiful grass tennis courts.
When cricket was king in the US (Credit: Popperfoto via Getty Images)
Besides its rarity, grass court tennis is interesting in some other ways:
· There are no gaps between the courts – to maximize available space, the doubles line of one court is shared with the court next door. To avoid wearing out the courts, you play on five of the courts one day, then they move the netposts and you play on the other five the next day.
· You can’t count on the ball to bounce predictably; usually it doesn’t bounce much and sometimes it just slides off bumps.
· The way the ball bounces changes over the course of the match – as heat bakes into the court, humidity rises off the surface, creating microclimates of dry and slick spots.
2. The tournament is played in uniforms, and exclusively with men almost exactly the same age. Imagine going to an all-male high school reunion with five dozen guys that you’ve never met. By the rules of the tournament, everyone is within five years of your age and shows up dressed in all white. They come from all over the country. It’s pretty darned weird.
Three quick notes on the people, based on my experience last year:
· The default player is what I would call “wiry.” People at these tournaments range in height from 5’5” to 6’5” and you’ll see some half-formed bellies, but most people look like they love lettuce and are exceptional at converting it to fuel. After the first day of the tournament last year I looked up the word “ectomorph.”
“Wiry” players at last year’s tournament. Hate those guys.
· Everybody has some sort of injury. These are not spoken of prior to a match (you never know who might take advantage of your weakness, so I’m not telling you mine), but they are discussed in great detail after a match: How it happened, how long they’ve had the problem with their (insert body part here), what they’ve tried to make it better.
· Very few people waste a lot of time posturing. I don’t know if it’s the time of life or people have finally gotten over themselves, but I found it refreshing last year that very few players went out of their way to brag about their jobs or possessions, or even how amazing their children were. Instead, there were many deep and fascinating conversations about string tension and physical therapy exercises.
3. It’s played for a championship. Subcultures typically have some recognized hierarchy – some group of people spoken of in hushed tones by other members. This tournament identifies those people over the course of six days.
It’s very different from the rest of our lives. In most of our lives we don’t really “win” or “lose.” We may get a sale or a contract or an investment or a promotion or a job, or not, but even when the result is obvious, the credit (or blame) is rarely all on us.
The end result is that most of life is rarely purely black or white – sometimes we can’t tell if the thing that happened was actually good, and even if we know it was good, we can’t tell if that was because of something we did, or if it coincidentally came after something we did.
A tennis result is immediate and clear. You put your game and ego (and money and tennis whites) on the line, and after an hour or three battling your guts out you get a result – win or lose. The result doesn’t matter in any cosmic or material sense – but it is decisive. And in a world that increasingly looks gray to me, there’s something refreshing about that.
So, once more into this subculture breach. Wish me luck!
-Leslie
References:
“We Are the Champions“on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81034679
History of the Philadelphia Cricket Club: https://www.philacricket.com/about-us/history#:~:text=Founded%20in%201854%2C%20The%20Philadelphia,at%20the%20University%20of%20Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia’s rich cricket history: https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/28/how-philadelphia-became-the-unlikely-epicenter-of-american-cricket
Tournament website: https://playtennis.usta.com/competitions/philadelphiacricketclub/Tournaments/overview/AD272A2E-BBBD-4631-B685-E300D68743CD
“Once more into the breach,” from Henry V: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56972/speech-once-more-unto-the-breach-dear-friends-once-more