VCU’s Mary and Frances Youth Center offers healthy life skills through tennis
Family tennis event coming to VCU
Photo by Chris Conway
Jim Swing
Sports Editor
Walking around the Mary and Frances Youth Center, there is no shortage of smiling faces.
It’s no surprise that the VCU tennis center, located between Cary Street Gym and Cary Street Field, is home to classrooms providing youth-centered training and programming geared towards shaping character development and future orientation around the sport of tennis.
The center houses Lobs & Lessons, a non-profit organization reaching out to underprivileged elementary and middle school youth by infusing tennis as a meeting ground through a curriculum called First Serve Life Skills.
The organization provides tennis instruction and life skills curriculum to more than 200 kids each year through afterschool programs.
On Saturday, it will host the first-ever Lobs & Lessons Family Open, an event aimed at developing QuickStart Tennis for Everyone, a confidence-building teaching format allowing families to play side-by-side.
“The idea is that it’s a family fun event that promotes a healthy lifestyle,” Tina Carter, the program’s director said, “and how tennis is a part of a lifelong healthy lifestyle and that tennis can also be a lifelong sport that kids can play.”
Of all sports, tennis may require players to be the most durable and healthy. One of the major aspects of the program deals with an emphasis on staying in good shape.
“We wanted to show kids and adults that tennis is a lifelong sport,” Carter said. “It’s very different than a lot of other sports, different than a lot of contact sports, but you only need one other person to play tennis so it’s obtainable, but you have to be healthy in order to play it unlike anything else.”
Back in the spring, Carter came to Richmond Tennis Association President Eric Perkins with the idea for the event. The two organizations have worked together in previous years on a number of different programs, so when Perkins heard the pitch, it wasn’t a hard decision at all.
“We’re quick to offer our support,” Perkins said. “It’ll be a great community event and one that we hope becomes an annual tradition.”
Adults and children will play on shortened courts with smaller racquets and foam balls. The adult-child doubles teams will participate in six 12-minute matches in a round robin/non-elimination format groomed to help boost confidence on the court of play.
Lobs & Lessons is one of only 38 National Junior Tennis and Learning chapters in the nation, and the lone one in Virginia, to offer the First Serve Life Skills curriculum.
“For us,” Carter said, “it’s letting the VCU community and the greater Richmond community know about the program that we have.”
Perkins said the main goal of the program is to promote awareness of the type of events Lobs & Lessons and the Richmond Tennis Association provide in the Richmond community.
“The main goal is to promote awareness of both organizations and to introduce a family tennis event for the Richmond community,” Perkins said, “in promoting not only tennis and QuickStart tennis particularly, but promoting physical fitness and healthy living.”
What: Lobs & Lessons Family Open
When: Saturday, Sept. 17 from 9 a.m.–1 p.m.
Where: VCU Mary and Frances Youth Center