My tennistory mainly begins when I was 13 or 14 years old. As a very small child I was a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan. I lived in Columbia, MO and was able to listen to the radio broadcasts at my house in the evenings. There was no MLB Extra Innings package on the satellite dish back then, so I really only got to watch a few games on TV per season. Being the huge baseball fan that I was, naturally, my career aspiration was to be a major league baseball player. I played a lot of baseball with the kids in the neighborhood and played my first season of organized baseball as a 12 year old in Columbia, MO. We moved to Lilburn, GA in 1989 when my dad changed jobs. It was shortly after this that I realized that my future was not in baseball. The other boys in the league aided me in arriving at this conclusion. I played Pony League ball as a 13 and 14 year old, but it was becoming as obvious as a swing and a miss that I was not going to be able to make the high school baseball team. I did want to play a high school sport, however. Knowing that my dad used to play tennis, I asked him to teach me.
After getting the basics down, I began to participate in ALTA and USTA junior leagues. It was a good way to practice and meet other kids that also liked tennis. I remember being a tennis nut! I was probably playing tennis about 5 days a week. My dad and I would go out a couple of times during the week and then I'd have my team practices, I'd go to my dad's team practices with his ALTA team often, my league matches and then pick up matches with friends. The summer before my senior year of high school, I got up every morning at 7:00 during the week and played tennis with a girl from my USTA team. Although, that may have had more to do with the girl than being evidence of my love for tennis. I didn't really get into playing USTA tournaments like some of my friends did. I played one in Rome, GA. I drew the local top seed in the first round. His name was Bubba. He took it to me pretty quickly and that was that. I remember being annoyed that when my shots were out, his call was "nah". That's it. Just, "nah". It was a call like he was almost rooting for me to actually get a ball in, but "nah". I'm not normally one to brag about my accomplishments, but I did pick up a couple of ranking points and was a ranked player in the state of Georgia. I know, it's annoying when someone just goes on and on about their accomplishments, so I'll move the story along. 
My time as a part of a junior team went much better. I was on ALTA teams that did well at the City tournament. We won it at least once and made the finals a couple of other times. I was on a USTA junior team that won city and then won state. I had a lot of good times and success on those teams, but I really wanted to play high school tennis.
I'll go ahead and end this entry here. I'm seeing a trilogy in the making. Feel free to comment on anything or to share your story of how you got started in this great sport. There are some fun memories about my high school and college tennis experience that I'll blog about next time.
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