2011 APTA Board Nominees – Courtia Worth, John Noble, George Douaire and Rich Green

Courtia is currently the Director of Tennis and Platform Tennis at the Hartford Golf Club where she has grown the platform tennis programs in particular over the past six years. She is partial to her Senior Racquets group of over a dozen men who show up with paddle or tennis racquet in hand three times a week throughout the year ready to play either sport! With an average age of 79, how great is that? She was pleased to be tapped to go The Villages and work with over 100 seniors in that stellar Orlando community.

Courtia learned how to be a teaching pro from some of the best. Bob Callaway gave her guidance at the Reilly Platform camps in Jackson Hole, Patty Hogan was her PPTA Coach and she started her teaching career teaching juniors with Marie Minnick. Her sister, the one and only Hall of Famer Winnie Hatch, brought her into the game. Winnie was forever wondering why Courtia was never in the right the place, at the right time, questioning, “Well, where did you think they were going to hit it?” Courtia never knew, but Winnie always did.

Courtia has won two National Championships, one with Karen Cashmen for Women’s 50 and another with Doug Barrow in National 60′s and has twice been a runner up. Although senior to some degree, she still represents Region II for the President’s Cup and is captaining the team for 2011 in Chicago.

Courtia was raised on the tennis courts in Houston, Texas, and she spent a few decades in marketing and advertising and dealing in photographic art in Manhattan. She now lives in the Hudson Valley, and has returned to her athletic roots!

John was introduced to platform tennis in 1999 and quickly became addicted and began to participate whenever and wherever he could. It didn’t taken very long for his participation to move to a new level and since 2002 he has been the tournament director of the Chicago Charities and Director of Tournaments for the Chicago Platform Tennis Charities League (CPTC). Additionally, John serves on the APTA Men’s Ranking Committee (since 2004) as the Region S representative and is helping chair the 2011 Men’s & Woman’s APTA Platform Tennis Nationals and 2012 Mixed APTA Nationals in Chicago.

A native of Lake Forest, Illinois John is a graduate of Ball State University and a member of its Athletic Hall of Fame. He currently lives in Lake Forest and has two beautiful daughters and wonderful wife, Susan, who has been and continues to be of great support. John works with a unique healthcare company that focuses on engaging and supporting the health of employees.

George, a resident of Northfield, IL, was bitten by the paddle bug about 10 years ago – a sub was needed for his club team, he was available and has played ever since. Since then he has been a team captain and participated in a many tournaments as possible. According to George, there is nothing better than a competitive match followed by a cold beer.

Early on George and his partners were cannon fodder in the first round of tournaments but he looked at the experiences as lessons in the game. Since then the goal has been to make it to Sunday in the back-draw.

George has a tremendous amount of respect for the game and the people who play it. He is in awe of the dedication of the volunteers who run the tournaments and shepherd the sport. He looks forward to helping the APTA grow the sport so that others can enjoy this fantastic game.

He has an MBA in Finance and is currently providing management consulting and M&A services while working on behalf of several charitable organizations. Formerly George was Chief Operating Officer at Think Partnership, an Internet marketing company and VP of Marketing and General Manager of eBusiness for Eastman Kodak Company.

Rich grew up on Long Island mostly playing tennis. He ventured onto a paddle court once but it was with a tennis racquet. Twenty something years later he was hooked playing with his Long Island team out of the Huntington YMCA. Upon later moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for two years he continued to travel many Thursdays to represent that YMCA league team.

It took Rich almost three years to bring paddle courts to Chapel Hill at the Chapel Hill Tennis Club with the help of Region VII founder Taylor Bowen, an APTA grant, and local supporters. He organized the 2007 court opening that at that time was the largest APTA exhibition/ clinic with well over 200 attending. At that clinic, Marty Pomerantz, of the University of North Carolina campus recreation decided to add paddle courts to his planned on-campus complex across from the famed Dean Smith Center.

Rich continues to organize local league play and serves as current APTA Region VII President. For the past three years he has been President’s Cup Captain and has served on several APTA committees. He also built the APTA’s spreadsheet application for estimating platform tennis revenues and expenses to help grow the sport.

Outside of paddle Rich works for a convertible hedge fund, enjoys cycling, and is probably one of the few paddle players on the yogic path.