During his tenure as president of Region V, Hogan was a mover and shaker in growing participation in his home city of Indianapolis and throughout the Region. He saw his role as being “to develop a stronger and wider membership base and provide services to all players, at every level of the game.”
Hogan instituted creative tactics to grow the sport locally. Upon noticing that many area players were not APTA members, he incorporated APTA membership into the Indianapolis chapter membership program. The league he started in 1989 with 32 players had grown to more than 200 APTA/IPTA members by 1996. The building of several new courts at the Indianapolis Racquet Club had helped the boom in play.
Hogan noted, “Not only do we need to expose more people to the game, at the same time we must provide facilities on which they can play. All those players (especially young people) who can[...]
All the talk as the paddle season opened was about the change in the Official Rules under which play would continue on a net cord service.
Some changes in wording were necessary to emphasize that, although many paddle tennis rules were derived from tennis, there were situations where they were different in certain respects.However, there were a few substantive changes in the Eleventh Edition of the Official Rules.
The Rules Committee, under direction from the Board of Directors, had been asked to make the calling of lines by players in an un-officiated match, less “hard and fast” and more “forgiving.” This was accomplished by expanding the comment following Rule 10 by incorporating most of the wording from the “The Etiquette of Platform Tennis.”
The “Continuous Play” regulation found in Rule 24 had a new paragraph (c) inserted which read: “During a service ga[...]
Back to TopA serious accident to her son required Ginna to resign after nine successful years as Executive Director
A shocked Board of Directors listened in stunned silence as President Charley Stevens made the announcement that, after nine successful years, a serious accident involving her son David had precipitated Ohlmuller’s decision to resign. David, a National Men’s Champion and a three-time Mixed Champion, had been the victim of a “hit and run accident” on First Avenue in Manhattan, NYC.
Ohlmuller started as Executive Director in the spring of 1988. She was hired by then President Chuck Vasoll with the assistance of Jean Pine, the APTA Treasurer at that time. Both the President and the Executive Director had little background or experience in the APTA office. However, they became a great working team in a matter of months, and Ohlmuller continued directing the Association under Presidents Brian Zevnik and Charley Stevens.
During her tenure the APTA entered the electronic age de[...]
Jack Randall, a long-time player, coach and supporter of the game had a dream: that a national platform tennis center could be developed.
His vision:
“I'm convinced people everywhere will love paddle once they have a chance to know what it is and have had a chance to play it. This cannot be done strictly through private clubs. The solution: A National Platform Tennis Center at a public facility is needed to accomplish this. A place important enough to the media to give it some exposure - especially on TV - along with an offer to come down to the center and try the game for free. We make it easy; newcomers try it ‘indoors’ and comfortably. Once they like it, they move with their friends outdoors. It seems natural to locate such a center in the heart of the area where the sport originated ... a place with a large population, in a major media market and in an active area of pla[...]
Back to TopPlatform Tennis News welcomes Carolyn Tierney
The Search Committee, appointed by President Charley Stevens, selected Carolyn Tierney of Montclair to succeed Ginna Ohlmuller as the Executive Director of the Association.
At the time, Tierney had been playing platform tennis for almost 30 years. For 25 of those years, she represented the Essex Fells Country Club in Essex Fells, NJ. Three years prior, she changed her affiliation to the Park Lakes Club in Mountain Lakes, NJ. In both clubs she had wonderful experiences with super partners and good friends.
Source: Platform Tennis News, Mid-Winter 1996
For the first time in the history of the game, more than one brand of ball was approved for use in the different National Championships.
Three manufacturers were allocated a portion of the designation “Official APTA National Championship Ball” by a vote of the APTA Board.
The ball to be used in the Men's and Women's National Championships was awarded to Viking Athletics. The Senior Championship would be played with the ball made by Wilson Sporting Goods. The Mixed National and the Mixed Masters would use the Marox ball.
Source: Platform Tennis News, Winter 1997
Back to TopPlatform Tennis News covered the charity tournament hosted by Fox Meadow that supports The Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, NY.
The Children’s Village Platform Tennis Tournament was co-founded by Fox Meadow Tennis Club member Sally D. Rogers, and had been run at Fox Meadow since the early 1980s.
The beneficiary was the Sanctuary program at Children's Village, which provides a safe haven for young people between the ages of 12-17 who felt they could not go home, or had no home to go to.
Besides food, shelter, and clothing, the program was designed to stabilize young people in crisis and help them take control of their lives.
The tournament covered a significant part of the Sanctuary’s annual operating budget.
Approximately 20 years after the first paddle court was installed at the Fox Meadow Club in Scarsdale, New York (November, 1931), a few newcomers to Sewickley, a suburb northwest of Pittsburgh, were planting the seeds for what was to become the first known paddle court in the Pittsburgh region.
The Ramsburgs had moved to Sewickley from New Canaan, where they had been members of the Country Club that housed one of the first few paddle courts in the country. In 1951, Chassie Ramsburg talked Henry Chalfant into allowing him to build a paddle court using the concrete base of a greenhouse that had been torn down.
Ramsburg ordered architectural plans from R.J. Reilly in Rye, New York then turned over those plans to a local contractor in Sewickley.
According to a report, the contractor used “reject pipe from the Spang Chalfant plant along with some sort of wire.” When Chassie as[...]
The event was held at the New Canaan Field Club with major sponsorship from Viking Athletics, Green Mountain Platform Tennis Company, and the New Jersey Women’s Paddle League, and drew 80 players in four divisions.
For the first time, a 10-under division was added and boys and girls were allowed to enter as teammates, instead of holding separate events for each.
There were many familiar sounding names in the tournament prompting Robin Rich Fulton, the events chair to comment:
“It seems like the next generation of players is going to include a lot of legacies from our times, with names like Slonaker, Marold, Stefanik, Adams, Tucker, Cash, Jones ... the list goes on and on. The dads and moms who have made their mark on the game and passed on those forehand genes to their kids should be especially proud that they're jumping in to carry the torch.”
Source: Platform Tenni[...]
Region V reigned supreme in both the men's and women's divisions.
Region IV was a close second in the men's division, while Region I accepted "second best" in the women's flight.
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