REMEMBERING A TENNIS TEACHING LEGEND
By Rich Neher
Don Henson, a larger-than-life tennis teacher, has left us unexpectantly June 10 at age 76. I had the pleasure of meeting Don on numerous occasions in the last 10 years or so, mainly during conferences and for our July 2018 article about his creation TTI, Tennis Teachers Institute in Burbank, California. He always had a smile and some encouraging words for me.
From his online obituary: Don began his life work as a teaching tennis professional and coach at seventeen years old for the R.I. Tennis Organization’s summer club at Brown University’s Aldritch Dexter courts. In the fall of 1966, Don became the assistant tennis pro at the famed Indoor Court in East Providence. The next eighteen years saw Don teach in an around the Rhode Island area.
He served twelve years on the New England Professional Tennis Association board, two as president. In the summers of 1968 to 1972, Don was Head Tennis Pro at the Winchester (VA) Country Club and returned to Winchester in the summer of 1982 as Head Pro at Stonebrook Swim and Racket Club. In 1984 Don took a position as the director of the historic Balboa Tennis Club in San Diego and moved his family to Coronado, CA. He also accelerated his involvement with the United States Professional Tennis Association at the time. Don was a national tester for the USPTA since 1971 under the guidance and mentoring of (late) George Basco, USPTA Master Professional.
He traveled extensively on the west coast representing the USPTA, giving schools and seminars for tennis teachers as well as administering the USPTA certification exam. This work also brought Don down to Mexico and involved numerous excursions to South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China. Don was one of the original eighteen USPTA Master Professionals, and was president of and awarded “Pro of the Year” for the New England, San Diego, and California chapters of the USPTA. Don founded the Tennis Teachers Institute in 2011 which was his final tennis passion project and was created “to provide a comprehensive educational and resource center for teachers and coaches of tennis” and with its mission to, “furnish tennis coaches the tools and knowledge that will allow them to be more effective on the courts.” Don was inducted into the New England Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017 at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I.
RIP Don Henson. You will be sorely missed!
Rich Neher celebrates the publication of his new tennis book “Drop-In Tennis Secrets,” which is now available on Amazon as a paperback and in a Kindle version. He set out to find an answer to the question, “Can you make money in tennis when your name is not Roger or Rafa?” The answer is, yes! Drop-In Tennis Secrets is a handy guide for those seeking to organize tennis matches for local players and make some money in the process.
German immigrant Rich Neher is a tennis writer and publisher of a monthly newsletter titled TENNIS CLUB BUSINESS. Rich has organized and personally conducted thousands of drop-in tennis events in Southern California since 1998.