It’s been more than 35 years since Ronald Reagan stated, during his first inaugural address, “Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they just don’t know where to look.” We discovered heroes in every state, starting with the determined 69-year-old who won a match at an ITF Pro Circuit event earlier this year in the Alabama town of Pelham, and culminating with the coach who has overcome multiple sclerosis to build a winning program at the University of Wyoming. Their compelling stories of courage, perseverance and achievement demonstrate that the message delivered by our 40th President rings as true today as it did then.
The greatest lesson that Tim James learned as a 17-year-old student at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy did not come from the mouth of a coach or from a particularly painful loss. It came from a match he watched from his dorm window on the grounds of the Bradenton, FL, facility in 1985.
He saw a 15-year-old Andre Agassi challenge top American pro Tim Mayotte to a single set. Mayotte prevailed 7-5, but it was what happened next that James will never forget. With four hours of afternoon training still to come, he watched Agassi, clad in his signature cutoff jean shorts, jog out to the football field and punish himself for the loss by doing pull-ups on the field-goal crossbar.
“This is teaching me a life lesson,” James remembers telling his mom on the phone. “You have to be willing to go the extra mile.”
It was a mentality he carried with him for the rest of his life.
The courts at the academy were a long way from James’ humble tennis roots in Gilford, NH. He was just five years old when his father passed away, which left his mother working multiple jobs to support James and his two brothers. Their extracurricular activities needed to be cost-effective and convenient.
When he saw that free lessons were being offered at his neighborhood tennis courts, he didn’t hesitate.
“I would have never signed up if they weren’t for free,” James says. “First of all because we couldn’t afford it, but also because I would have been too embarrassed to ask for a scholarship.”
A top player in New England by the time he reached high school, James spent his senior year training in Florida, courtesy of a chance meeting with a Bollettieri Academy staffer and a second mortgage taken out by his mother.
Her sacrifice paid dividends. James would receive a tennis scholarship to Iona College and go on to start a career at a software company back in New Hampshire. When it sold in 2009, James looked for ways to give back to the sport that had given him so much. He was drawn to the Lakes Region Tennis Association, identifying with its goal to offer free lessons to area youth.
James believed in the LRTA’s mission so strongly that he donated $10,000 of his personal funds to the cause. Three years later, the organization is offering free lessons to over 300 children in six different towns. Now classified as a Community Tennis Association and an NJTL program through the USTA, the LRTA’s expansion is inevitable. Like Agassi that day in Florida, James hopes to see it go the extra mile.