More News

Tennis coach pursues dream, shapes lives

Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Barbara L. Salisbury⁄The Star Tennis instructor Brenda Gilmore hits the ball over the net so far that her students can practice their return during a Friday evening lesson at Watkins Regional Park Tennis Bubble. Gilmore has been teaching since 1993 and is one of the nation’s top 10 wheelchair players.

Whether playing for physical conditioning or the rush of adrenaline she’d feel after a victory, Gilmore, 53, has spent the better part of three decades playing a sport she refers to as ‘‘exhilarating.”

Gilmore’s love affair with tennis was discovered by trial and error. One day, in 1979, a hit-and-run driver traveling on Suitland Parkway struck Gilmore’s car. The accident left Gilmore confined to a wheelchair and searching for something, anything to keep the athlete active.

She tried wheelchair basketball, but found the way players collided into each other a turn off. So she moved on to track – which no longer gave her a runner’s high – then racket ball and kayaking. None of the sports she tried, said Gilmore, gave her the rush of excitement she received from playing tennis.

‘‘I guess I just related to the wheelchair players. They had very positive attitudes and they were living their lives much like they had before their accidents and I guess I just admired them,” said the Upper Marlboro resident.

In the beginning Gilmore had to adjust to the deep stares from onlookers and overcome the awkwardness of using the wheelchair to chase down balls.

‘‘I would go out and hit some balls and people would stare at me,” and make comments, Gilmore said. ‘‘Some of those comments made me want to excel even more. It got to the point where people would [stare] at me because of my ability,” Gilmore said.

It was through dedication and hard work, said Gilmore, that led to the United States Tennis Association (USTA) recognizing her as one of the nation’s top ten wheelchair tennis players during the mid to late 1980s.

Gilmore said the rules in wheelchair tennis are identical to tennis rules in general, with the exception of wheelchair players being allowed an extra bounce once the ball crosses the net before hitting it. Players are outfitted with a special sports wheelchair that is very lightweight and has a front tire similar to a roller blade. The wheels of the chair are cambered to allow a quicker turning radius, Gilmore said.

In 1990 Gilmore went on to work for the USTA – in the beginning as a part-time league coordinator and ultimately as the director of community tennis.

David Pullen, the executive director for the USTA’s Mid-Atlantic region, said people like Gilmore provide the sport with a pulse.

‘‘We rely on people like Brenda to really do the grassroots search and outreach to kids of all ages,” Pullen said.

Using what she’d learned from working with the USTA, Gilmore decided to venture out on her own. And for the past five years Gilmore has been working with local high school students to teach them the fundamentals of the game with life lessons mixed in along the way.

‘‘I try to be a living example to these kids. When I see them holding their head down if they’ve had a bad day on the court, I tell them not to give up,” Gilmore said

For Whitney Ambush, a freshman at Howard University, who began training with Gilmore about eight years ago, one lesson in particular has stayed with her.

‘‘Anytime I wanted to give up she reminded me that [giving up] wasn’t an option. She taught me not to put words in my vocabulary like can’t,” said Ambush, 17, who graduated from Eleanor Roosevelt Senior High School.

While running three community programs, Gilmore said she rarely finds the time to play a set or two of tennis. But for Gilmore, her gift to her students comes from her ability to relate tennis to everyday life.

And as a testament to her hard work, Gilmore was recently honored with the Hershey’s STRIVE coach of the year award for ‘‘her passion for teaching people,” said Sandra Wills Hannon, a public relations official with the USTA’s Mid-Atlantic Region.

‘‘If you’re down are you going to give up or are you going to dig deep and continue on,” Gilmore said.

‘‘As coaches and mentors we can make the changes in their lives and help them learn to fight through adversity.

E-mail Lester J. Davis at ldavis@gazette.net.