Sure it was on my home turf and you would expect me to be proud of it. But it means more than that. A Junior Tournament is the real future of the sport.

Now that proclamation is not new. The governing body of every sport has always said it. But our sport is different. In the other sports, baseball, basketball, tennis, football, etc. the expectation is that the teenage sensation will learn the basics of the sport and, if some extraordinary ability is present, a college scholarship or a professional career is right around the corner. It is this expectation of a professional career that keeps a sport in the public arena. Spectators want to emulate the pros and thus keep these sports alive even when the same spectators can no longer participate.

Platform tennis is different. All we can hope is that maybe twenty years from now these youngsters, now grown to middle age, will remember having a great time engaging in our sport. It will take that long for most of them to have a successful working career that will enable them to join a country club that may have a couple of our courts. That’s sad, but unfortunately, it is true. It’s not like our game is as exclusive as say, polo, but at times it comes pretty close.

So, except for a very fortunate few, most of these kids, when they complete their teen years, will not experience the joy of platform tennis again for many years. The governing body of the sport, the American Platform Tennis Association (APTA) has struggled with this problem from its inception. The current APTA Board has initiated some incentives to get the sport into the public arena. They are working with the builders of courts and equipment manufacturers to get the sport going in places where the men and women of average financial means can play. No longer will one have to be a member of a private club to find a court on which to play. It’s a daunting task but certainly one worth the effort.

Have you seen the United States Golf Association television spot in which the young people decide that golf is not for them? The picture erases the children on the practice range and the announcer states that the sport will disappear if just one generation no longer shows interest in it. If golf is thinking about that with the number of players it has, platform tennis must be anxious about its future and work diligently to keep the sport alive.

Viking Junior Tour

(Above) Matthew and Bryan Kallenberg,
Chris and Pat Brosnan

(Above) Jack Stiuso, Aidan Talcott,
Dylan Neville, T.J. McLaughlin