She had already announced that she was retiring after this fall season, leaving the game after coaching over 400 Warriors high school matches in a career stretching three different decades. So it was a golden opportunity, I thought, to try to get to the real truth about why area prep tennis players seem to run into a wall every year once they get past sectionals and into districts.
After all, Bednar has no reason to mince words now.
“Anymore, to be competitive, you have to play year round,” said Bednar. “We don’t have a place to do that around here that’s affordable.
“All the time I’ve been coaching it has been a bit of struggle to find lessons that are reasonably priced,” she continued. “There is a direct correlation between income and being able to get the tennis lessons.”
This was not so much an indictment on the county’s only indoor facility, the Springfield Racquet Club, as it was on how tennis has slipped in popularity.
“We used to have it here,” she said, referring to the results of a summer program run by the late Dr. Howard Dredge. “Many years ago, Springfield was on the map. It had big-time tennis.”
That’s because it was popular, and cheap.
“It was a program that was basically free,” she said. “People had the interest in it. Kids were out there, learning basic stuff. It was very reasonably priced, very well-run.
“I don’t know if that level of commitment is out there now.”
Greenon coach and tennis pro Steve Wilson has tried to get something off the ground. But he needs help.
“The USTA (United States Tennis Association) has half-court tennis programs, which are great,” she said. “You just need to get everyone together on the same page. One person can’t do it.
“Basically, you have to get people to donate the time, so it can be reasonably priced.”
The programs have to be serious, too.
“You’ve got to teach them proper strokes,” she said. “Kids are never taught the sport, which is odd because it’s one of the sports you can play a lifetime.”
Granted, times have changed since Springfield’s tennis heyday.
“It’s definitely a different environment,” she said.
But after a fall in popularity, there seems to be a slight uptick.
“As a whole, tennis hit rock bottom about 10 years ago,” she said. “Now they’re seeing a little resurgence (nationally).”
How about here?
“I’d like to see tennis make a resurgence,” said Bednar.
“I don’t know what the answer is,” she continued. “It is a money sport. But (to make it big again around here), it’s got to be available to the masses.”
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