Dioni L. Wise
Courtesy of the Carrboro Commons
Dana Hughes, the event coordinator and a recreation supervisor with the Carrboro Recreation & Parks Department, and Patti Fox, the community tennis coordinator for the Durham-Orange County Tennis Association (DOCTA), decided to create an event for the growing Latino community.
That’s when the Hispanic Tennis Carnival was conceived.
“Patti Fox and I got together and we were trying to do an outreach for the Latino community,†Hughes said. “And both of us know Carrboro has a growing [Latino] population, so we decided to do a tennis carnival, and it was modeled after the one in Greensboro. So [the U.S. Tennis Association] started the program, and we just took the program and modified it for our needs.â€
On Sunday, Oct. 12, Carrboro Recreation & Parks, DOCTA and the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) North Carolina hosted the free Hispanic Tennis Carnival at Wilson Park.
Carrboro Recreation & Parks offered follow-up lessons the past three Sundays.
The carnival, or “Carnaval de tenis hispano†in Spanish, started four years ago on the two courts at the Hank Anderson III Community Park. It has been hosted the past three years on the four courts of Wilson Park, where more than 50 participants performed drills and played games Oct. 12.
The turnout has been gratifying, said USTA North Carolina’s Hispanic outreach coordinator, Liliana Camara.
“It has been great,†Camara said. “We not only have the same people every year, but more because it’s a lot of word-of-mouth and they tell their friends. It has definitely grown.â€
Fox said the carnival promotes tennis to a population that traditionally hasn’t been exposed to the sport.
“Just like they can go out and play soccer as a family, hey, you can go out and play tennis as a family,†Fox said.
Camara, a Greensboro resident originally from Colombia, said playing tennis could combat health problems.
“Obesity is a pretty big problem in Hispanic kids,†she said. “There’s a very high rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
“[Tennis] is a very healthy thing, and it’s one of those things people can play their entire lifetime.â€
Although free rackets were given to the first 30 children, ages 5 to 18, to register for the carnival, the adults got in on the action too.
“We involve parents, too,†Camara said. “We have kids on one court and teach the parents on another court.â€
Luis Alfonso Royo, a teacher, brought his wife and two children to the carnival.
Royo partnered with his 15-year-old son, Luis Alejandro, on the court, while his 10-year-old daughter played with the pre-teen group one court over. His wife, Alexandra Romero, alternated her time watching the game from a bench behind a fence and taking photos of her family playing tennis.
“It’s a great event for the Hispanic community because it allows kids and adults to familiarize themselves with tennis, to get to know other people in the Hispanic community and to get to know the Anglo community,†Luis Alfonso said.
“I always enjoy doing these, and I love to expose tennis to people who may not have had the opportunity to play it,†Fox said.
Kelsey Hamilton is a UNC student writing for The Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer’s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.