Non-Profit Seeks to Make Tennis Backboards More Easily Available
January 8th, 2013
Many campaigns have been launched in the name of improving diet and fitness in recent years. A few years ago, the National Football League started the Play 60 campaign encouraging children to be active at least 60 minutes a day in an effort to prevent child obesity. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop founded Shape Up America in 1994 to address obesity. Many other organizations dedicated to health and fitness like these were created to promote and educate the public about fitness and more healthy lifestyles. One of the more unusual ones, Project Tennis Backboard, seeks to make tennis backboards more available to the public.
Organizations promoting tennis are nothing new, but I can’t recall one that specifically promoted the use of tennis backboards. The organization makes a compelling case, however for making tennis backboards accessible to the public. In communities where tennis courts are not available, backboards can be setup, introducing the sport to people who otherwise would not have taken up the sport. They also make the sport, which tends to have a country club image more accessible to people who do not have the budget for lessons.
Many of the sports legends including Arthur Ashe, Martina Navratilova, Rod Laver, Pete Sampras and Andy Roddick benefitted from backboard training. This proves that the backboards can be part of an important training regimen, not just an activity that you fall back on when you don’t have a partner to train with.
Project Tennis Backboard is another worthwhile program dedicated to fitness and the sport of tennis. It also fills a gap that programs like USTA Schools Program, Rapid Rally and First Serve cannot fill, especially in areas where tennis courts are not available. You have to admire the resourcefulness of a program that promotes tennis while refusing to be limited by the absence of tennis facilities in many communities.
