In Southeast, Wish List Is a Dream Come True

The list is growing preposterously long now, so long Cora Barry is certain she'll forget to mention somebody, one of the children who has come through the miracle that is the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center and gone on to college to play tennis. There is Joaquin Turley at Morgan State, Erica Baron at Marshall. For that matter, there's 8-year-old Woodie McKnight, one of the best anywhere in his age group. And there's 12-year-old Sarah Means, who has caught the attention of Chris Evert, and will be traveling from Washington to Florida, expenses paid, to work at Evert's training facility.

There are toddlers between the ages of 3 and 5 running through perhaps their first tennis drills on a recent Saturday morning. The Covenant Baptist Church has brought 20 kids between the ages of 7 and 13. There are 180 kids here some weekend days, sometimes as many as 120 after school, hitting tennis balls and studying at the center on Mississippi Avenue at what anybody can see is a safe haven. Zina Garrison, the former champ who has had a hand in the nurturing, calls it, "Tennis in the 'hood."

It is that, but incredibly so much more. Practically and symbolically it is a cultural force in Southeast, the crown jewel of D.C.'s Recreation Wish List, the 10th anniversary of which will be celebrated tonight at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center in "An Evening at the Net" gala featuring Venus and Serena Williams.

Less than 10 years ago, the ground on which the courts and center now stand (at 7th Street and Mississippi Avenue) was a stereotypical urban eyesore, a lot covered with broken bottles, bags that once contained drugs, used condoms. Nothing good had gone on there in years. What once had been tennis courts had become crumbled asphalt. Marion Barry, like his former wife an avid tennis player, told Cora Barry she ought to do something about the old courts. And she took the $200,000 surplus following his fourth mayoral election and inauguration and asked the D.C. Department of Recreation to create a wish list of needs the money could address. Thus, the Recreation Wish List was born.

The Tennis and Learning Center wasn't nearly that easy to set up. Walking into the indoor courts on a busy Saturday morning, Cora Barry said: "It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I got so depressed that I'd fail. . . . Neighbors didn't want the lights because basically they didn't want the kids there. I told them, 'Look, they can be out playing tennis or they can just be out.' . . . Then, all anybody wanted were basketball courts. They'd say, 'Why not basketball courts?' And I'd say, 'Because we've already got basketball courts.' I wasn't even thinking about a center initially. I was thinking about a trailer . . . resurface the courts and put up a temporary trailer.

"I called the White House and asked Mrs. Clinton if she would help me unveil a sign. Not a building, mind you, just a sign that said, 'Future Site of . . . ' I didn't have a dime. Her coming helped us get funding. And when I got to $2 million or so [of the $5.1 million needed], the city stepped in. But even then, when it first opened, kids were hitting balls over the fence, hitting balls all over the place. I was just outdone, totally embarrassed. I remember thinking, 'Oh my goodness, what a mistake. These kids can't play tennis!' "

But the ones who were crashing balls over fences began playing every day all winter and soon enough, the kids from Southeast were holding their own, then going on the road and winning tournaments, then drawing the attention of high school and college tennis coaches. Barry had persuaded Arnold McKnight -- father of 8-year-old prodigy Woody and a veteran coach and administrator in a dozen venues, including the D.C. Boxing Commission -- to be her director. It's hard to imagine the doors opening without Barry and McKnight.

When folks cautioned Barry to hire a builder with experience, she said it was just fine if Jair Lynch, the local kid turned Olympic gymnast turned businessman and civic activist, got the experience he needed by building the tennis and learning center.

Veteran coaches who live in and around D.C. come to teach. IMG has offered scholarships for the top players to work with Evert in Florida. Kaiser has given a grant to combat obesity among kids. Rodney Jordan, a former Navy Seal, is aboard as the trainer. Oracene Price, Venus and Serena's mom, sends boxes of shoes, rackets and outfits for the kids who can't afford to buy their own. It's specifically because of Serena and Venus that young women of color (and more than a few boys, too) who wouldn't otherwise give two hoots about tennis, want to learn how to play, and as a result get roped into Barry's dual mission without having any idea they've been snared. One of those, Sarah Means, is just one of four girls in her family who is taking advantage of the center. And that Serena and Venus continue to support the effort is of major consequence. In the lobby, there's a bronze sculpture by artist Gary Alsum of Venus and Serena poised on a stair step of books.

Now, here's the irony. After all that fretting and waking up nights in a cold sweat when she feared she might not be able to make the center work, Cora Barry is hardly concerned with how much tennis these kids play. It's a cover for her other agenda. "I don't care about the tennis," she said. "The tennis is the hook. Those college scholarships won't come without grades, without test preparation. UDC and Howard have their teams practice here at night and in the winter. You know why that's important to me? So the kids here get to see older kids in college. . . . The after-school program starts at 6 [years old]."

"This is the wing I care about," she said, walking from one classroom to another. "If you fall below a C average, you cannot play tennis. I once made a girl walk past the court, where she wasn't allowed to play, to the learning center. That was so hard. I didn't think they would come if they couldn't play." She says 60 percent of the kids are involved with the learning center, many using the tutors the center pays for. At least one room is equipped with computers. The rooms seem better equipped and stocked than the classrooms the kids visit during the day.

It's more than a safe haven; it's an oasis of sorts, one of the few places in the black world where it's permissible to do something out of the ordinary, such as pursue tennis, and to do something as widely unpopular as study after school and on weekends . . . and seek help doing it. At a time when the rich young black athletes who pass as role models try all too often to convince those coming behind them that education is optional, Barry and McKnight and the people giving their time at the Tennis and Learning Center keep showing up for duty on Mississippi Avenue, shutting out one world while cleverly and lovingly creating another.