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Captain Glenn Heard is joined by teammate Layne Smith at Westside HS.
The rock of Heard-Flint River’s 3.5 Mens team, super-super senior-eligible
Marvin Hill.
Donald Barber (left)
appreciates Marvin Hill’s hustle on the court.
Glenn Heard, of
Bainbridge, GA, and his Flint River core group have been teammates for
nearly eight years, and 73-year-old Marvin Hill is the rock of the team.
Fellow teammate Layne Smith says, “Marvin is always there . . . any time,
any court.” Hill only starting playing tennis in his 40s (30 – 35 years
ago), Teammate Layne Smith notes with a smile, “He came to the game late,
and he’s not been playing long . . . “ He was a track and football star on
his Jefferson, GA, high school teams.
On a hot Macon Friday
afternoon, during the 3.5 and 4.0 Low championships, Marvin and his partner,
Donald Barber, were battling the heat and the opposing team at Westside HS
tennis courts.
Westside HS
is not exactly “center court,” but it didn’t matter to this Flint River
team. To play league tennis out of Bainbridge, you’ve got to be willing to
make a real effort. “We drive from Bainbridge to Blakely (45 min drive) and
to Albany (1:15 min),” Captain Glenn Heard says. “My wife, Lee Ann Heard is
the real captain of our team,” Heard says. “She does all the work, sends the
emails, keeps us organized and playing tennis.” Lee Ann couldn’t make the
league championships, but she’s keeping in touch with “her boys” through the
weekend.
Heard says
they added a strong player, Chuck Rooks, a recent transplant to Bainbridge
from the Atlanta area. USTA Atlanta’s loss is Flint River’s gain. Rooks is a
pretty good tennis player and a good guy to know—on many different levels—as
a prosecutor for the District DA’s office.
The team
learned they’d qualified for the adult state league championships only two
to three weeks ago. They were tied for second for most of the season when
the other team had a tough outing in the last week of the season. Now
they’re in Macon, and enjoying every minute of it! |
