Rookie Junior Challenge this weekend May 5 - 7, deadline for registration is Tuesday, May 1. Click Here for more tournament information.

Orange Ball 10 and Under Kids needs kids interested in traveling to Orlando on May 19 for a Challenge Match. First 8 kids to commit will make the team. Please contact Ron Hakala as soon as possible if you are interested.

Hillsborough summer league Junior Team Tennis coming soon and Israel JTT sectional championship July 20,21 and 22 Florida's best junior team tennis in our own backyard at HCC!

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Gary Shepherd

June 19, 1951 – Dec. 13, 2011

By: Sharon Belmudez, Founder HCTA

Many of you may or may not know Gary but to those that do know him as an extremely passionate man with regards to tennis and we were blessed to have the honor to know him.

I first met Gary in 2007 after the HCTA started to take shape when he attended a meeting at Sandra Freeman Tennis Center (sp).  We spoke in great depths after the meeting and it was then he decided he wanted to be part of the HCTA and joined us as our Publicity Director.  When the president and vice president of the HCTA resigned and I was nominated as president and Gary stepped up to take on the role of the Vice President’s position along with the duties of the publicity director.  Among the other things that Gary did was getting the first HCTA logo established, developing communication with Active to develop the first website and amongst all the other jobs he also took on the Webmaster position.  He with his writing skills would also write all of the articles and clean up all of the boards grammar on whatever he wrote, he was passionate also about the articles be grammatically correct.  Gary also met with government officials and attended meetings and let them know how important tennis is and the benefits of tennis.  As a teaching pro he knew the physical benefits of the sport and was able to share those statistics with them.

While keeping up with all the volunteer responsibilities with the HCTA Gary took on a position with USTA Florida as the USTA Junior League Coordinator position a monumental task in itself.  The USTA also saw the passion and commitment that Gary had to tennis and the junior players that they presented to him a unique opportunity to become Hillsborough County’s Quickstart Coordinator.  Gary did all these things while keeping his volunteer duties within the HCTA as the forefront.  I can tell all of you that Gary wanted for Tampa to have a premier tennis facility and for the HCTA to be part of this facility.  We are hopeful that this will come to fruition and know that Gary was an integral part of this.

The HCTA has changed a great deal along the way but without the help of one of the original founders of this great organization the HCTA would not be where it is today and for that we need to be thankful to Gary Shepherd.  Without his passion for the sport his gift of spreading the word on the HCTA the organization would not be where it is today.  Gary inspired individuals to join the board and others to join as members. Tampa tennis owes a great deal to Gary Sheperd and I would like to express my deepest sympathy to his wife and family and to thank them for sharing Gary with us. Gary touched a lot of people along the way on his great tennis journey.

Rest in peace my friend.