In 2021, I moved from Harlem to leafy Fort Greene, Brooklyn. I’m a longtime competitive tennis player, and one of my first outings in the neighborhood was to an annual community tennis tournament in the park that a friend recommended. Eager to scout the competition and cultivate a tennis tribe in my new home, I walked up the hill and watched rallies across the six courts. I noticed one guy in bright orange shorts with rapid footwork and a slight limp. I turned to the stranger watching next to me and asked what the guy’s deal was.
The stranger spent no less than 30 minutes filling me in. I learned that the man in orange shorts was named Greg, that he was married and had a kid, the cross streets where he lives, the name of his favorite restaurant on DeKalb Avenue (Roman’s), how he only makes his coffee at home and doesn’t like any of the coffee shops in the neighborhood. I even learned which neighborhood dogs like and dislike his dog, Captain. “He’s like a dad to everyone in the community,” the stranger said. Before long Greg and I were texting to arrange the first of many hits on the Fort Greene courts.
Growing up in New Mexico, I attended and participated in just about every kind of local sporting event — tournaments and leagues spanning soccer, basketball, swimming and lots of tennis. When I wasn’t playing, I would walk around alone or sit with my grandma, listening to the sounds of the game. I remember the screech of footwork and shouts of “Come on!” but also the conversations in the crowds, especially the stories about players and their reputations around town: who was dating whom, who cheated at the game or in their personal life, who had a recent triumph (a newly opened restaurant) or a loss (crashed while biking in the foothills).
One memory stands out: There was my 80-something-year-old high school tennis coach at the Albuquerque Academy. He spent his life teaching everyone to obsess over Pete Sampras’s serve. He helped build a tennis program that became one of the most successful in the country. After losing several loved ones, he redoubled his commitment to coaching. His life seemed fairly solitary, but the sounds of the game and his interaction with the community soothed him. I remember him as a compulsive conversationalist, prone to chatter with everyone. I was a gangly, closeted queer kid, and I emulated his approach around the courts; getting to know othersput my own emotional life in perspective.
What I learned was that anyone can get to know their neighbors at these events, regardless of who you are or how you come to the sport. Sit near someone who is intently watching the game and ask, “Who’s that?” and the barriers between you and them will crumble. You can’t find this kind of intimacy talking to people at bars, gyms or the farmers’ markets. Whether or not we play, we’re more vulnerable and exposed in sport. When we compete, or even just watch a competition, different parts of our personalities emerge. Our creativity, diligence, neuroticism, passion, pettiness or hatred of losing appear in a more concentrated, intense form, layered atop one another in ways you only find on a court or field. We encounter personal and communal histories that feed into these events like tributaries into the sea.
At the tennis courts, though, I’ve found a space where everyone must be both competitive and contemplative. Sports require an attuned sense of attentiveness to yourself and others, so that during the rush of competition we perceive one another in new ways. Riding the high of the game, we have the chance to ask questions of new and old acquaintances about why they exuded impatience or confidence that given day. Outside the arena, we make small talk about neighborhood updates, but we also veer seamlessly into conversations that go deeper.
New York Times
