Recalling Harlem Junior Tennis & Training Program Founders Invoice Brown and Claud Cargill

Harlem celebrates its tennis haven.

The Harlem Junior Tennis & Training Program raised almost $1 million at its 52nd Annual Gala on Might 13 on the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York Metropolis.

HJTEP develops champions in tennis training and wellness, bringing tennis to youth from high-risk, low-income inner-city neighborhoods and provides alternatives for self-development, emphasizing training and a optimistic code of habits.

The Harlem Tennis Middle has been a invaluable group useful resource, shaping youngsters’ lives, for greater than a half-century.

Two Harlem residents and tennis gamers, Invoice Brown and Claude Cargill, based HJTEP in 1972 on the native 369th Regiment Armory on 143rd Road.

Yonkers native Invoice Brown was an completed participant who performed doubles as an beginner on the Forest Hills and the U.S. Nationwide Championships, which might finally grow to be the US Open.

Brown and Cargill, who was one of many first African-American cops in New York Metropolis, understood that few youngsters within the Harlem group had publicity to the largely white-dominated sport. They noticed tennis as a method for betterment and a strong character-builder that instills well mannered habits and issues of others.

The pair additionally knew that African-American tennis greats Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson, who had performed on the Armory, would make nice position fashions for younger gamers.

Invoice Brown believed tennis might remodel younger gamers and supply youngsters with a optimistic exercise.

Years earlier than Nike taped its ground-breaking avenue tennis business the place stars Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras arrange a make-shift courtroom on a Manhattan avenue and rallied, Invoice Brown introduced tennis to the streets of Harlem.

“Tennis can open up [kids’] lives,” Invoice Brown advised The New York Each day Information in an interview. “Put a internet throughout the road and get youngsters within the sport. That can take again the road.”

Invoice Brown and Claude Cargill gave tennis classes and funded the fledgling HJTEP, former Knicks participant Earl (“the Pearl”) Monroe helped them entice outdoors funds. Monroe and Invoice Holloway, one other tennis teacher, teamed with Mutual of New York (MONY) Monetary Providers to sponsor an annual invitational event to profit this system. Earl the Pearl Monroe was an avid tennis participant, who steadily performed on the 143rd Road Armory (Monroe was a serve-and-volleyer) earlier than a number of knee surgical procedures pressured him to step again from enjoying.

However Cargill’s and Brown’s ambitions for his or her younger gamers went a lot additional than the game. In 1979, they launched a Homework Membership to offer tutoring and tutorial counseling. Their early emphasis on training has solely grown in recent times.

As of late, the not-for-profit group opens a brand new door for a lot of inner-city girls and boys, ages 6-18, to be taught the sport of tennis. Since 1972 the numbers converse to its success with a 95% highschool commencement price, a 3.1 GPA, and 80% of graduates attending faculty.

That’s proof that the inspiration laid by Invoice Brown and Claude Cargill stays sturdy in Harlem.