STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
They began the season the way they finished the last--toasting one another with a glass of wine.
Then Sun Valley’s national tennis champs went to work to defend their championship.
“Last year we made a pact to focus everything we had on going all the way. We haven’t done that yet, but we will,” said Maria Parkhill, pumping her arm in the air.
The act of kicking off the season over wine at the Limelight Hotel wasn’t an empty exercise. Coach Bill Van Deinse credits the women’s focus on having fun together on and off the course as one of the factors that took them to the top past some stiff competition.
“It wasn’t just that they got together and played tennis. They socialized and they played games like Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples. All along the way, they had fun, and it kept them relaxed,” he said.
Indeed, the team comprised of Captain Candy Ryan, Co-Captain Maria Parkhill, Heidi Mickelson, Penny Brennan, Joanne Wetherell, Gayle Stevenson, Britt Palmedo and Alma Campanale have been teammates and competitors on the same and opposite sides of the net for 20 years.
And when they weren’t playing tennis, they were playing golf, swimming, skiing and doing yoga together.
In October they were crowned the No. 1 women’s USTA team in the nation after taking first place at Nationals in the 8.0--55 and over--division.
They had bested 10,000 women playing at their age and skill level on 652 USTA teams.
The Sun Valley team started its march winning the District championship in Idaho Falls and continued it at Sectionals in December. Then they faced off against 17 teams from Hawaii to Northern California at the National Championships in Surprise, Arizona, the last week in October.
The tie breaker came down to a nail biter with Alma Campanale and Penny Brennan up against a team from Florida that had swept every opponent they’d encountered during the season. Sun Valley’s tennis players controlled the final match from the start, leaving the players from Florida in shock.
It was a David vs. Goliath story.
“One of the women from Northern California couldn’t believe we were from a little tiny town. She said they had recruited from the top tennis clubs from throughout northern California,” said Brennan. “But the women in this valley are so athletic and all of us on the team have known each other for years—we’ve watched our children grow up together. So we’ve had an incredible opportunity to bond together as a team.”
The women returned home to pomp and circumstance.
“Sun Valley Mayor Peter Hendricks even gave us the key to the city of Sun Valley after he read about our triumph in ‘Eye on Sun Valley!’ ” said Wetherell. “The mayor proclaimed Nov. 4. USTA 55 and Over Women’s 8.0 National Champion Day.”
This past week, Van Deinse gathered seven of the women for practice at the Sun Valley tennis courts. Because they won the championship last year, they have to play at a higher level and or split up into two teams, taking on a few new players. They decided to do both.
“Moving up is going to be a challenge. But it doesn’t mean we won’t do it,” said Wetherell.
“It was hard last year. It’s going to be harder this year,” said Van Deinse.
Van Deinse had them volley balls at midcourt: “You did really well at the net last year. I want to you to practice midcourt.”
Van Deinse, a pro for Sun Valley Resort, started hitting balls when he was 9 and went on to play at Gustafus Adolphus College in Minnesota. He played pro for one year but retired when he broke his knee and went on to coach at John Newcombe Tennis Ranch for 15 years.
He just got back from Morocco where a client had flown him for some one-on-one coaching.
He’s taken 11 teams to nationals from Phoenix, Miami, Chicago and Sun Valley. But his latest team has a special place in his heart not just for having won the championship but for having won such honors as “Best Sportsmanship.”
“The biggest thing is the way they congealed as a team and the way they learned to practice together. They really pushed each other and made each other better. They became very professional,” he said.
Van Deinse ran the women through fire and water drills and drills in which they hit volleys back and forth in the air continuously.
Then he watched nervously as they edged closer and closer to the championship.
“Some of the best matches I watched were incredible individual efforts where our team lost but performed so well that you couldn’t feel bad,” he said.
Campanale and Brennan simply performed at a better level than the other team could handle in the final match, he said.
“I said to myself, ‘Unless we screw up, we should win.’ It wasn’t certain because I know anything can happen in tennis. But luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. We were lucky but we were also prepared. We had immense preparation.”
Confidence helped, too.
“First we thought, ‘Our little town playing people from big cities in Florida and California--no way! ’” Palmedo recalled. “But we gained confidence with each match. My partner and I were down 6-0 one time and we looked at each another and said, ‘We’ve got to figure this out,’ and we did. Momentum built with each match and Bill did a great job with the lineup.”
Al Stevenson, who has been married 38 years to Gayle, says he’s up for another year of living with a national champion.
“It’s an unbelievable accomplishment for these women,” he said. “I’ve been to Nationals four times and made never made it to the semi-finals. So I have complete admiration for my wife and her teammates.”