Alex J. Kuhn Memorial Invite players to be introduced at ‘Party in the Park’

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — School was not out for Tracy Austin.

Not even junior high at that point.

That posed somewhat of a problem for Brian Parrott.

“She had a beautiful ground stroke and was a great base-line player,” Parrott said of the 14-year-old tennis prodigy, who got her first big break at the Avon Futures Tournament in Portland, Ore. in 1977.

Parrott, who coaches tennis at Charles City High School, was the tournament’s director.

“She had to be in class during the week,” Parrott said of California resident Austin, “so we had to fly her back and forth and change the schedule a little to get her matches in.

“Some people complained about the special treatment, but the Futures tournament was supposed to be about the future of the tennis, and should promote its future stars.”

Austin went on to win the tournament, which granted her a two-week residence on the Virginia Slims professional circuit. That further opened the door for Austin as she later became the youngest player to win a U.S. Open singles title.

Like he did for the Avon Futures, Parrott has been scrambling to bring young topnotch talent to this weekend’s Alex J. Kuhn Memorial Grass Court Invitational to be played at the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club, located at 2667 240th St., Charles City.

The 12-and-under Davis Cup-like team format — Iowa vs. Minnesota — will feature some of the top-ranked players in the USTA Northern Section.

The Minnesota team will be comprised of players from Minneapolis’s InnerCity Tennis program.

“It’s likely none of those kids have played on a grass court before,” Parrott said.

Team Minnesota is due to include Amanda Diao, who recently won the Girls 12s Northern Junior Section Championship; Annika Munson, who is ranked No. 1 in the Girls 12s in the Northern Section; Hank Trondson, who was a member of the gold-medal winning team at USTA Team Nationals last spring; Nolan Ranger, a second-generation player whose father, Lars Ranger, was a top professional in Norway; Sarah Shabaz, a USTA Team Nationals qualifier; and Matthew Fullerton, one of the top players in the Northern Section.

As of early this week, the Iowa six-person team was still a work in progress. But Parrott said they got a commitment from Des Moines resident Declan Galligan, Iowa’s top ranked player in his age group — also nationally ranked; and Ava Petersen of West Des Moines, who ranked No. 3 in 12s in Iowa while still only 11 years old.

Helping put together the Iowa team is former professional player Bunny Brunning, who incidentally played in the aforementioned Avon Futures Tournament.

Friday evening before the tournament, the visiting players will meet their host families at The Pub on the Cedar.

“Then at about 6 p.m. we’re going to walk down to ‘Party in the Park’ (in Central Park) and have the players introduced to the public between the band breaks,” Parrott said.

The invitational will start on Saturday at 10 a.m. where the national media-celebrated grass court, constructed and maintained by Mark Kuhn, will be formally named the “Alex J. Kuhn Court of Dreams”.

Play will start immediately after.

“There will be no charge to attend this two-day event,” Kuhn said. “The public is invited.”

Normally active throughout the summer with people from around the country booking reservations (free of charge) to play lawn tennis at the AILTC, the court has been dormant for nearly a year.

Shortly after Mark returned from The Championships, Wimbledon last July where he served as an honorary court attendant, his son Alex committed suicide.

Feeling the grief of losing their 34-year-old son, Mark and his wife Denise decided to cancel nearly 70 reservations that summer.

“Since Alex so active with the youth of his community,” Kuhn said of his son, who had two sons of his own — Rylan (12) and Collan (8) — coached youth sports, and as a Mason City councilman, adamantly pushed for a city law that would ban smoking and second-hand smoke from playgrounds, “we decided to reopen it with this invitational.”

In addition to the raising of the American flag during the dedication, an Iowa State University flag will also be raised.

“That’s where Alex went to college,” Kuhn said. “And Iowa State has really helped us when it came to building this court.”

Kuhn also is grateful for the assistance and guidance he received from Iowa Cubs Sports Turf Management and the knowledge he gleaned from working Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Early sponsors for the invite include Pioneer Seed, Larry and Donna Stewart of Stewart Realty, and the Charles City Lions Club.

Like Wimbledon, concessions at the invite promise to include strawberries and cream