Tennis can be tough on the youngest of bodies. But a few athletes play into their 90s and are still going strong.
By ROBERT JOHNSON
Published November 25, 2003
[Photos: Phelan M. Ebenhack]
Emil Johnson, with playing partner Maria Parlak, usually plays twice a week.
Johnson, 95, has earned No. 1 national rankings in his 60s, 70s and 80s.
ORLANDO - Emil Johnson is nearly peerless at tennis. He's the No. 1-ranked tennis player in the nation as a singles and doubles player in his age category. Of course he has few would-be peers with whom to do battle.
"There aren't many people my age competing," says the 95-year-old Johnson (no relation to this reporter). "You see a lot of the same faces across the net at tournaments, and you see less of them as the years go by."
Indeed, while the Tampa Bay area abounds with accomplished senior tennis players, only three achieved statewide rankings in the 90-plus category last year, and Johnson beat them all in tournaments. At the national level, no bay area men are among the 11 ranked in the 90-plus group.
"He's a legend. A lot of people would like to be playing at his level at that age, but hardly anyone can," says Henry McCusker, 71, who plays tennis five times a week at the Treasure Island Tennis and Yacht Club.
The dangers of an injury or illness are greater for older players, says McCusker, who is ranked 15th statewide in the 70-74 category. "If you hurt a leg, a shoulder or a hip, it can be death in this league."
Melodramatic as that may sound, many older tennis players say that being forced to the sidelines interrupts the very lifestyle that allowed them to prolong their athletic endeavors in the first place.
Tough enough
"By playing a lot you toughen yourself up," says St. Petersburg resident Will Roeper, 62, ranked 11th in Florida among singles players in the 60-64 group. "The more you practice, play and compete in tournaments, the more your body can resist muscle tears and pulls."
That layman's health theory raises a question that science still can't answer: Do seniors who exercise stay healthier than those who don't, or is it that already-healthy people are the only ones able to participate in sports or work out?
Medical researchers would love to somehow bottle Johnson's special physical and mental qualities for the general aging population. But the formula is a mystery, says James Mortimer, a professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida who studies Alzheimer's disease. "We still don't know what separates the guy in the rocking chair from the one out on the tennis court. Some people age well for reasons we don't fully understand, and there's some luck and good genes involved."
True, the U.S. Tennis Association's rankings of amateur tournament players who are at least 90 years old is a niche category. (There isn't a separate ranking for 95-and-over.) Only 11 men in the country earned rankings in the USTA's three major events for 90-year-olds last year.
The eldest-of-the-elder tennis players are a fraction of 1 percent among the nation's estimated 20-million tennis participants. Their ranks also thin when compared with the 128 male touring professionals who qualified for the U.S. Open Tennis Championship last September in New York. The oldest player in that event was 33-year-old Andre Agassi.
Agassi as inspiration
Johnson, a sturdy man whose posture barely makes a concession to the years, has more hair on his head than Agassi. A former varsity player at the University of Kentucky in the 1920s, who also lettered in cross country running, Johnson feels a certain kinship with Agassi, who is the No. 1-ranked pro. Says Johnson, "It's inspiring to see someone Agassi's age and playing the way he does."
If Agassi is an inspiration to aging athletes, then Johnson's long-burning competitive spirit must qualify him as a motivational muse for the ages.
Among the ranks of women players, however, Johnson has no peers. The USTA ratings for women show none competing nationally in the 90-plus category. The oldest are in the 85-89 listings, and there are only six, led by Dodo Cheney of La Jolla, Calif.
For senior tennis players of either gender, playing the game may mean overcoming far more serious ailments than, say, a sore shoulder, Johnson says. After heart surgery six years ago, "A cardiologist told him he wouldn't ever play tennis again. You'd never know he had a problem to see him on the court today," says Maria Parlak, a retired teacher in Orlando who plays mixed doubles with Johnson.
In July, he endured a bout with pneumonia and a week in the hospital. Doctors told friends not to expect him back on the tennis court for several months. But in August he resumed playing his usual twice a week.
Born in Columbus, Ga., in 1908, Johnson moved with his family, first to Alabama and as a teenager to Bagdad, Ky., where he ordered his first tennis racket from a Sears & Roebuck catalog at 16. "I never had a lesson but I had read about the game and it sounded like fun. Of course we didn't have television then so I couldn't watch it. But I practiced hitting balls against a wall. The first time I really played was in college," he says.
He entered the University of Kentucky in 1926 and majored in chemistry, graduating in 1930. As an undergraduate, Johnson played tennis only with other students. "I wasn't good enough yet for the school team." But as a graduate student in chemistry, while obtaining a masters degree, Johnson finally did qualify for the squad.
"I wasn't one of the best players," he recalls. (He played sixth on an eight-man squad, meaning the coach considered five players better than Johnson and they played the top competitors in matches.) Still, the university's athletic department confirms, he played enough to win a letter. "I was really proud of that," he says.
Earlier this year Johnson donated $150,000 to the school's varsity tennis men's team to help endow a permanent scholarship. He says, "I wasn't all that good a player when I played at Kentucky. Maybe my donation will help their tennis program more than I did."
After graduate school, Johnson entered the Army and served through World War II with a stint in Europe, retiring as a major in 1961. He promptly moved to Florida "for the good tennis weather." Johnson busied himself not only by playing, but by volunteering to help build a tennis court for his Orlando area church and giving free lessons to children.
Meanwhile, he got serious about playing senior tournaments from California to Massachusetts. He obtained No. 1 national rankings at various times in his 60s, 70s and 80s. But his best run has come in the last two years, winning the three major "Gold Slam" events for 90-plus players on both paved and clay courts.
But spry as he is, Johnson doesn't know how long he can stay No. 1.
"There are some good players out there in their early 90s," he says. In June he teamed with a "young fellow" four years his junior to win a doubles tournament in Palm Springs, Calif. Johnson says, "He played well - faster than me. Of course I brought more experience to it."
- Robert Johnson is a freelance writer in Orlando.
