Tennis Head Pro Wayne Pickard retires at the end of the month after 33 years at MAC. Pickard, along with family and friends, reflects on the past three decades BY TONY ROBERTS / PHOTO BY JENNA MILLER
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o understand how long Wayne Pickard has been a pillar of MAC’s tennis community, just listen to him talk about the three indoor courts above the Parking Structure. Every now and then, he refers to them as the “new courts.” They were built in 1983. “I started here when the parking lot facility came online, so we went from having four courts to seven courts,” Pickard recalls. “So it almost doubles the size of the program.” At the end of March, Pickard brings his 33-year tenure as MAC’s head pro to an end with his retirement. Tennis, which was already popular at his arrival, skyrocketed under Pickard’s watch, growing into the club’s most popular sport. Think it’s hard to find a treadmill during peak hours? Try reserving a tennis court. “Basically, Wayne has been MAC tennis since the expansion to seven indoor courts,” says Athletic Director Ed Stoner, whose own tennis game has benefited from Pickard’s pointers over the years. “He’s helped build the program to what it is today.”
club’s seven indoor courts, and one of Pickard’s only regrets is that he couldn’t help the program get a few more. “In a way, we can’t take care of all of these people that want to avail themselves to the services the club provides,” he says. “There are 13 kids on a waitlist for an upcoming class, and for those kids, that stinks. We experienced the same thing in our adult conditioning classes during the daytime. There were more members on the waitlist than in the class.” When it comes to the popularity of those classes, Pickard is quick to credit his staff and fellow pros, some of whom have been at the club for decades, if not quite as long as him. “We have people here who are committed to their job and are professional in their actions and who have continued to work on getting better at their craft,” he says. “Waldemar (Holowetzki) just had his 20th anniversary at the club, Carol (Sandoz) has been here 21 years, Bjorn, you name it, everybody’s been here a long time”
Early years
Pickard has made many lifelong friends among the adults in the tennis program, but when it comes to teaching, he still has a blast working with junior members. Those Court 5 lessons he mentions usually involve an up-and-coming junior player or someone learning the game. “Teaching Tiny Tots classes was his ultimate joy. He loves that the kids get to run, skip, jump, throw balls and just have fun along with learning how to hit a tennis ball,” says Wayne’s wife, Terri Pickard. “I know the kids impacted him in a very positive way. He came home many an evening with the cutest stories.” Regardless of whether he was working with kids or their parents, Pickard generally has a good time when he’s on the courts. “I come to the club almost every day, and people comment, ‘Do you ever take a day off?’ And I always say, ‘Dude, it’s the club. It’s not like digging ditches,’” Pickard says. “When I see people at the club, not only are they happy, they’re usually happy to see me too. It’s always a good thing to come to the club.”
Pickard grew up in Medford in a family of athletes. His brother played pro baseball and his parents kept the kids involved in sports. He learned to play tennis in fifth grade at a summer camp down the street from his family’s home. Pickard played tennis at Oregon State University the last two years they fielded a tennis team; it was cut after his sophomore season due to Title IX. He finished his college career and graduated from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 1977, and spent two years playing in the U.S. and Europe before landing a job at the Mountain Park Racquet Club in Lake Oswego. After two years there, he accepted the head pro position at Hampton Courts in Southwest Portland, which is now OES’s Sports and Recreation Center. His next, and final stop, was MAC. Tennis was enjoying a surge in popularity in America. Pickard recalls that Portland was already a hotbed for the game due to the number of indoor courts throughout the city. “Indoor tennis is different. Court 5 is the greatest place in the world to teach tennis,” Pickard says. “You never get sunburned, you never get rained out. It’s about as good as it gets. Tennis is an outdoor game, but it’s probably played better and enjoyed more by people indoors.”
Program grows Pickard says it didn’t take long to learn the secret to getting adults hooked on tennis: get them into a league. “The primary driver for growing the tennis program was the league program, mostly USTA League and City League,” he says. “That really was the driver for keeping people involved. People like to be members of a team, they like to be part of a group. If I can get them on a team, my job is done.” Member Kaki Brenneman agrees. She got involved in a team years ago, and was recently named 2015 Pacific NW USTA League Female Captain of the Year. “Wayne’s goal has always been to inspire the love of the game,” she says, “and I think he’s done a great job on that, especially with young kids.” MAC now fields 21 USTA teams and another 11 ladies teams in Portland’s City League. That’s in addition to juniors who participate in popular classes. Of course, that popularity has stressed the
Happy to be here
Retirement Wayne’s reason for retirement is pretty clear – family. He has two sons in their early 30s who both recently had children, and they both live in Portland. Pickard’s dad is 88 and lives in Medford, and he’s excited to spend more time with him as well. “It makes me sad to think that future generations won’t get the benefit of his patient, kindhearted, and good-natured teaching style,” Wayne’s son Eric, a MAC member and Portland attorney, says of his dad. “However, my dad’s retirement is my daughter’s good fortune. She is almost five months old, and I want her to spend as much time with him as possible. I know how valuable time spent with my dad was to me.” And Wayne is happy to be able to spend more time with her; he’s just a little bewildered by how the time flew. “Honestly, I don’t know where the time went. When I say over 30 years, to me that just sounds like, a long time, and I just don’t know what happened. It seems like it went pretty damn fast,” he says. “We still refer to the parking garage courts as the new courts. They’re not that new!” Say goodbye to Pickard during his retirement party from 3-5 p.m. Thursday, March 31, in Ainsworth/Lownsdale. Continued on page 44 March 2016
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