Left to right: Richard Tighe, Donna Gillen, Jeff Gillen, Tori Benz-Hillstrom, Linda Hussey, Tom Buck, Bev Buck, and Bill Hussey
John Flynn
Susie Anderson
We tennis players of PebbleCreek would be lost if it were not for the guidance and talents of our tournament director. John schedules tournaments and socials, hosts inter club tournaments, runs drills and rating sessions and all the details involved. I interviewed him to see how he does it so smoothly and as you read on you will see he is overqualified to work here! Thank you, John!
John and his wife Carmel moved to PebbleCreek to be closer to his son’s family. Of course, the tennis courts were persuasive. His first sets were with Dan Tryfter which led him to a group of guys and the Amigos and Dirty Dozen. He is also in a winning league that plays other west valley teams. After being in the PCTC for 10 years he was lured into being on the board by Jerry Santy in 2014. His goal with our tournament socials is to provide people of all abilities with a fun and active tennis experience.
John’s older brother was an Oregon State Champion and he followed in his footsteps. John made it to the high school state tournaments twice and was on the University of Portland team as a freshman but found the varsity guys were much better than he so he played club tennis instead, but his two sons did play college tennis. At 21 he started teaching tennis for the Portland Oregon Parks Department and was a high school teacher and tennis coach for 33 years. In 1981 John took classes, tests and internship to become a USTA official. In 2006 he became the tennis coach at Agua Fria High School and was proud that his team made it to the state semi-finals in 2012.
John worked matches at the U.S. Open with Stephan Edberg, John McEnroe, Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi. One favorite moment was riding in a hotel elevator in Seattle with Bjorn Borg and chatting about his string of wins at Wimbledon. After refereeing for the PNW wheelchair tennis tournament, “I stopped complaining about my tired legs!”
John says: “Through tennis I have met a lot of terrific people and maintained my health. I used to be impressed at the players in the 70 plus age group and now I am one. I hope to keep playing at PebbleCreek for many more years. After all, “tennis is the sport for a lifetime!”
We are all about meeting people. Here are the newest PCTC members: Richard Tighe, Donna Gillen, Jeff Gillen, Tori Benz-Hillstrom, Linda Hussey, Tom Buck and Bill Hussey. Some of these brave people took lessons from JR and decided to attend the Many Happy Returns social. With the help of the welcoming committee with introductions, and friendly members who taught our scoring system for short sets, we think they had fun!