Bowling Green State University Athletics
Photo by: Bianca Garza, BGSU Marketing and Communications
Heritage Series: Judy Jeanette
April 26, 2018 | General, Women's Tennis, Falcon Club, Heritage Sports
Throughout the months of April and May, BGSUFalcons.com will be highlighting some of the men and women who have impacted the University, the community and the athletics department. From pioneers to more recent members of the campus community, Matt Markey will be providing the stories of our history. In our third installment, Judy Jeanette talks about her career in tennis.
The month of April is open nomination month for the BGSU Athletics Hall of Fame. To nominate an individual or team for inclusion, please CLICK HERE.
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PREVIOUS HERITAGE SERIES STORIES
Bob Dwors
Noel Jablonski
Judy Jeanette wasn't the captain of her high school tennis team. She wasn't the star of the team, either. You see, at tiny Bettsville High in rural Northwest Ohio, her graduating class had just 23 students, and the school had no tennis team.
"There were no courts in town, and nobody in Bettsville played tennis," said Jeanette, a 1976 Bowling Green graduate who excelled in the sport as a Falcon, and then went on to a more than 40-year career in the tennis profession.
"My basketball coach asked me what I was going to do after high school, because for girls the best opportunities in sports at the time were in golf and tennis. She took me to the courts at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, about 10 miles away, and I remember the first ball I hit was a forehand. It almost took out a window in the gymnasium behind the courts."
The game came quickly to Jeanette, however, and she was hooked.
"Since I was an athlete, I picked it up pretty easily and really started to enjoy tennis," she said. "Next thing I knew, every weekday in the summer I would do my chores – I think I mowed every lawn in town – and then go to Tiffin and play tennis from 6 p.m. until sunset."
With no high school program as a foundation, and just a bit of tournament competition and summer tennis camp instruction behind her, Jeanette would come to Bowling Green without much experience. She recalled playing one of her future BG teammates in a tournament the summer before she enrolled, and losing in convincing fashion, 6-0, 6-0.
"I realized I needed to do a lot more, so my freshman year I spent the whole winter in the gymnasium, hitting balls against the wall," she said. "The next spring, I beat that girl."Â
Janet Parks, the coach at the time, had put Jeanette on the team despite her lack of credentials.
"I guess she saw some potential in me and she allowed me to play on both the "A" and "B" teams in my freshman year," Jeanette said. "I played a lot of matches and started to catch up."
Besides going on to excel with the Falcon tennis team, which she helped attain a 10-1 record in the 1975 season, Jeanette qualified for the Junior Whitman Cup Team that played in regional competitions.
She also started on her career path as a tennis instructor while still in college, teaching tennis and working as a counselor at a summer camp following her freshman year at BG, and then organizing her own tennis clinics in the Bowling Green and Toledo area after her sophomore season with the Falcons.
"I was just offering up tennis lessons left and right, doing as much as I could to earn money and pay for college," she said. "And I played in as many tournaments as possible, wherever I could. I think I've always had a pretty strong work ethic."
She picked up golf at BG, and during a golf class taught by coach Parks, Jeanette recalled her coach pulling up her car in a nearby field and saying that anyone who could hit her car with a nine-iron shot would get an "A" in the class.
"I took that nine-iron out and hit her car," Jeanette said. "I probably got an "A" by earning it, though."
After first studying physical education with her sights set on teaching, Jeanette switched and ended up majoring in Administrative Recreation.
Following graduation, Jeanette moved to Findlay to serve as the head professional at the Findlay Racquet Club. After several years there, a particularly nasty winter convinced Jeanette to go south, where the game could be played outdoors all year. She ended up in Brooksville, a small town in a rural area north of Tampa.
"I went down to Florida with no job lined up, and there was very little tennis in that area at the time, but I loved the rural setting and decided to make a go of it," she said.
She started a tennis program at a small country club, and served as the head tennis pro and assistant golf professional. She later moved to a larger club, then to a facility in a gated community.
Today Jeanette owns a tennis pro shop and continues to instruct players throughout the region, from adolescents to 90-year-olds. She is a USPTA-certified Elite Teaching Professional.
 "When I came here, I was intent on trying to grow the game, and I'm proud to say that now I'm into the third generation of tennis players in the area," she said.
She remains close with some of her former BG teammates, saying: "Once you are on a team like that, you are just friends forever."
Jeanette has also had the opportunity to return to Bettsville and speak to the students currently enrolled in the school system.
"I told them they could do anything they wanted, and to just look at me," she said. "Tennis is all I've done for 40-some years. It's a great game, and one that provides you with some valuable life skills."
----
ABOUT THE FALCON CLUB
The Falcon Club Scholarship and Success Fund was created to align the Athletic Department's fundraising priorities with the increasing need for scholarship support. Falcon Club membership gifts allow our programs to recruit and retain the best student-athletes as we compete for championships in the MAC and WCHA, while also preparing our current Falcons for success upon graduation. We hope you will consider helping us change lives by making an investment in the 400+ student-athletes that represent BGSU on the field, in the classroom and in the community. To make a gift please visit https://falconfunded.bgsu.edu/project/5311 or call 419-372-2401 to learn more.
The month of April is open nomination month for the BGSU Athletics Hall of Fame. To nominate an individual or team for inclusion, please CLICK HERE.
Â
PREVIOUS HERITAGE SERIES STORIES
Bob Dwors
Noel Jablonski
Judy Jeanette wasn't the captain of her high school tennis team. She wasn't the star of the team, either. You see, at tiny Bettsville High in rural Northwest Ohio, her graduating class had just 23 students, and the school had no tennis team.
"There were no courts in town, and nobody in Bettsville played tennis," said Jeanette, a 1976 Bowling Green graduate who excelled in the sport as a Falcon, and then went on to a more than 40-year career in the tennis profession.
"My basketball coach asked me what I was going to do after high school, because for girls the best opportunities in sports at the time were in golf and tennis. She took me to the courts at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, about 10 miles away, and I remember the first ball I hit was a forehand. It almost took out a window in the gymnasium behind the courts."
The game came quickly to Jeanette, however, and she was hooked.
"Since I was an athlete, I picked it up pretty easily and really started to enjoy tennis," she said. "Next thing I knew, every weekday in the summer I would do my chores – I think I mowed every lawn in town – and then go to Tiffin and play tennis from 6 p.m. until sunset."
With no high school program as a foundation, and just a bit of tournament competition and summer tennis camp instruction behind her, Jeanette would come to Bowling Green without much experience. She recalled playing one of her future BG teammates in a tournament the summer before she enrolled, and losing in convincing fashion, 6-0, 6-0.
"I realized I needed to do a lot more, so my freshman year I spent the whole winter in the gymnasium, hitting balls against the wall," she said. "The next spring, I beat that girl."Â
Janet Parks, the coach at the time, had put Jeanette on the team despite her lack of credentials.
"I guess she saw some potential in me and she allowed me to play on both the "A" and "B" teams in my freshman year," Jeanette said. "I played a lot of matches and started to catch up."
Besides going on to excel with the Falcon tennis team, which she helped attain a 10-1 record in the 1975 season, Jeanette qualified for the Junior Whitman Cup Team that played in regional competitions.
She also started on her career path as a tennis instructor while still in college, teaching tennis and working as a counselor at a summer camp following her freshman year at BG, and then organizing her own tennis clinics in the Bowling Green and Toledo area after her sophomore season with the Falcons.
"I was just offering up tennis lessons left and right, doing as much as I could to earn money and pay for college," she said. "And I played in as many tournaments as possible, wherever I could. I think I've always had a pretty strong work ethic."
She picked up golf at BG, and during a golf class taught by coach Parks, Jeanette recalled her coach pulling up her car in a nearby field and saying that anyone who could hit her car with a nine-iron shot would get an "A" in the class.
"I took that nine-iron out and hit her car," Jeanette said. "I probably got an "A" by earning it, though."
After first studying physical education with her sights set on teaching, Jeanette switched and ended up majoring in Administrative Recreation.
Following graduation, Jeanette moved to Findlay to serve as the head professional at the Findlay Racquet Club. After several years there, a particularly nasty winter convinced Jeanette to go south, where the game could be played outdoors all year. She ended up in Brooksville, a small town in a rural area north of Tampa.
"I went down to Florida with no job lined up, and there was very little tennis in that area at the time, but I loved the rural setting and decided to make a go of it," she said.
She started a tennis program at a small country club, and served as the head tennis pro and assistant golf professional. She later moved to a larger club, then to a facility in a gated community.
Today Jeanette owns a tennis pro shop and continues to instruct players throughout the region, from adolescents to 90-year-olds. She is a USPTA-certified Elite Teaching Professional.
 "When I came here, I was intent on trying to grow the game, and I'm proud to say that now I'm into the third generation of tennis players in the area," she said.
She remains close with some of her former BG teammates, saying: "Once you are on a team like that, you are just friends forever."
Jeanette has also had the opportunity to return to Bettsville and speak to the students currently enrolled in the school system.
"I told them they could do anything they wanted, and to just look at me," she said. "Tennis is all I've done for 40-some years. It's a great game, and one that provides you with some valuable life skills."
----
ABOUT THE FALCON CLUB
The Falcon Club Scholarship and Success Fund was created to align the Athletic Department's fundraising priorities with the increasing need for scholarship support. Falcon Club membership gifts allow our programs to recruit and retain the best student-athletes as we compete for championships in the MAC and WCHA, while also preparing our current Falcons for success upon graduation. We hope you will consider helping us change lives by making an investment in the 400+ student-athletes that represent BGSU on the field, in the classroom and in the community. To make a gift please visit https://falconfunded.bgsu.edu/project/5311 or call 419-372-2401 to learn more.
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