News - Local/State

Saturday, Sep. 06, 2008

Smashing stereotypes

Duo will help build tennis program at USC-Lancaster

It was the first day of school three years ago, in the lunchroom at Rock Hill High School, when 10th-grader Richard Wise saw this kid eating all alone.

Wise had moved to Rock Hill from New Jersey the year before with his mother and stepfather -- he knew what it was like to try to make new friends.

"I just started talking to him, and I found out he played tennis," Wise said. "I couldn't believe it. I was usually the only one."

"Neither could I," said the other guy, Glen Thomason. "I thought I would be the only one who played tennis."

The only one? What these guys mean is they played tennis, and they are black. Often, usually, "the only one." Blacks in tennis were rare then, and now. But what tennis did for these two guys is forge a special bond of friendship and success and smashing of stereotypes that young black men not only can't be high achievers in sports and school at the same time, but do it in what is often among the "whitest" of sports.

"Sometimes people at tournaments if we played at the same place would ask us if we were brothers. I guess they thought we had to be because we were the only blacks," Thomason said.

Both played high school tennis. Thomason, who lived with his aunt in Rock Hill because his mother had died and his father was in California but out of his life, played at Rock Hill High. Wise moved to Fort Mill two years ago and then played at Fort Mill High.

"Almost every match, every tournament, I was the only black player," Wise said. "I felt like a fish out of water sometimes."

Wise's mother, Vashti Encarnacion, said she got her son into tennis at a young age even though he was often the only black player.

"It took some getting used to," she said.

Both faced perception as youngsters, and still today, that they could and should play football or basketball, but not tennis.

"Some black people would ask me, 'You must play other stuff, too, right? Not just tennis?'" Thomason said.

"I had somebody -- a white guy -- just last week tell me, 'I didn't know blacks play tennis,'" Wise said.

Although Wise moved to Fort Mill during high school, the two guys stayed tight. They hung out together, did what teenage guys do -- chase girls -- and played tennis whenever they could. Often, they could be found at the Rock Hill Tennis Center, where Thomason works, and other times on courts at Fewell Park and even on private courts until as late as 2 a.m.

Thomason, 19, admits he didn't always give his full effort to schoolwork because he was focused on tennis -- plus he was growing up without his biological parents. But he hung in and graduated.

"I had a lot of people who helped me out, gave me rides, believed in me," Thomason said. "My aunt has always been great."

Wise, 17, said he played too much tennis, too, but made grades good enough to do well in school. Both guys said maybe each thought too much about tennis instead of schoolwork.

Then, maybe it is fate, maybe it is a reward for all that tennis and never allowing what black teens are "supposed" to do stop them, the University of South Carolina-Lancaster started a tennis program this fall. Coach Brian Clark heard from a guy he knows at the Rock Hill Tennis Center that Thomason and Wise could play. Clark recruited both.

"We are trying to build a program here, and after I saw them both play, I knew they could make it," Clark said.

Even in college, tennis is an almost all-white sport. Collegiate tennis features mainly white American players and international players from South America, Europe and the Middle East, Clark said.

"So what?" Thomason said. "Tennis is my game, too."

"Doesn't bother me a bit, either," Wise said.

Both Thomas and Wise are expected to be among the top four players on the squad when USC-Lancaster has its first matches later this month, Clark said.

And what two-year pro-grams such as USC-Lancaster do is give players a chance to impress coaches at four-year schools that offer scholarships.

"This is a great opportunity for both of them," Clark said.

And that opportunity extends far beyond the tennis court. Thomason goes to school full time, works part time, plays tennis and is living on his own. He does it all with a smile and joy that is larger than rackets and serves. He is studying theater and hopes to be in plays, movies, maybe even get involved in professional dance.

Wise, studying business, hopes to own his own company by age 30.

The two buddies car pool back and forth to school and practice in Lancaster. They hang out at the tennis center in Rock Hill late into the night when Thomason strings rackets and runs the front desk. They work in some tennis time whenever they can.

This past week, they watched some of the U.S. Open, America's most prestigious tennis tournament, which ends Sunday. A tournament where black players including the late Althea Gibson and late Arthur Ashe broke color barriers and starred in past years. Where the Williams sisters and James Blake and a few others star today. Wise and Thomason dream of being there on the court under the bright lights, after the successes of college that are now their focus.

No doubt the two best friends will play a little tennis in later years, too. They will likely remember that day in the lunchroom in high school when the two black tennis players became friends, and began a lifetime of smashing serves and misperceptions of what and who they can become.