PAUL TOBIN

Paul Tobin showed up to Castle Oak Tennis Club in 1974. He didn't leave until 2021. 

He was twenty-five years old with almost no head pro experience when Steve Apted hired him as the club's one teaching pro and director of tennis. Paul told his wife Chrissy it was a starter job. He told her it was a starter house, too. 

The road to Castle Oak started at the Washington University tennis courts, where Paul spent his childhood watching and learning from some of the best players in the country. Carol Aucamp treated him like a little brother. Larry Miller taught him how to play and how to teach. He showed up early and stayed all day. Those courts were to outdoor tennis what the Armory was to indoor. If you were serious about your game, you came there. 

He was eleven years old when Gloria Connors pulled up to the WashU courts with her mother Bertha, her two boys, nine-year-old John and eight-year-old Jimmy. Gloria asked Paul if he wanted to play them. He said sure. John beat him badly. Paul figured he could take the younger one. He could not. So he kept coming back. 

He won the state doubles runner-up at U. City High with teammate Ralph Hart, then headed to Mesa Junior College in Arizona, where he went undefeated and won the national junior college singles title in 1969. Two years later he teamed with Larry Parker to win the National Public Parks doubles title. He picked up two Dwight Davis singles titles, two Dwight Davis doubles titles, and two Martin Kennedy titles along the way, too. 

The kid who got bageled by an eight-year-old Jimmy Connors went on to become his hitting partner whenever Jimmy came to town. "I was eons from his level," Paul said, "but I worked hard and hit a lot of balls to him. Gloria saw something she liked so she kept me hitting with him." 

In 2005 Castle Oak became Chesterfield Athletic Club. The name may have changed, but the director of tennis stayed the same for forty-seven and a half years. 

He and Chrissy are still in that starter house. 

(2020)