Holden serves up tennis book
Sarah Day — Staff WriterArticle Photos
FAIRMONT - A former Sherburn resident has served up a tome of tennis highlights, information and stories for high school boys tennis across Minnesota.
Jim Holden, a retired English teacher and former boys tennis coach, wrote "Tennis in the Northland," which chronicles tennis in the state from 1923 to 2003.
Holden was at book signings in Blue Earth and Fairmont on Tuesday and Wednesday.
He started his teaching career in Minnetonka, followed by a year in England. After a stint in a Minneapolis school, he went to Northfield for 20 years. In 1991, he went to teach English at Gustavus Adolphus College and later, at St. Olaf College, before retiring.
With his experience in writing and coaching boys tennis, he endeavored on a large retirement project - a 448-page book.
The book's foreword is written by Steve Wilkinson, the Gustavus Adolphus men's tennis coach and the national winner of the United States Tennis Association/Intercol-legiate Tennis Association Campus Recreation Award in 2007.
The book is broken down into 10 chapters, with three appendixes full of other related information.
Something unique to his book is that each chapter starts out with a quote from William Shakespeare. Chapter 1 starts with "Lord, what fools these mortals be," from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to emphasize the chapter title "Foul Weather in the Northland."
"It's about bad weather in the spring," Holden said. "There are a lot of fun stories about that, with guys playing in snow storms and rain. There are great stories from my colleagues and players."
The second chapter is about hall of fame coaches, who were inducted into the Minnesota Boys Tennis Coaches Association Hall of Fame, including former Blue Earth Area coach Hal Schroeder.
The next chapter is kind of a "you're hall of famer in my book" section, including numerous coaches who also served as dedicated teachers of the game, which is titled "They Also Served." It features noteworthy coaches, including former Fairmont coach Loren Dunham and St. James coach Les Zellmann.
Chapters 4 and 5 embody the state champion winners for singles - both multiple and one-time winners. Holden profiled 14 players who won the state championship more than once.
Naturally, state doubles champions were noted in the next chapter. Holden said there were about 100 doubles champions from 1929-2003.
Another kind of history also comes into play in boys tennis - girls. Holden profiles instances where girls fought to be able to play on boys teams before legislation required there to be girls teams.
The next chapter focuses on "dark horse" teams, or "Cinderella" stories. Holden featured four teams, one was St. James in 1954.
The ninth chapter follows with dynasty teams - teams that excelled for longer periods of time. Holden featured Edina, Blake, Rochester, St. Cloud and Blue Earth - the top five dynasty teams based on the number of state titles. Edina had 21 and Blue Earth has three - and those are just the state championships the schools won.
"All in the Family" is the final chapter, which features notable players that seemed to run in the family.
Holden says the book is the definitive history for Minnesota boys high school tennis. He conducted interviews of past and present coaches and players, read through old news articles on state champions and collected photos from the Minnesota State High School League. His endeavor began in 2001, finishing in 2007.
Holden said he spent time fly fishing and even more time with his eight grandchildren, but still spent three to four hours every morning writing.
"It's something I can give back to the profession - a way to honor people," Holden said. "I want to give them some historical benefit from having played tennis. It's an opportunity for me to tell the history of the high school players."
Loren Dunham met Holden about 30 years ago - in the 1970s when Dunham began coaching. Dunham coached boys tennis for 25 years and girls tennis for five seasons in Fairmont.
Dunham has not read the entire book yet, but has read portions of it thus far.
"Jim and I talked for quite a long time," he said. "He just does a nice job of writing about it. I read about some of the other coaches I know about, too."
Dunham was impressed with Holden's idea to write about high school tennis.
"I'm mainly amazed because it's very, very hard to take a sport that's kind of below the radar," he said. "Tennis is not a major sport in most schools."
He thought the book was well written and appreciated the Shakespearian quotes.
Hal Schroeder, who was the Blue Earth High School coach for 37 years, teaching a year longer than that. He doesn't recall how long he's known Holden, except that it's been a "quite a while."
Schroeder has read the entire book.
"I thought he did a good job," he said. "A lot of work in that. W lot of research to get that information and get the dates right."
Schroeder is appreciative of Blue Earth's place in the book, as well as his own.
"One thing I am quite proud of, I was one of the first five in the hall of fame," he said. "They called us the elite five. I'm not sure where that came from. What I'm most proud of is the chapter on the dynasty teams of Minnesota. Blue Earth is the only small public school in there. I thought that was quite an honor for us to be considered one of the top five dynasty schools."
Schroeder read his own part, and admitted it was a little strange reading about himself. But what was most fun for him, he said, is that he knows about 80 percent of the people in the book, and learned new things about them.
The book is available online at www.bookhousefulfillment.com and on Holden's Web site www.jim-holden.com.
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snoopjbj
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10-23-08 10:21 AM
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I am sure Coach Schroeder was a good tennis coach. But in the 1970's and 80's he was one of the first coaches to "recruit" for a school. Many of his players were not homegrown. Some of his players came to live with relatives in Blue Earth ie grandparents etc. so they could compete on their tennis team. Possibly there were other circumstances but just too many players coming from out of town to play for BE. Some of his players did not always play in the proper position. This meant the #3 singles was many times better than the #2 singles player and the same for the #1 and #2 doubles. This way Blue Earth would win almost always #3 singles and #2 doubles. I will give them credit they usually had an awesome #1 singles player. Coach Dunham was more than a coach but a teacher of life. He was always there for the players not just for tennis but for school work and even a kick in the shorts when needed. And now a true friend. Coach Zellman is the same way. This is one mans
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