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“Tennis has been a big part of my life,” Jack Graham says when asked about the impact of his selection to the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame.

“When I was in Grade 9, I attended a career day at school and signed up for sessions with a lawyer and a sport person,” he continues. “My dreams have come true. I am a lawyer and I have participated in, and been a leader in, sport. I’ve done more than I could have ever imagined. Today, nothing is more important that having my accomplishments recognized at home.

Jack started playing tennis at age 12 because a friend convinced him to go to Cromarty Tennis courts near his Sydney home. Jack had never played tennis. He was a hockey player. But he won a couple of games at a club junior tournament and was smitten.

“My first try at the game was positive and I stayed with it,” he recalls. He became provincially ranked. Yet, as he entered his late teens, he enjoyed more the excitement of coaching younger players. His first “real” job was at the Windsor Tennis Club where Barbara and Gordon Hughes hired him for summer employment. Two years later, he was hired by the Nova Scotia Tennis Association (now Tennis Nova Scotia) to travel Cape Breton, running clinics, programs and competitions from major centres to the smallest of communities.

“I knew if you could engage good athletes in programs meaningful to them, they’d play,” Jack says. “And they were becoming great tennis players, despite the fact they had only three months a year to play.

The only full- or part-time job Jack had, from age 17 to his early 30s, was in tennis. Three days after graduating from Acadia University in 1978, he was hired as development coordinator for tennis at Sport Nova Scotia. In 1981, he received the highest level of teaching designation from the US Professional Tennis Registry, which, at the time, was the largest organization in the world that certified tennis coaches. He moved to Ottawa in 1982 to work as a government assistant with then MP Gerald Regan, but was involved in coaching certification courses in Ottawa.

While at Dalhousie Law School from 1985 to 1987, he was a summer consultant with Tennis Canada, re-writing coaching manuals and that was the start of a volunteer administration career that saw him serve as president of the Nova Scotia Tennis Association, Tennis Canada and now as the only Canadian ever to serve on the board of the International Tennis Federation.

Long-time friend and a past president of Tennis Nova Scotia, Jay Abbass, calls Jack a “grassroots tennis missionary, as coach from club through high-performance levels, as certifier of other coaches, as administrator, fundraiser, tennis author/educator, event organizer, tennis diplomat, and developer in the broadest sense of the word. He has been instrumental in advancing the sport in all its facets and at all levels.”

As development coordinator, Jack helped increase the number of clubs and affiliated recreation departments from 15 to 50 in three years. He increased coaching education such that Nova Scotia had the third most certified coaches in Canada, behind only Ontario and Quebec, and the most coaches per capita in the country. He also started year-round training programs so athletes could train, play and compete.

He was president of the Nova Scotia Tennis Association from 1995 to 2001, elevating the player development program, and for the last two of those years, was also chair of the Council of Provincial Presidents.

After two years on the board, he served as chair of Tennis Canada from 2003 to 2006. He was responsible for revamping the entire Development Program and for opening training centres in Montreal and Toronto. “I felt we could do a lot better as an organization. It seemed we de-emphasized athlete development while concentrating on events. We seemed to always make excuses for our lack of success internationally. The money from events built a training centre as the focal point for our top young players and we were able to spread development across the provinces.”

Today, there are players who have been in the training centre program for several years and are future world players.

“Success breeds success,” Jack says. “People see Milos Raonic (ranked top 15 in the world, a future top 10, and a product of the Canadian Training Centre), and say, ‘I can do that.’ We’re not where we want to be yet, but are moving ahead rapidly.”

With Canadian juniors winning singles titles at Wimbledon in 2012, Jack says ITF people are asking, “How is Canada doing that?” Jack is board member emeritus of Tennis Canada and wants to be sure what was created years ago is maintained and enhanced.

In 2004, Jack was Canada’s official delegate to ITF meetings. “I didn’t think the organization was as dynamic as it could be and, with a good instinct for politics and knowing how to get elected, ran for the board. I thought I had something to offer. I lost by 16 votes but was encouraged enough to run again two years later.

In 2006, he was elected the first Canadian ever to sit on the ITF board. He calls it a privilege to serve on the world body for the sport he’s loved all his life. As a board member now in his second term, re-elected in 2011, he’s helping the sport develop even further.

“It’s an interesting time for the game. Tennis is a true global sport with the game at the highest level it’s ever been, as players are coming from more and more countries,” he says.

His passion is to grow the game and he’s not lost his grass roots feel. Jack is chair of a committee promoting indoor facilities in Halifax that would benefit tennis players across the province.

“We need to build a system, locally and nationally, where there’s a clear pathway for aspiring athletes, from their first playing opportunity, to realize they can play at Wimbledon. If we have good facilities and coaching, there’s no reason that person can’t come from Halifax.”

Bio Courtesy of Joel Jacobson