Jack Graham has built tennis locally, nationally, and internationally for over 30 years. He started playing tennis at age 12 when a friend convinced him to go to the 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. His first “real” job was working as a summer student at the Windsor Tennis Club. Two years later, he was hired by the Nova Scotia Tennis Association (now Tennis Nova Scotia) to travel to Cape Breton, running clinics, programs, and competitions from major centres to the smallest of communities.

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. Starting as development coordinator for the Nova Scotia Tennis Association, he later became president of the association from 1995-2001.
During the three years he spent as Chair of Tennis Canada, he was responsible for revamping the entire Development Program and for opening training centres in Montreal and Toronto. In 2009, Jack became the first Canadian to be elected to the International Tennis Federation board of directors and he was re-elected in 2011.