Closing time

By Leo D. Rommel

At first, I just didn’t get it. From the outside, the Mercer County Indoor Tennis Center looked like the hideout for the villains in the next Mission: Impossible sequel. Just looking at it made me want to get a tetanus shot. The doorknobs were tarnished, paint chips steadily fell from the rooftop, and, for whatever reason, there was a raccoon or squirrel running around in circles like Macaulay Culkin after splashing aftershave balm on his face in Home Alone. OK, so I don’t know what it was exactly. I didn’t get a good enough look. All I know is that it probably had rabies.

At least bats didn’t fly around overhead.

But for a number of professors at Rider and dozens upon dozens of tennis players past and present, the closing of this junky 40-year-old facility — which became official on Saturday — is, to say the least, nearly tear-jerking.

“You have to understand that there were a lot of people at Rider, teachers and players, who had been coming to the indoor center for decades,” said Marc Vecchiolla, director of Tennis Operations. “When you’ve been at a place for that long, week in and week out, of course it’s going to be hard to let go.”

Naturally, the facility didn’t always look like a squatter’s paradise. When it opened for business back in 1967, there were few, if any, public facilities that could compare with it nationally.

Its six green courts, which simulated a clay court surface, had a rubberized satin turf that was not only surprisingly low, but also allowed for true balances of the ball. There is also an elevated island, which houses a lounge, office and men’s and women’s locker rooms, in the center of the building. Around it stand three courts on each side.

And get this: World-renowned tennis gods, such as Clark Graebner and Arthur Ashe, once played in the center. Arthur Ashe!

Something had to be special about this place to attract attention like that.

“It’s not surprising that so many greats walked through those doors,” said Chris Stanco, a 2006 graduate of Rider and a former member of the men’s tennis team throughout his collegiate years. “Sure that place had flaws. The paint was chipping. The temperature was always off. But at least that place had character. I can’t think of another place that felt more like home.”

After wiping his or her tears, everyone to whom I had the misfortune of telling news shared a common story. Forget its dire need for a Home Depot makeover. The tennis center was most remembered for its numerous beams atop the roof, which always got in the way of picture prefect lobs during matches.

“The beams were a nuisance,” said men’s and women’s Head Coach Ed Torres. “But after a while, you got used to them. One time during a match, I got lucky and hit a lob that went straight through two beams, unscathed, and then touched down on the other side of the court. When that happened, the opposing player looked at me and asked how I did that. I joked by saying something along the lines of, ‘That’s just how good I am.’ I don’t know if the player could tell I was joking. I think he thought I was serious.”

When the new, state of the art indoor facility, which is scheduled for completion next winter at Mercer County Park, finally opens — alongside the County’s outdoor courts — the old facility will be used to store snow plows and large trucks, which, at the very least, continues it lifelong tradition of constantly altering identities.

When the structure itself was built in the early 1940s, it was used to construct “equipment” for World War II, according to Tennis Executive Director and former men’s basketball coach Kevin Bannon.

Following the conclusion of the war, it was turned into a hangar and then later abandoned until freeholder Richard Coffee, who eventually stayed on as president of the Mercer County Park Commission, was struck with the idea of converting it into a tennis center that, in time, grew in popularity and, of course, membership.

But now, it’s empty once more.

But not in the hearts of those who loved it for so long.