The Jacksonville Bar Association’s Annual Tennis Tournament has evolved over the years. Many years ago, it was a purely social event with lots of beer being consumed during play! In those days, players of all skill levels enjoyed the outing, tennis was secondary.
As time progressed, the competitive nature of lawyers took over and the tournament became highly competitive. People chose their partners with care with an aim towards winning the tournament. As more competitive players became involved, social players became intimidated and dropped out to the point that only the best players wanted to participate. Our Bar Association has had several former professional and semi-professional tennis players as members. Even when we tried to set the tournament up with several divisions, the numbers dwindled.
In the past couple of years, the annual tennis outing has re-evolved towards a more social event. We have eliminated the need to find a partner (ahead of time) by going to a rotating partners system. Each person plays with a different partner against different opponents each round. To some extent that allows each player to compete for himself against all others. The number of people participating is slowly rising again.
Last year, we made a special effort to invite our local judges to participate in the tennis outing. We hope they will participate again this year. The tennis outing gave many young lawyers the opportunity to socialize with the judges in a friendly, competitive but social setting.
I expect that this event will continue to evolve with the objective of encouraging the maximum number of participants in whatever structure suits the times. By the way, some beer is still being consumed!