Ron Elliott’s nonprofit Mesa County Tennis aims to teach kids valuable life lessons while giving them an opportunity to stay active.
By: Collin McKenna, Outdoor Recreation Editor
Teachers are instrumental to the ability of children to grow and learn, and they dedicate themselves to this often-thankless task year after year. Most teachers gladly accept having the summer off, using it as time to prepare for the next school year and recharge their passion for working with kids.
Some teachers, however, love working with kids so much that they seek out ways to do so, even when school is not in session.
Ron Elliott was one of these teachers.
In 1988, during his tenure as a teacher at Orchard Mesa Middle School, he decided to start a summer tennis program with one of his sisters.
“My sister and I started the Orchard Mesa Tennis Program [in 1988] with 8 kids and 5 adults,” Elliott said. “By 1990, we had 60-some kids, and then by the mid-90s we got really big and became Mesa County Tennis.”
And Mesa County Tennis continued to grow. There are currently about 350 families involved with the program, spread throughout the three ‘leagues’ that are available for the kids to join. There is a junior league, a middle school league, and a high school league offered.
Makenna Livingston 4/5/23- John Miller, one of the staff working for the Mesa County Tennis Program, teaches a young student at Canyon View Park. Even on this chilly day of about 32 degrees, the courts are filled at Canyon View Park, with the tennis community flourishing here in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Mesa County Tennis is no longer headquartered at Orchard Mesa Middle School, but now calls Colorado Mesa University its home. The program is bigger than what even the university courts can allow for, though, so the program uses the Orchard Mesa courts and the Canyonview Park courts in addition to campus facilities. Mesa County Tennis was also using the Grand Junction High School courts up until recently.
While Mesa County Tennis did grow quickly, ‘quick’ may not be the most accurate word to describe the growth of the program.
“I would describe its growth as resilient, as the program withstood many years of constant growth even with lacking facilities available at the beginning,” Ron’s brother and current Colorado Mesa University professor David Elliott said.
It takes a special type of leadership to be able to navigate a small program through such uncertainties, but Ron Elliott helped guide Mesa County Tennis through its formative years and molded it into the program it has become today.
However, a passion for working with kids was not the only reason that Ron Elliott founded Mesa County Tennis. He also believes that sports do wonders for the development of children, and that there are plenty of life lessons that can be learned through sports.
“Sports teach the importance of things like discipline, respect, self-image, and commitment to a goal,” Ron Elliott said.
These are all important lessons for children to learn. These are lessons that stay with people their entire lives, regardless of career path and regardless of status or anything else.
Ron Elliott recognizes the importance of these life lessons, too.
“We teach that it’s not as much the importance of winning all the time, but it is about the importance of showing up and making progress,” Ron Elliott said.
There are very few people more qualified than Ron Elliott to speak on what is important in the sport of tennis.
Ron Elliott grew up playing tennis with his family, which consists of himself, his parents, and his 10 siblings. He played competitively for years with his brother David. His parents were also prominent figures in the local tennis community; he grew up as a student of the game through and through.
Because of this background, he knows the impact that sports can have on a child’s development. And because he knows the impact sports can have on kids, he made it a rule to make his program affordable for local families.
Around one-third of the families that are involved with Mesa County Tennis are there on scholarship. Because Mesa County Tennis is a nonprofit organization, this scholarship money is obtained through community donations and grants and then redistributed back into the program in the form of free racquets, shoes, and other equipment.
“All the funds generated by his program either go back into the program, his staff, and the community,” David Elliott said.
Just this year alone, Mesa County Tennis has raised over $5000 to be redistributed back into the program.
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