Latest / Bonita Bay Club's Podcast / The Spirit of the Game: Celebrating Community and Women's Tennis at Bonita Bay Club

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The Spirit of the Game: Celebrating Community and Women's Tennis at Bonita Bay Club · Bonita Bay Club's Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello members at Bonita Bay Club, welcome to our podcast today.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It's an exciting day.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about Fine Mark Women's Pro Tennis Championship.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Our guests today are Tom Weddock, who is a member here at Bonita Bay Club.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: For how many?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: years, it'd be 10 years.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Wonderful and you're also the chair of this wonderful tournament, and we also have Paula Shebb, who is our director of sports, and you've been here a long time, paula, and we're excited that this is going to be the fifth year of this Women's Pro Tennis Championship.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: We're really excited about this upcoming week of activities.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: There's so much fun going on.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Our members love it.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: We're just in the final countdown of a year long's worth of activities.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: There's so much fun going on.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Our members love it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: We're just in the final countdown of a year long's worth of planning, so we're pumped.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it's starting on Monday and there's been so much work.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I've been down to the sports center and I've been seeing all the work that's going into it and I'm just in awe of everybody, all the you know.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: What are you calling those shades that have to be taken down to?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Just the whole setup takes a long time and your whole staff does a wonderful job.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I think our staff does an incredible job.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I agree with you with the way it looks the columns with the players on it and some of the columns with sponsors on it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: You know it's a year-long effort to put this tournament on and it takes.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It's quite an event and all the staff does an incredible job making it together.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Quite an event and probably the staff does an incredible job making it together.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: To me, it's amazing because we bring over 250 members together to deliver a world-class experience to our members, to the players, to the officials and, essentially, to our community, and I think it's an incredibly exciting event for Bonita Bay Club and our members.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: You know I want to also interject is when we set out to do this a tournament five years ago, we all made an agreement that we were going to do it the Bonita Bay Club way, and the one thing I know is we put on an awful lot of great events throughout the whole club.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I think we do a great job in the sports department, but this event takes on such special meaning because, as Tom mentioned, so many members are involved.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: But again, we do it the Bonita Bay Club way, where every member, whether you play tennis or you don't, should be very proud of this event, and it's gotten accolades all around the country from the USTA.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Again, there's only three others like us in the whole country, so our members should be proud.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: We're excited to be a part of it and we're thrilled that our members are so supportive.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, kudos to the members.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: How many volunteers I think we said about.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: It's over 250 volunteers.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: That is a lot of members.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Over 150 ball runners and then between all the various committees safety committee and security and player services, welcome desk I'm going to miss a bunch of them Housing it's over a hundred other members that kick in to make this thing happen.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: So it's really quite an exciting event and you know, again, think of it it's the future of women's tennis is being played here at Bonita Bay.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: If you go back to the first year, coco Gauff, who's now ranked number three right, lost in the qualifying rounds badly like 6-2, 6-3.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And we've had four players that have played in our tournament, that have been in the finals at the US Open.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Right, we have Coco Gauff, leila Fernandez, robin Montgomery and Ashlyn Kruger.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Robin and Ashlyn won the juniors in 2021, I believe.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: So it truly is the future of ladies tennis here at Bonita Bay.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I agree, and I'm not a tennis player, but every year when I go and I am taking pictures and I am working the event, but every once in a while I get to see and watch the tournament and I get pumped.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's so exciting.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So even if you're not a tennis player and you just go there just to look at it, it's so exciting to see these girls play their heart and soul in some of these tournaments and to see the members how excited they are, and the volunteers again, I'm just in awe of all of them.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I tell you, a lot of the volunteers are not really tennis members right, there are a lot of pickleball players that get involved and do ball running.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of golfers that come and watch and like to work on it.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: The charity committee who's done an incredible job, you know, raising money for the local charity that we select.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: At this point it's Lee Health has been our designated charity for the tournament, point it's Lee Health has been our designated charity for the tournament.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: But in the five years we've done it, they've raised over 1.75 million dollars through the gala that they've done, through the golf tournaments that they do.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: It changes people's lives in the community.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: We can do that can you talk a little bit about the Cancer Institute, of what all that money has done?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So the Lee Health Cancer Institute which we opened the Richard M Schultz Family Foundation Cancer Center inside the Lee Health Cancer Institute and that opened last year and within the past 12 months.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And then there we have a dedicated private suite that Bonita Bay put on.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: We have another whole infusion bay that Bonita Bay's name is on, also in the pharmacy, and then the Goodfellas, who was Frank Valva's actually tennis team, has a dedicated private infusion suite named after them.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: For the donations they've made, again over $1.75 million, is incredible.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: We had the opportunity to meet Richard M Schultz probably a couple of months ago there and he's funded, I think, four different cancer centers, very excited about this and very excited about our involvement in it.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: So I think we should be incredibly proud as a club and a community the generosity we've done.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you when you walk into that building and you see Bonita Bay and you realize how much this club and this community has impacted Southwest Florida.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: I don't want to forget over the fact.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Probably 10 years ago the sports committee did $1.3 million for the Golisano Children's Hospital and named it Bonita Bay Club, named the whole pharmacy.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: So you know, as somebody that works here and I'm looking across at a couple of you all that work here and it should really make us all feel incredibly good to be a part of the Southwest Florida community and to realize how much our members give and care back.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: It's stunning to me and again, I travel a bit for our teaching association and I'm constantly getting asked questions about this and sometimes it'll kind of bring me to tears because this whole event is only possible because of our members, whether it's the charity or the actual tournament.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And again, tom's really good at mentioning so many people, but I have to also mention Becky.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Your team has done a great job with the video and the photography for us.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: We've got a couple of members that also really chip in and do some great shots Lou and Ken.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: And then we also have the food and beverage team at the Breezeway that goes out of their way to make sure every order is filled, and then all the needs of the players and the officials.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: It's.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: This is really a team effort, effort At the club, and when I see something like this and golf participates and giving us shuttles and anything else we might want, sometimes we'll get a player that wants to play golf.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: The fitness center helps us with the players being able to use the downstairs employee fitness center.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: It's really everywhere.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Kelly helps by giving us massage tables and sheets.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: You just look and it's.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: A really team effort amongst everybody here.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: It really does.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah it unites everybody the members, the staff.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I think that's wonderful, but we also want to talk about what makes us, or what helps this event happen more than anything is our sponsors, absolutely.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: We know we have FineMark, who's our title sponsor, we have Mercedes-Benz of Bonita Springs, who's our presenting sponsor, and we have Lead Health, who's our charity foundation, and we also have Hotwire that's our media sponsor.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So we want to give kudos to them that they make this happen too.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: They're able to put in the monies that we need.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Kudos to them that they make this happen too.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: They're able to put in the monies that we need.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And also, if you come and join us for this week of wonderful activity at the Sports Center we want to encourage.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of our sponsors that are going to be there, local sponsors that have helped us and I know, tom, you have worked very hard in getting these sponsors.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: You want to talk a little?
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: bit about them.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Well, the sponsors are great.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned the top four, which are really super, and on top of that, we have Zero Orthopedics, who's a platinum sponsor, and I think in total, we have 30 sponsors.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I think this year in total and it would not be possible without them we raised over $200,000 to make this tournament happen.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, let me tell you, they all just want to build a relationship with people at Bonita Bay.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: They just want the opportunity to compete for your business.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: If you have a need of whatever product or service, it is, they have to sell.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: None of them are hard sell people.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: They just want to try to establish a relationship, which is why they do this, and I think Bonita Bay has proven itself to be incredibly good at supporting organizations that support them.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: And time and time again, our people have gone to our sponsors and given them the opportunity, and it's really great to see and I can't thank them enough.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Obviously, I'm a guy who spends most of the time with them.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I have a great committee who works with me who really makes it all happen.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: It's certainly not just me.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Obviously, I take ownership of the sponsors and I love them and I want to make sure they keep coming back.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I take ownership of the sponsors and I love them and I want to make sure they keep coming back.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I think what's really nice Tom is again.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: As we've talked about here, it's our fifth year I mean, that's a long time in this industry for a tournament and again these sponsors have stayed behind us, and what I'm seeing this year is people come in and pick up their packages.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: The excitement has built every year, which is wonderful.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: We always hoped that would happen, but even more.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: You know, there are people that are in this community working and doing different things with our members and our residents, and they have said you know what we came in as a sponsor because we're so appreciative of all the people at Bonita Bay Club and all the residents here.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: We just want to be able to show our appreciation and the least we could do is sponsor this event, so that's been really wonderful.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Well said, absolutely.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: I think another interesting component that the executive committee helped us form years ago, which was the idea that if we could give local talent a boost by getting them to play or give them wild cards, they get an entry into our tournament.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: We wanted to do that.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: We wanted to do that to build and reach out to the community.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: We wanted to do that to grow the game of tennis.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: We just felt like it was the right thing to do.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: As it turns out, we think it's helping the FGCU program.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: So we've been consistent in that we've given our wild card to an FGCU player that Coach Vernon picks out for us and that's a wild card into the main draw.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Years ago, those wild cards, people paid an awful lot of money for them.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: That's not allowed anymore, but they are very coveted positions.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: We also give one of our wildcards in the qualifier to an FGCU player and then we've got our other wildcard going out to.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: This is an incredible story.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: A young lady named Cookie.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: She's 16 and a half.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: She was, in the first year of our tournament a ball girl.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: She's now trying to play professionally.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: She's top 400 in the world in juniors.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: She's played several 25K tournaments and if you don't get goosebumps on the back of your neck talking about her.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: She's kind, she's sweet, she's bubbly, she's a player and she comes from the Sanchez Academy and they've asked us if we would like to be able to have her as one of our wild cards.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: We said yes, so she's won.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: We also have a young woman in the doubles.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: That's from Estero, bella Zampera, and she and her sister normally play together, but her sister got hurt so she's playing with another player.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: But we have got local talent which only builds the game of tennis and builds the excitement for everybody coming out to watch.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: And I think that's I and I've always thought that's very important.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So it was really great when Paul and the executive committee all agreed to that and I think it's a super thing to do.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: It's fun to see the local players play.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember when we were discussing it yesterday I got goosebumps too, because that's so cool.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You know, see a little ball girl and all of a sudden she's playing.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, how awesome is that?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all of a sudden she's playing.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, how awesome is that.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you remember that picture I showed you of her when she was with Ann Lee, one of our players of the tournament.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: There was three feet difference between them but you know, cookie was smiling ear to ear because she got to have a picture with Ann Lee.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: So pretty cool, Good, great story.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up To our members who are still here.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: We hope we still have a lot of members who are not leaving yet who will join us, Becky it's free to our members Monday through Thursday.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: What a deal right.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Friday.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Saturday, sunday is $25.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: That's all.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Anybody else it's $5 Monday through Thursday.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: You can't go to a movie for that and this is all-day entertainment and you'll love it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: And you're going to see the best.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Come on out.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: You're going to see the best.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Come on out.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: You're going to see the future of women's tennis.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: It's going to be fantastic.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I said, I'm not a tennis player.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So if you're not a tennis player and you've never attended even, come for those free days and you'll be hooked, I guarantee you, and you'll want to come and see the rest of the days because it's very exciting.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Again, charity is really important.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: The charity aspect of this tournament is really important.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: That's why we started the charitable committee.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I thank that committee for all they've done.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: It's really fantastic.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Again, over $1.75 million till now and we expect to obviously do more this year.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but cancer tends to touch everybody.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I've lost three family members to cancer, so I'm very familiar with it and let me tell you when you go to that, when you've gone there, I've gone with people who are being currently treated for cancer and they've gone to the infusion center and said let me tell you there is no place like this out there.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Everywhere else where I've ever gone is kind of downtrodden, you know, in the back of the bus somewhere.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: But I mean, this is beautiful, it's really set up well.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: So again it and it's like the Bonita Bay way and thank you to the charitable committee because it's an incredibly important part of this tournament.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And that's where I think on May 4th the Kentucky Derby comes in Yep absolutely Kentucky Derby Gala.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby Gala.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: That's like I said, may 4th.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: It starts at 530.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: There are a few seats left, yeah there are still a few seats left.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: And that's what really drives a charitable contribution is the charitable activity, not the tournament itself, because the tournament costs a lot of money to run.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: So that's why we started the charitable committee to do that.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll be sending out, when we send out this podcast to everybody, some information on how you can sign up for the Kentucky Derby Great, and we'll also be putting on a link to the BBC USTA website so you can get all the information and buy tickets or just get a ticket for those days that are free to our members.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: So anything else you want to say before we wrap this up, don't forget the community channel.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Channel 14 11, you can see the live action when it's going on.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Prior to that, you can see some of these podcasts that talk about the players and what goes into a tournament like this and the various committees and stuff.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: So turn on to tune to channel 1411.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: It's live now and we'll be live for a week or two after the tournament.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, and it's also.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's where we're going to be.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: The video will be, for the tournament itself will be on there.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're exactly right.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: So we've got members that are up north right now.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: So go to the bbcustnet website and you can pull that up and watch the streaming on actually two courts, so it's really exciting.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: That goes all over the world, by the way.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: So it's a beautiful thing and you know, with every event that we run, we always get questions from members, and I think the two questions I hear are it's an amazing event, people love it, and how come so many people volunteer?
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: And I think that's an easy one, because our members are great people.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: I think the other one is does this event cost the club any money?
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: And you know it doesn't.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Thanks to Tom and his team, they raised $215,000.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: This year we get $64,000 from the USTA, and so the tournament is self-funded and we're proud to say that Very proud to say that.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: All right Members are proud to hear that.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: So thank you again for joining me.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I want to keep this podcast a little shorter because you know we were going to make sure that we send this out to the membership and then Michael out on social media and that I want other people to know to come to this event that starts on Monday.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I know I fumbled a little bit here.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: We're just trying to again get a lot of enthusiasm for this event and as much as we all are here.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Come on out and watch these women play.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: It's going to be fantastic All the members, please come on out.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: That's going to be a wonderful thing, absolutely.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: April 29th and it goes through May 5th Come out come early.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Seats are at a premium.