About Us

A small group of local tennis enthusiasts had a vision to bring more recreational and competitive play to Calhoun and Gordon County. Through their involvement with the sport for many years, they knew of many other players living locally but playing most of their tennis outside of the area. So began the work to establish a Community Tennis Association (CTA), and the timing could not have been better. The United States Tennis Association (USTA) was working to grow the sport nationwide, creating a playbook for interested groups to form CTAs in their area. Partnering with the Georgia office for USTA, the foundation for a new, Northwest Georgia area CTA was being laid. After working their way through a very meticulous qualification process, the Sequoyah Tennis Association was established in 2005.

From the very beginning, the Sequoyah Tennis Association began making its mark. Continuing the mission of ‘providing tennis as a means of healthful recreation…’, one of the first goals was to campaign for better facilities. At the time there were only two tennis courts, and they were in dire need of update and repair. STA hit the ground working to expand its membership. This quickly grew to numbers that helped influence the city to earmark funds to build a tennis facility, and in 2008 Mayor Jimmy Palmer officially dedicated the new 15 – court tennis complex. To further commemorate the partnership of the STA with the City of Calhoun, a plaque bearing the names of all the original community donors is on display inside the Calhoun Tennis Center. STA now had new staging ground to further its mission.

STA formed a partnership with the Gordon Hospital Foundation, establishing the Sequoyah Tennis Association Hospital Tournament as effort to help raise money since the needs of the community created a need for the hospital to grow physically, as well as with the number services provided. From its inception the tournament drew players from all over Northwest Georgia, raising thousands of dollars that would go to aid the Foundation and its efforts to support the ever-expanding local hospital.

Time passed, and the original leadership stepped aside to make way for new, eager members to further the mission of STA. Working to continuously improve how it helps the community and to expand its reach, they started evaluating ways to have a more direct impact. They realized that a many local organizations were doing incredible work meeting the needs of many different people, often working on shoestring budgets. After careful consideration, STA voted to make a meaningful change to the focus of the tennis tournament. It decided to part ways with the Hospital Foundation (the organization that was exclusively receiving tournament proceeds each year) in favor of supporting a variety of local charitable organizations. The tournament would now become the STA Charity Tournament. Since making the shift, they have assisted a variety of locally embedded organizations, ranging from groups who provide temporary housing for the homeless and displaced to animal rescue work specializing in abuse and neglect cases.

During this same period, it came to the attention of STA that tennis programs in the local schools needed help making purchases for basic equipment and to help with other expenses that would not fit into their very small school budgets. The lack of funding also created barriers to those interested children whose parents did not have the means to help cover an additional expense. As a result, the board unanimously decided to provide annual grants to the county’s six middle and high school tennis teams to help offset costs, and those grants continue to this day.

The Sequoyah Tennis Association worked to establish itself as a true community organization by partnering to help others do better and provide more services. During its 17-year history of forming these community ties, it did not neglect the desire to grow the sport. New player development became a hallmark of STA and how it grew to the organization it is today. This was mainly because it worked hard to dispel the stereotypes of who gets to play tennis. Their grassroots, ground up approach to recruitment and development made STA a top example of how to introduce new players to the sport. STA takes pride in the diversity of its players who cover a wide swath of demographic markers. It has also built strong relationships with the three surrounding CTAs to help provide more opportunities to play, and many teams win local leagues that take them to State and Regional titles.