NORTHAMPTON – Arlo Bourdon-Levy, 8, walked into gym class today a tennis talent, but left a record-beating pro.
In this week’s gym classes at Jackson Street Elementary School, students made a unique kind of racket. For the first time, all students got to participate in Kids on the Ball, a program founded by Jake Agna that brings the joy and discipline of tennis to schools, clubs and parks from Burlington, Vt. to Havana, Cuba.
Thursday’s lesson was not 8-year-old Arlo’s first tennis lesson, but it was possibly his best.
“I was happy about beating my record, because I didn’t think I would get that high,” he said. His personal record of balls made over the net in a row began at four and ended at 14 in just 35 minutes.
“I don’t notice but there’s lots of things I can do [to get better],” Arlo said. “The teachers always gave me one more try if I missed and taught me really good skills and strategies.”
On Thursday, Arlo and his second-grade classmates learned and refined the game from Agna, his daughter May, physical education teacher Janis Totty, and her teaching assistant Jules Barrasso. Children were constantly moving about the gym as tennis balls flew back and forth. Each time they finished a new round, students switched to another court in an ongoing attempt to beat their last personal record.
“How many?” Agna called to Arlo.
“Twelve!” he replied.
“Let’s get to 14 this time!” Agna called back.
As the second-graders left, they smiled and said personal goodbyes to Agna as if they had known him for the whole school year.
Agna, a lifelong tennis player, explained that the skills and personal discipline learned on the court can be carried off of it, as well. “I’m not worried about great tennis; I’m just worried about kids participating,” he said. “It gives them a sense of control, and they’re having fun for sure.”
“I want them to feel like it’s a place where they can calm down,” said Agna, who plays tennis every day as a way to decompress.
“Our physical education approach in Northampton is wellness, and as much as possible non-competitive,” said Jake Agna’s sister, who also happens to be school Principal Gwen Agna. “We give students the tools to try to do their personal best and have healthy attitudes towards our body and ourselves.”
Totty hopes to reincarnate Jake’s lessons in future gym classes. She said a plan led by school administrators will soon be in action to incorporate tennis into physical education.
On top of the knowledge and positive attitude Jake leaves behind, he will leave the equipment he brought with him for Jackson Street School.
“I think he really believes in tennis and the discipline it provides for students and adults,” Principal Agna said. “It is a game that you need to focus on other people. This could be translated to how everyone could get along.”
“It’s a tool for social change,” she said.
Jake Agna explained that many of the students in his program in Vermont come from refugee camps.
“A lot of the kids I work with there, they’re hurting,” Agna said. “Kids on the Ball is about having not just kids who have the means to play tennis on the courts.”
At his program in Vermont, scholarships enable more than 100 children to attend the camp and play tennis at a place they may not otherwise have access to.
In 2015, Agna decided to travel to Cuba with his wife and daughter to give kids a chance to learn and love tennis.
“The quality of play and the quality of behavior down there in relation to how bad of a situation they come from is just amazing,” he said. “I just decided, well, I have to do something.”
KOTB raised over $700,000 to make major improvements to the courts and locker rooms at Havana’s National Tennis Center. Agna travels to Havana every few months to teach tennis to children ages 5-18. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for early this year.
Gwen Agna, who has traveled with her brother to Cuba in the past, said that language barriers are not an issue in Jake’s program in Cuba. Agna says her brother’s personality reached past language barrier better than a translator could.
“His personality speaks to the kids — his friendliness and respecting who they are from the moment they walk on the court,” she said. “They get that. It doesn’t take English or Spanish to get that.”
The nonprofit is going on its 17th year bringing tennis to kids from Burlington to Havana and back again. This is the first year the program came to the Pioneer Valley, but likely won’t be the last, according to Gwen Agna.
Morgan Hughes can be reached at mahughes@umass.edu.