Ep. 19: The Spirit of Arthur Ashe with Christian Hill

Christian Hill (00:05.631)
So, so to your, yeah, so I think being from St. Louis, I would always hear about Arthur Ashe because although he was from Richmond, they migrated to St. Louis because African Americans weren't allowed to play tennis where they were from. And so Dr. Dr. Huddland, who was in St. Louis, built a court at his house and Foxworth and Juan Farrell and all of those guys under the talent identification of Arthur Ashe ended up.

Torrey Hawkins (00:15.877)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (00:20.451)
Right.

Christian Hill (00:34.518)
living in St. Louis at that house, my uncle used to go practice with them and then they played at Summer High School and from there they went out on tour. And so when I grew up, I would always hear these stories about these guys, but I didn't really, didn't resonate with me because I wasn't playing tennis yet. And so as I grew up, I would hear the stories about Arthur and about Juan and about Jimmy Connors and everybody. And then Juan became my coach, Arthur was my mentor, and we had that,

Torrey Hawkins (00:42.469)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (00:51.842)
Right, yeah.

Christian Hill (01:04.004)
beautiful meeting when I was about 16 years old at the Dural Hotel in New York where all of the top African-American players met so we would knew each other for the rest of our life and Arthur put that together and that for me probably was the prelude to my philanthropic or altruistic nature by which I went on and start coaching African-American players if that makes sense. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:28.908)
Yeah, it makes, that makes total sense. you know, we got, got, we kind of got rolling here, a live start. So I want to make sure we do, we do a proper hello to everyone listening. welcome back to another, another edition of the best of three podcast. Alvin, we've got Torrey Hawkins here once again, and we are joined by coach. Former player, Chris Hill out of Florida. Chris I've heard we've heard.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44.584)
Okay.

Christian Hill (01:49.778)
Thank you guys.

Alvin Owusu (01:54.819)
tons of stories about you on this podcast. And it's a, it's a, it's a pleasure to have you here. I like to say you're a man who needs no introduction, but we're going to go ahead and give you one anyways. and you can, you can stop me or correct me where you want to. but your time with the racket in your hand, right? top, top, top 10 in the, top 10 in both the singles and doubles in college did make it to a career high of roughly four 50 on the pro tour, finalists at Kalamazoo.

Christian Hill (02:10.437)
Absolutely.

Alvin Owusu (02:21.806)
Moved on to the kind of the coaching aspect of your career where I think your your imprint has been even greater, right? Obviously people know who Chris Eubanks is but they they might not know that you're you're the coach that helped him qualify for his first Grand Slam Right currently has two players two players in the top 100 girls and then a couple of NCAA champions that you've worked with as well Jamir Jenkins and and Janna Daniel, so

Torrey Hawkins (02:31.363)
you

Christian Hill (02:35.891)
Correct. wow.

Alvin Owusu (02:46.262)
and I think kind of probably the most impactful, know, the man that keeps giving generation by generation, you were also mentored and groomed by Arthur Ashe. I didn't tell you this in the beginning, but my son's name is Ashe. His middle name is Ashe. His first name is Tori after one Tori Hawkins here, but when he came out, it was a very quick, well, we can't call him Tori, because that's a tough one to carry, but we will call him Ashe, and that is almost six years now, so yeah. Anyways.

Torrey Hawkins (02:52.428)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (03:03.531)
I love that One one little correction I don't currently have two players in the top 100 girls, but I have had two girls in the top 100 prior to this this podcast

Torrey Hawkins (03:08.36)
Hehehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (03:16.086)
Great. the way, Ash is a great name.

Alvin Owusu (03:16.087)
Welcome, sir.

Christian Hill (03:28.973)
So I just want to make sure we tweak that. Yes.

Alvin Owusu (03:29.272)
Fair. Fair. Got it. Got it.

Torrey Hawkins (03:33.249)
And Chris, that's a great point you mentioned because there's so many Charlottesens out there that like to say this, that and third. We coached a young girl named Jamie Hampton for years, years, right? mom went through some issues, had cancer, had this, that and third. Jamie ended up getting a high of 27 in the world, WTA. And for those of us that know that coach players of that level, we're very specific about these things. You know what I mean?

Christian Hill (03:42.769)
Mm-hmm. Yep, I remember.

Christian Hill (03:59.855)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (04:00.948)
We don't want any more credit than we deserve and we don't and we appreciate that the Grand Slam champion at that tournament deserves all the credit. just want we want what's due. We're not saying, yeah, I coached so and so. No, no, we didn't. I even, you know, when I'm talking about Jermaine, who was, you know, obviously a player that both of us worked with and coached and you are, you probably had more time with Jameer than I did. had Jameer at a young age and I had more time with Jackie toward the end of his career, the oldest brother. And I probably

Christian Hill (04:04.761)
You

Torrey Hawkins (04:30.516)
During the middle years when I had Jermaine, Jermaine and Skull were only a year apart. You know what mean? So I had a ton of time with Jermaine at many of these tournaments. Jermaine went on to be hitting coach with Serena and Venus for, you know, better part of 10 years. And Robbie Poole, who I know you know very well. And Tim Neely, who I know you work with from a young age all the way through. It's funny to me how when I'm talking to anybody else, I can tell pretty quickly if they're hyping

Christian Hill (04:43.217)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (05:00.511)
up or blowing up a little more smoke than they deserve because it starts to get very vague. They start to get very, oh, I with all these guys. I work with them so and so. had so and so for like, oh, how many years? I can tell you the tournaments, bro. I can tell you the time.

Christian Hill (05:07.061)
Yes. It was so funny that you say that because I have a lady, Molly, who you met that I work with down here, and she was in the hiring process of some coaches. And the one coach is like,

Yeah, I worked with all these pro players and the main one I worked with was Asheroll. Now Asheroll is one of the girls who I told you I got to the top 100 and I'm looking at this guy and I'm like, yeah, when did you work with this player? But yeah, so unfortunately, unfortunately you have to be humble and when you spend time out on tour, what you realize is that each week you're gonna see the same people and you need to handle yourself in a certain type of way to have respect because you're either gonna be there hitting party, you're gonna be playing against them, you need to play doubles with them, so.

Torrey Hawkins (05:35.006)
You

Torrey Hawkins (05:49.554)
Yeah. I'm going to add to that. going to, I'm going to see you on that bet and raise you 10. Add to the fact that we are both, all three of us African-Americans. Alvin, you are truly African-American, right?

Christian Hill (05:57.1)
We learn very quickly when you're at that level that you have to be humble and you can't make things up and you have to respect the work that other coaches are doing and not try to take credit for it. that's, yeah.

Sure. Sure. Yes.

Alvin Owusu (06:19.278)
American from Africa.

Torrey Hawkins (06:20.067)
Right. Right. We are black Americans in by definition. I had my Nigerian Western Civ teacher Morehouse point that out to me very, very candidly years ago. You are not African American. I can remember his speech to this day. Being African American, black American, I feel like the the torture stake, so to speak, and I'm a Christian, the torture stake we carry is a little heavier and I feel like there's a little bit of a

Christian Hill (06:39.416)
you

Torrey Hawkins (06:49.756)
extra mile we are we have to carry that stick a little bit just even be relevant let alone to be to get our just do the the term that continues to be a double-edged sword is the term athletic and the athletic term to me comes as a bit of a it can be a little bit of a left-handed compliment depending on who the player is and it can be also it can be a little demeaning as a coach as if to say

Christian Hill (07:14.236)
Sure. There's nothing else to it.

Torrey Hawkins (07:20.367)
The player is athlete. Right, the player is good athlete. You happen to have a good horse and you stumbled into this as opposed to you coached well and this player is good. The same coach of a little lighter pigmentation might get the, genius, he's smarter. They're more mature. They are more.

Christian Hill (07:29.748)
Right.

Christian Hill (07:33.559)
The IQ is there.

Torrey Hawkins (07:46.351)
Dennis IQ savvy, right? Where that same coaches of a black coach is credited for spotting, fostering, mentoring, right? Good athlete. And I've always found that to be a little bit of a, of a double-edged sword. Chris, what I'm asking you now is I want you to speak to, cause I saw it a little bit through the school days and team Neely. Help me understand coaching from

Christian Hill (07:57.523)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (08:16.506)
Let's go from Neely to Eubanks, which I know is a long period of time. Go from Neely to Eubanks and Chris is from Atlanta. I gave Chris a few lessons when he was younger, when Scott was playing, right? And Chris was probably eight, nine, 10 years old. think he was maybe nine or 10 when I gave him a few lessons. Dad was always his coach and did a great job with him and still those great qualities in him. Chris was probably the hardest working nine year old, 10 year old I ever had on the court with me at that time.

Christian Hill (08:20.273)
Good.

Christian Hill (08:25.639)
Right.

Christian Hill (08:42.734)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (08:44.826)
And all credit to me goes to his father and goes to his family. And obviously I know Rodney did a lot for him in addition to Kenny Thorne, but Rodney probably had as much of an impact on Chris as anybody through his college. And even though Rodney was a women's coach at Georgia Tech, and then his time with you. Take me through the coaching lens of Neely, who by the way, for those that don't know, Timothy Neely was from Bahamas originally, Chris, I'm and Chris.

Christian Hill (08:46.327)
I literally just talked to Timmy. He just called me five minutes ago.

Torrey Hawkins (09:14.081)
Yeah, that's cool.

Christian Hill (09:14.912)
to tell me he's going to Chris's matchdown in Delray right now. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (09:18.413)
That's awesome. That's awesome. So Tim Neely, for those that don't know, Tim Neely won 14s. I know he won Easter bowl, clays and doubles. And if I'm not mistaken, Chris, no, forgive me, forgive me. Easter bowl, Easter bowl 14s, clays and singles and doubles. And I want to say 16s the very less than a year later. Right. And I know I don't.

Christian Hill (09:30.773)
and orange bull.

Yeah. Well, he won.

Christian Hill (09:42.102)
Well, he won the 18th Eastern Ball at 14 in the doubles with Alex Kutynetsov. Right? And...

Torrey Hawkins (09:49.704)
Him and coos. Yep. So so this is just so people understand we're talking about one of the top national players in the country way before his time right his mother That was right was was should have been and in my opinion is one of the lost talents that we find that may be a future episode If you could write that down lost players that the system failed them and that's another talk show but

Christian Hill (09:59.273)
Yeah, anyone to orange bowl and beat Donald Young in the finals.

Christian Hill (10:16.647)
Timothy Neely was the number one junior over Djokovic, Gasquet, Monfise, of the guys that, know, Songa, he was the number one junior over all of those guys for a period of time. yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:30.583)
for about three or four years, of time. So I...

Alvin Owusu (10:33.294)
So we're talking about a run from like 2000, that's probably like 2004, 2005, something like that all the way.

Torrey Hawkins (10:38.743)
It's before then, Cosco won for 2000. From 2000 to 2004, not three, 2000, 2003, Timothy Neely was one of the best players, engineer tennis in the world.

Christian Hill (10:40.585)
Yeah, about 2000. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:42.4)
Okay. perfect. So we're talking about 2002 to

Christian Hill (10:54.738)
Yep. And there was no doubt about it. mean, he was unbelievable.

Alvin Owusu (10:56.002)
Fair, so go ahead Chris.

Torrey Hawkins (10:59.51)
Zero doubt. He was a level better than you on his worst day. Now, take me Chris. From Neely to you Banks, who as you and I both know, you know, did not get all the same support, had a great year, had a great run at Georgia Tech. People don't realize this and Chris, you may even know this. Chris wasn't even seated when he won Southern's. He was not even seated. Let me say it again for people that don't know.

Christian Hill (11:23.325)
I know he was he was ranked yeah

Torrey Hawkins (11:28.212)
He was not seeded when he won Southern's. There were three or four players. I coached two of the players that were seeded that he beat en route. South side of town, not the north side, came up through, was always Sam. We always know Chris was always a little bit. Chris came through, got his serve going, got his forehand going, had the oney, but he grew a ton before his last year and he surprised

everyone. And then he surprised everyone by staying home wanting to go to Tech. Then he ended up had a great year, had great three four years at Tech. I'm gonna say this because most people won't. His first year or two, know, Atlanta hasn't been open. He got the wild card as he should have as a top player at Tech. And the year or two later, as his juniors, as he's getting better, Chris got hosed. He did not get the wild card. One of my other players got the wild card.

Christian Hill (12:24.434)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (12:27.133)
I won't spread any shade or whatever. won't even mention the player's name. I was the match. I ran into Chris at the tournament. I said, Chris, why are you not playing? He said, T. He said, some politics going on. I said, Chris, you're on the tour now. You're trying to make it. This should be the time they promote you the most. T, I can't speak to it. Won't say their names.

Christian Hill (12:45.342)
Yep. Yep. We won't say any names. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (12:52.518)
And I'm saying it to you, Chris, to help you understand. I've known Chris since that age. And I said to say, and then you and I were talking because we had some situations in Florida that were overlapping and you were taking him over and trying to get his mind right to make a big push for the tour. Long winded question. Chris, take me from Neely to Chris Eubanks and tell me about the struggles. Cause the struggle is real. The struggles.

Christian Hill (13:09.406)
Sure.

Christian Hill (13:20.133)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:22.233)
And what it takes, what Chris was able to do that Timothy may not have been able to, what black players, in particular minorities, but black specifically, have to navigate going from good junior to top junior, top junior to good pro to guy that breaks top hundred. Because you heard it right here. You and I both lived it. It is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart. Tell me your perspective.

Christian Hill (13:45.964)
No. I'll start with Timmy. I actually met Timmy at the Philadelphia grass, international grass court tournament when I was actually coaching Josh Cohen. Josh Cohen is a, was one of the top players in the world and in the country at the time. And I actually,

Torrey Hawkins (13:59.964)
Good

Christian Hill (14:07.048)
got him his first gold ball there at the grass courts. And there were two African-American players at the tournament there that I was watching. I was like, wow, these guys are pretty good. One was Tim Neely, one was Sloan Stevens. Sloan was, I think, had lost in the first round, but I think she maybe did real well in doubles because in the juniors she was doing better in doubles than she was in singles. And then Timmy was there with his mother, Queen. And you know Queen very well.

Torrey Hawkins (14:20.475)
Yep. Queen, force, 100%.

Christian Hill (14:36.308)
Timothy and Scoville kind of came up the ranks together. And I had a vision at that time when I moved to Philly that I wanted to do something special. My dream was always I wanted to take the African-American player to the Grand Slam level. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I just knew that I wanted to do that because my career got cut short because of finances. I was actually sponsored by Norm Nixon, the basketball player, and then in the 1999 and 2000 NBA lockout.

Torrey Hawkins (14:39.302)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (14:48.465)
Okay.

Christian Hill (15:05.224)
I lost my sponsorship. Jaylen Rose was very instrumental in helping me at that time. a year later, I met Timmy. I was the assistant coach at University of Pennsylvania at that time. But I was coaching a lot of juniors, and I had to make a decision. Hey, am I going to continue college coaching, or am I going to work with these juniors? I couldn't do both because it was a conflict of interest. I couldn't be a coach in the NCAAs with and be coaching those players. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (15:18.993)
And play. Shout out to Mark Riley, the way, real quick. No doubt. Kalamazoo, no doubt, no doubt. You've been coming all the back.

Christian Hill (15:33.586)
Yes, shout out to Mark Riley Kalamazoo College. So, yeah. So now here I am with Josh and Timmy's mom comes over to me and.

Alvin Owusu (15:35.052)
Hmph.

Torrey Hawkins (15:47.225)
I'm sorry Chris, Alvin and listeners both. Josh Cohen had junior tennis on lockdown for about three to four years. There hadn't been a player like him since Robbie Ginepri You heard it right here. When you play Josh Cohen, you knew it was only matter of time before he snuck you out. It was one of those players, and I remember the only other player I've seen like him was Ginepri.

Christian Hill (16:06.134)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (16:13.123)
put any smoke under Josh, his record and his ranking speak for himself. But Josh was one those players that he could find a way to beat you on YOUR best day. And he was absolute a beast. And so I want to make context for this album, just for the viewers to help understand. And this is ironic because we're giving a white Jewish player the love here on the level that he deserves, that the level he was. Josh Cohen.

Christian Hill (16:22.893)
Josh was a beast.

Christian Hill (16:37.146)
That he deserves. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (16:42.38)
was when you heard the name, it was like Whoopi Goldberg and Mufasa and Lion King saying, you know, Josh Cohen, you played Josh. People were already apologizing to that you drew Josh Cohen and you draw. One of my first tournaments, Josh Cohen was playing at the Tulsa ITF and it was like, it was Josh's tournament. Just who was he gonna face in what order? That was, just to give everybody a little context, the last time I'd heard at that level,

Christian Hill (16:47.154)
Right.

Christian Hill (16:54.032)
Yep.

Christian Hill (17:05.02)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:09.901)
was at the Easter bowl and Palm Springs when Ginepri was playing. And it was like, oh, you're playing Ginepri. Oh, come on, bro. And it was one of those kind of players where his reputation was so good, it preceded him. It was just a matter of when he was gonna beat you. It wasn't a matter of you could play your best tennis. He's gonna beat you three and a one in the second and third.

Christian Hill (17:13.926)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christian Hill (17:23.731)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (17:28.406)
He was a great young man and a hard worker to the point where because I was coaching him, Queen Neely, who had the number one 14 year old in the world said, I want you to coach my son. And that's kind of how the journey began. And so my vision was there was three young men who I've thought to work together. And those three young men were Tim Neely, Scoville Jenkins, and Donald Young.

Torrey Hawkins (17:53.068)
Yep.

Christian Hill (17:55.436)
And these were the guys that were coming up at that time. And me and Torrey would talk at that time and we were trying to figure out how we could make it work and how we could work together. And that's how we became pretty much big brother and little bro, you know? And so the challenge was this. Here I am, a young African-American coach that doesn't really have a body of work at that point. I'm still playing a little bit. I'm still kicking Timothy's butt on the court and Timothy sees

Torrey Hawkins (18:22.444)
But.

Christian Hill (18:22.885)
the value, Queen sees the value, there's no money at this point. And now it's like, how do we take that from us having a great relationship as again, big brother and little brother to putting this show on the road? His, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (18:27.054)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (18:37.088)
Okay, yeah, help me understand from the geographical standpoint, right? So you're in Philly, Josh is in Philly, and us goes down in Atlanta. Donald was still in Chicago at that time? Okay, so like even when you guys are thinking about that, like how do you guys see that working out?

Christian Hill (18:44.773)
Johnson, Philly.

Don was in Chicago. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (18:52.363)
Okay.

Christian Hill (18:53.424)
So, right, so I envisioned it as, there was a family in Philadelphia, the Lomax family, which was a great family of doctors and business people, and they had made a big transaction where they sold their business to the government for a large sum of money. They were tennis fanatics. I was introduced to them from Flash, from the Five Heartbeats, who also lived in Philadelphia, right? So he saw me at the park.

Alvin Owusu (19:12.898)
Sure.

Christian Hill (19:22.263)
in Philadelphia, we practice at Fairmont Park there in Philly, which is the largest park in the country. And here we are on these 13 courts with cracks in them with grass and weeds growing out the courts. And this is where we're practicing. And so he said, huh? Yes, still next. So that's where Jule practiced. That's where Jermaine practiced. That's where Jermere practiced. That's where Timothy practiced.

Torrey Hawkins (19:22.346)
Steel nets. Steel nets. And a little fabric on the top for the net strap.

Christian Hill (19:48.911)
That's where I should practice. So all of those players that came from Atlanta and these different players came up to Philly and they somehow put their faith in me. And my passion through the spirit of Arthur said, I'm going to make this happen some way. Right. So they stayed at my house. You know, my mom cooked food, you know, my mom did jewels hair. They made sure Timothy was, you know, I slept on the couch. We made, we made all these arrangements to make this dream come true and the, in the spirit of Arthur. And so.

Torrey Hawkins (20:10.377)
Okay.

Christian Hill (20:18.266)
The Lomax family said, you know what, we're gonna sponsor you, okay? And that was the first step. That's when I started talking to Tori a bit and said, hey man, something good is happening here, how do we make it work? But here are the challenges.

geographically, Tory's in Atlanta and that's his guy who he's been grooming. Donald is the chosen one coming up behind there in Chicago. And how do you convince the parents to trust a 25 year old brother who has no body of work to put all of this together and also have the acumen to actually teach them the right things to get them to the level that they're all trying to get to. And especially when there's no blueprint of any black coach besides Tory.

Torrey Hawkins (20:34.824)
Thank

All right.

Christian Hill (21:02.756)
that is taking someone to this next level. So now there's, you know, the doubt of the black coach, young black coach being able to take the young black player to the level since it's never been seen before. And so that's where things start to break down a little bit. So that's one challenge right there, right? The next challenge.

Torrey Hawkins (21:19.53)
The unsustainability or unprovenness of the young black coach and Chris, if I add to that, JTCC Alvin opened up around the same time. There was a young brother named Phillip Simmons, my man, Philly. Philly Cheese was coming through, not from Philly, but Phil Simmons was coming through and he was from Maryland.

Christian Hill (21:25.284)
Yes.

Christian Hill (21:32.162)
Yes.

Yes.

Christian Hill (21:40.08)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (21:43.117)
ATCC was opening up down the street from his house, Vickie-Doo speaking.

Christian Hill (21:47.863)
And who was running that at the time was Martin and Rozelle and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:52.391)
And my man, Roselle Lightfoot. Yes, sir. So you have all this going on, Alvin. so now they are in a sense cornering the market on the black coaches to kind of make inroads to the top players. I was certainly not a monolith. There was other guys like me out there. And Timmy was the best top up and coming 14 year old going to the six and eighteens along with Brendan Evans, Kuznetsov, Nikita Kravonov and so on. And then you had Philly Cheese, who was the year

Christian Hill (22:06.735)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:20.998)
He was the first player that I had remembered who skipped clays. And I'm like, how did you skip national clays? Well, they went off and played the French Open and Wimbledon and had ITF points. And the next year, they won Wimbledon. They won Junior Australian in doubles, Phil and Scott Alzheimer. So I'm like, and Chris, we felt behind. I felt like I was behind. Sco as a 14-year-old gets the round of 16 of 16 clays.

Christian Hill (22:29.485)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (22:30.679)
Right.

Christian Hill (22:36.878)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (22:40.992)
And basically, and basically.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:50.126)
And I'm like, man, and we're still behind. You know what I mean? And thinking you have a great tournament here. We were behind. No, sorry. It was 18th Clays. He was 16. It was 18th Clays. was 15, I think. 18th Clays. And I'm like, there should be a, there was four, there were four under 16s in the 18th Clays that reached the quarterfinals. Dennis, Dennis Zivkovich. Remember, you remember Dennis? There were four, four 15 year olds. Alvin.

Christian Hill (23:08.726)
Yeah, and they were and that's what was going on those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:17.903)
we were behind the curve even at that point. This is what I, and Chris, I want you to keep going, but I wanted to, I feel like sometimes the viewers have to understand the context of all this. And this goes into the parent's mind of, the top kid's doing this. The top kid is signing with Nike. The top kid is over here. What are you doing? How why should I trust you? So this is Queen. This is Go Senior. They're mine looking at me and Chris to say, hmm.

Christian Hill (23:20.258)
Yeah, because this is what happened. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:20.664)
Right, yeah.

Christian Hill (23:44.284)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (23:47.887)
We like you. You've done great with our kids. Don't get me wrong. But for us to get to the next level, we may need to be looking at somewhere else. That's the undertow that's constantly around you. Go ahead, Chris.

Christian Hill (23:48.024)
Yep.

Christian Hill (24:01.039)
And so what happened was, so make sure I mention Jameer in that context you just spoke of. And what happened was I had to make a decision. Here I have a good business going on in Philadelphia, and I've got plenty of kids signing up and paying the dues and whatnot. And now I'm getting the pressure from Queen to say, well, I need you to travel with my son full time.

Torrey Hawkins (24:26.564)
No small

Christian Hill (24:27.232)
And I need you to go to the French open. need you to go to Wimbledon and I need you to go all these places. And I need you to. Right. And I need you to leave all 30 of your clients behind and say goodbye to do so. So when you talk about challenges, now I have to make a decision and say, OK, am I giving up my business to go on the road with this kid? Or am I going to stay put and maybe lose missed the opportunity, but not only miss the opportunity, but also leave him in a situation where

He doesn't have the person around him that he needs around him to actually get to the next level. And lo and behold, what happens? He goes to the French open. He doesn't behave very well. And now he's the enemy of the state for the USCA. And boom, there you have it. He's no longer. I stayed home. I had to. Because there was not enough money for me to.

Torrey Hawkins (25:01.822)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (25:12.899)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (25:16.44)
So did you go with him to that trip or did you stay home?

Christian Hill (25:26.037)
Jeopardize my business and now that's happened to me maybe five times in my career And so let's go now. Let's go kind of to you banks. Okay? With a with a with Jameer, okay, and then so now we're in this Atlanta thing, right? So now with Jameer same thing that's go. We just say I mean that that Tory just said Jameer we had Jameer playing very well, you know get into the later rounds in the Orange Bowl and these in these big tournaments

Torrey Hawkins (25:30.733)
Right.

Christian Hill (25:55.809)
But he has a decision to make whether he's going to stay with me or go with the USCA. Okay?

Alvin Owusu (26:02.958)
So help me understand this though, because Jameer is a South Side Atlanta kid, right? So how does he end up in Philly? Is he coming up kind of on every once in a while, or did he move?

Torrey Hawkins (26:07.723)
Thank you.

Christian Hill (26:10.984)
So to put everything in context, here's what happened. Jewel Peterson played at USC, made semifinals two years in a row. I'm in Atlanta at a tournament with a young lady, Lee Finnegan, who Torrie, know, because she was friends with Scoville's doubles partner, you know. And Jewel comes to the match and she says, I want you to be my coach. Her dad, Ernie Peterson, rest in peace, was her coach at that point.

Torrey Hawkins (26:31.702)
Yep.

Christian Hill (26:40.157)
And so this was a big thing because he's been our coach his whole life. And, and now she's saying, I want Chris to coach me. So you talk about challenges. This was a big challenge itself because I had respect for Ernie as a father figure and as kind of the godfather of everybody who came out of Atlanta. He had a relationship.

Torrey Hawkins (26:44.704)
forever.

Torrey Hawkins (26:59.232)
percent. Norm Wilkerson and Ernie Peterson, both of them, the rest in peace, were the absolute godfathers. They were in many ways, Alvin, any of... They were the true NJTL of black and minority talent before, and talent ID and everything, before it really trickled down to that effect of many of the black kids.

Christian Hill (27:09.964)
Yes.

Christian Hill (27:28.991)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (27:30.031)
Scho, Jermaine, Avdol, Nataly Frazier, all these players were with Ernie P. back in the day. And before then, it was normal. So I say it to say, these players were there. I was working with Juul for a good bit in out of between semesters at USC. And again, I had mentioned to Juul, look, I'm here.

Christian Hill (27:32.768)
Jamia?

Christian Hill (27:40.149)
Arnie.

Alvin Owusu (27:42.136)
Yeah, yep.

Christian Hill (27:53.718)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (27:59.228)
We had just started Alvin at RCS around that time. We had a brand new business. We're trying to get things off the ground. was younger, right? Sco was much younger. He wasn't even, you Jewel was obviously Ernie's daughter. So that was a, and Jackie, if I'm not mistaken, Chris, Jackie is, is maybe a tad bit just under Jackie. And then I want to say Jewel came through behind that and then Jermaine and then Sco. So it was, it was, it was a few years. So now Sco started the national scene.

But Jewel's in college. Jewel got you, she won National Endorsement, she was a top five player, know, in it's days. Jewel's a good player. And so here Ernie is, and this is what I give Ernie is 100 credit for. He's looking out for young black coaches that can help get his daughter to the next level. And I'm like, talk about body of work. We don't have his body of work now. We're just younger, we know what we're doing, we know what we're talking about. And he, in a leap of faith,

Christian Hill (28:28.989)
Right.

Christian Hill (28:46.773)
Yep.

Christian Hill (28:52.178)
No.

Torrey Hawkins (28:57.181)
not just his player, his daughter, and he's trusting me. And then of course, trusting Chris, look, get her as good as she can be. I trust you. And so that alone took a lot of faith because she had been, in a sense, the jewel, so to speak, of his program. So these are things that I think people don't always understand. By extension, Jermaine went on to work for you, worked with you a little bit, went on to work for you in years past. Jermaine, Jermere, course,

Christian Hill (28:59.462)
Yes.

Christian Hill (29:06.112)
Right.

Christian Hill (29:09.888)
Yes.

Christian Hill (29:15.456)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (29:26.685)
train with you and travel with you a good bit. So this is all during, but all started with Jewel, who Ernie was their coach at the beginning.

Christian Hill (29:28.825)
But it all started with Jewel. It all started with Jewel. because that... And you gotta realize that, you know, Natalie is like her god sister. And then Jermaine's married to Natalie. So Jermaine's living with me. That's his girlfriend at the time. That's big sis. She's... Yeah, yeah, she's saying,

Torrey Hawkins (29:48.411)
Now married.

Christian Hill (29:52.715)
Chris is doing a good job, you guys should come up. And so they came up and then Jermaine came up and then Jermere came up. And then we were getting ready for Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr and all these tournaments and we're playing money tournaments together. They're staying with me, living with me and it was a beautiful, it was exactly what I wanted to do. And it was not about money, it was not about fame, it was not about taking credit because at the end of the day, I didn't make Jermaine, Jermere, Jewel any of them. They were good when they came to me.

Torrey Hawkins (30:20.611)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (30:22.035)
So I would never take credit. And then there was Asherolle, you know, and all of them were coming around at that time and they were all practicing together. We probably had the best collection of African-American players in Philly at one point around the world. And so it was really a special thing for me to be a part of it and to just be, you know, blessed enough to have worked with those players. And that...

Alvin Owusu (30:36.418)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (30:36.602)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (30:48.276)
That really trained me as a coach to understand how to coach. I made a lot of mistakes and then I learned a lot from it. And then, you know, that's actually, believe it or not, how I met Chris because where's Chris from? Chris from Atlanta. Jermaine's like his big brother. So Jermaine came up to Philadelphia long after all of this we're talking about and was just coming up to visit and he visited me at my new club, him and Jermaine.

Alvin Owusu (31:04.536)
From Atlanta, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (31:04.92)
It's Yale, baby.

Christian Hill (31:17.266)
and they would always stop by whenever they came into Philly, whether it was, you know, before Jermaine was playing, or Jermere was playing qualities of the open or whether they just came up there to visit some of the people who had helped them financially along the way. And this last time they said, hey man, we got this guy who we think, you know, would be a good match for you to work with. You guys play very similar style and I think you'd be perfect for him. And so insert, you know, Chris Eubanks and

I had kind of gotten out of the loop of the professional type of tennis at that point because I was running one of the regional training centers for the USCA. So I got more into the, you know, political side of running a facility and managing a facility and making sure grants were written and making sure numbers were numbers and meeting with the board. And so it was really like a sort of a shock for me to get asked to work with a pro player because I had, I was so far out of that loop at that point.

Torrey Hawkins (31:54.809)
So.

Christian Hill (32:16.062)
But the beautiful thing was working for the regional training center, I had gotten a lot of professional development to actually be a better coach. It's just that I didn't have any players at that particular moment that I was working with at that level. Had one kid, Taheed Browning, who was a top player in the country. Ann Lee, Ann Lee, who's top 100 right now came out of that program. Kyle Selick, who played for Ohio State. Jeremy Casabon, who just graduated Vanderbilt. So there was a lot of good players in the program, but.

Alvin Owusu (32:26.837)
Right, yeah.

Christian Hill (32:43.563)
I had gotten into the management part. and and and Tory were talking a lot during that time about different ways to navigate that. And so all of sudden, Jermaine and them come in and they're like, hey, bro, we want you to work with with our little brother. And I was flattered and I was like scared because I just started a new program at a club and we were making plenty of money. And then going back to do I go on the road with the player or do I run the club? So.

Torrey Hawkins (32:48.856)
Yeah.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (32:57.048)
You

Torrey Hawkins (33:09.318)
And risk all of the good things that are now in place. that's a, Chris, that's a huge challenge because you know your bread's buttered. At the same time, you also know, and you mentioned, you've referenced him several times so far, Arthur Ashe had helped you. And so you feel this need to give back. You feel that I would not be where I'm at unless those before me

Christian Hill (33:14.356)
That's the biggest challenge. Yeah.

Christian Hill (33:25.353)
Right.

Christian Hill (33:29.0)
Yes. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (33:33.878)
helped me. And so there is true, we call it altruism, but in reality, let's face it, Chris, there is a, there is a loan that has given you that you, the only way to pay this loan back is not through money. could, you could save up some money and drop a hundred grand into a bank account and here, here's, here's what I've, here's what I owe. You know what mean? But really what it was, was a chance. It was believed.

Christian Hill (33:45.255)
Yes. Yes.

Christian Hill (33:59.378)
Sure sure

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:03.956)
It was a chance and you owe that to the next generation. And I remember first working with Jackie. mean, that was my coaches back home in Wichita, Kansas told me, Torrey, we don't want your money. You have to go back and find a player to do what we did for you. You have to go back and do for another player. Matter of fact, we could be two players if necessary, but you have to, that is what you owe us. And it's.

Christian Hill (34:11.026)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (34:32.243)
I'm gonna tell you right now, that's more than money. And so it's something that people don't always understand that that is one of reasons why I took on Jackie. It's one reason I started with Jermaine. I can remember the day at Sporting Club at Windy Hill, Alvin, when I'm talking to Jermaine Jenkins, shooting free throws. And I'm obviously a little bit taller than Jermaine. And I was like, Jermaine? I'm looking at him, looking him up and down. like, Jermaine, you're gonna be 6'2 at best. And he's looking at me like, psh.

Christian Hill (34:33.902)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (34:49.703)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (35:01.204)
Coach T, I'll dunk on you right now. I go Jermaine. Unlike most of your tennis coaches, I play college ball. I go, you ain't gonna beat nothing. And I dropped a quick little game of 21 on him. I backed him down. I shot him out front. I had a few moves on him. He was like, oh, you play it. I go, Jermaine, I played, bro. I go, and I played D2 ball at Morehouse. And he looked at me like, I said, and I'm short for D2.

Alvin Owusu (35:09.123)
Huh.

Christian Hill (35:28.097)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (35:30.226)
You ain't as tall as me. And he looked at me like, I'm a better UT. I said, you might be. I said, but you put that same effort in tennis. You be all American. And he looked at me. We had shot a few more shots. I dropped him three a couple more times out. I go, telling you. I go, you have no idea. He, said, when I showed up at Duke, when my cousin was playing at Duke, I said, I was short.

Christian Hill (35:41.127)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (36:00.153)
I said, you're shorter than me. Years later, Jermaine, obviously, All-American Clemson, and he comes back to me, remember you told him about that All-American thing? I said, yeah, I remember very well. He says, you were right. I go, yeah, I know I was. I said, but hats off to you for listening to me. I said, that's what I wish somebody had told me at 6ix trying to play basketball and top golf ball. So I said to say, these are the fun stories, Alvin, that

Christian Hill (36:20.077)
Yeah. Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (36:29.331)
that I wish Arthur Ashe were alive to hear and see and know that his legacy continued to spawn. And more importantly, the next generation, the Skow Jenkins, the Jemiers, the Jermains, Chris, you know, we talked about Nick Monroe earlier, Chris. These are the players that I hope continue that legacy and in their own way, keep putting. I talk to Jewel every once in while. She's still doing great, still got the Peterson School of Tennis going strong. These are the pieces that I wish more people would know about and would

Christian Hill (36:35.657)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (36:58.707)
appreciate that we each have been helped by those who came before us were all standing on their shoulders and that is one of the things that I have always appreciated as you know, no one's an island, know, everybody's got here through somebody and whatnot so and I think the one thing maybe Chris if you could touch on you banks You banks as you and I both know came to a pretty close Crossroads where he was ready to hang it up a little bit. He was having some

Christian Hill (37:19.124)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (37:27.609)
some success here and there. We knew he was good. We knew he tall. had a big serve. knew his game was okay. But maybe his mindset needed a little bit of a tweak. And I remember, I remember you had shown me a video about him after it kind of broke through. And it was funny because you weren't working with the time and you left him with something after

Christian Hill (37:47.208)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (37:52.72)
And he referenced that in one of his big matches after he kind of broke through a little bit. was well before his round of 16 run at Wimby and all that. And he was talking about how he had to get his... It was almost word for word what you told him. And I was like, that's what I'm talking about. Go ahead, Chris.

Christian Hill (38:08.712)
Well, you know the relationship between me and you banks was challenging I'm old school He's new school and Chris is one of the most intelligent bright young people that I've ever been around His impact on me I'm sure was just as great as my impact on him. Let me be very clear about that

Alvin Owusu (38:09.122)
was it? Chris, what was it?

Christian Hill (38:36.403)
He taught me as much as I taught him. But the challenge was that, you know, look, Chris has told me stories about how he never even had his own tennis racket until he went to college. His dad was very pragmatic. He wouldn't take him out to state to play until he beat everybody in the city. He wouldn't take his, you know, he went about this in a very pragmatic way, which I think worked to his advantage because he was always very realistic.

Torrey Hawkins (39:00.167)
And is this the bandit's time? Right.

Christian Hill (39:02.715)
But I think it worked to his, I think it was a disadvantage to a certain Rikus maybe in his mind, his mind's eye didn't see the dream and the potential that we all saw because he was so pragmatic, right? So.

Alvin Owusu (39:10.445)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (39:14.094)
or didn't see the exposure. And I saw a little of that myself. One of the reasons why he stayed home, you know what mean? And I think that's one reason why he stayed at Tech. And let me just say, add to that. And it's also one of the reasons why he's so humble now, which is why I love his story so much, he did achieve, because... Right. 100%.

Christian Hill (39:31.461)
Yes, yes. Yes, yes, I mean he's so he's so realistic and humble because of the way he was brought up and that's what makes him so great. You know, Chris was so I feel like with a lot of talented players who have what I call special gifts. Certain players have special gifts. Other players have to work super, super duper hard to be able to accomplish with other players can do at the snap of a finger, ie curious.

Torrey Hawkins (39:50.67)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (40:00.538)
who doesn't practice for six months and comes out and gets to the finals of Wimbledon. I.e. Alicia Parks, who can serve 130 miles per hour and can lose 20 matches in a row and then go win two events and beat everybody. Chris is one of those type of athletes that can take the racket out of your hand without any tactics because he's just so powerful with his serve. And then if you look at the stats at Wimbledon,

Torrey Hawkins (40:20.685)
Right.

Christian Hill (40:25.882)
He had think it was 317 winners or something like that that he had in five matches with the most winners in Wimbledon history. What act has he had in seven matches? So it just tells you how explosive and ballistic this guy can be when he's locked in. But the sustainability of that talent without the work that you need to do on a daily basis day in day out. I'm seeing that showing up a lot in our players. I'm seeing that show up in Francis. I'm seeing that show up and Chris.

Alvin Owusu (40:30.519)
Right.

Christian Hill (40:56.504)
Is that bad? Yeah, I mean, is it bad? Is it bad? Is it good? Well, let's talk about their challenges. They're making obscene amount of money in the same, in one or two matches that a guy like Pete Sampras or someone else may have had to play a whole year to make that same amount of money. And I think that that's changing the focus in all sports from it being a mono

Alvin Owusu (40:56.544)
Maybe even Donald was probably the same story a few years ago.

Torrey Hawkins (41:00.045)
Yep. 100%.

Torrey Hawkins (41:18.52)
Yep.

Christian Hill (41:25.658)
focused nuclear laser type of lens and Look, you can get money on Instagram. You can get money with a patch on your shoulder. You can get money They're making a hundred twenty thousand dollars in the first round of the Grand Slam So what I start thinking about is like well damn, you know someone like Naomi Osaka 21 makes 150 million dollars and people are complaining. she's not professional did hey, but look She's been playing tennis already for 18 19 years and that's what people don't realize she's already been playing tennis

Torrey Hawkins (41:42.412)
So,

Christian Hill (41:55.461)
since she was five years old. So I think their challenge is the distractions, the social media, the amount of money that can be made with the snap of a finger of the right people like you and things of that nature. So I think Chris to me, um, representing himself at Wimbledon two years ago, unbelievably, and we saw what his talent is, but I don't know that he's built to say, I want to do that for the rest of my life and just be grinding like that. And when he has the opportunity to be a commentator and he has the opportunity to do other things that he's really good at.

Torrey Hawkins (42:12.203)
Phil Simmons, Skoll Jenkins, the same. But I will say.

Christian Hill (42:25.187)
So I think that's their challenge. I don't think Timothy Nilly going back 20 years before that, I don't think he had those type of opportunities and challenges because they weren't present. So different, yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (42:25.667)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (42:40.934)
And it's funny, Mark Riley made a great quote to me one year when I went back to Kalamazoo years after Scope. He took me over to the board and Mark, if you're listening, you'll know what you remember this conversation. He said, what do you see in this board? And I said, I see a lot of champions. He says, yeah, me too. But I see one black one. After him, I see five black ones. One of them kicked the lid off.

Christian Hill (43:02.69)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Hill (43:07.554)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (43:10.748)
And we've had Michael Moe, Donald Young twice, Francis, we've had champions since him. He says, and you were instrumental in kicking off the first. He says, first was all that let everybody believe that they do it. And I never forgot that from Mark. was a great post-hints compliment, but really on a larger scale, forgive me. obviously in some points forget Scope.

Christian Hill (43:13.348)
Right.

Christian Hill (43:21.048)
Yep.

Christian Hill (43:25.058)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (43:37.062)
it helped kick the lid off. And I think to a large degree Serena did that for a lot of players. And we talked.

Christian Hill (43:41.012)
Yes, and female.

Alvin Owusu (43:44.697)
Well, yeah, let me ask you this though. When you say kick the lid off, but we talked about this earlier, right? That no one outside of their, you know, plus or minus two years in their junior career really knows anybody else. So when you say kick the lid off, it sounds like you're saying kick the lid off for more champions, but is it really kick the lid off for those who might think to bring those players along? Like it's more so, maybe more so the coaches than the, for the players themselves.

Torrey Hawkins (43:54.602)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (44:08.348)
But does it, but it's the same, is it not? The player may have influenced the coach, the coach may have influenced the next player. You sent me a link, Alvin, a year ago before he even started best of three that mentioned that had Ben Shelton, that had Chris Eubanks and had Francis Diopoulos sitting at some diner somewhere, some coffee shop, right? And each of them referenced Scho from back in the day, which tells you they remember.

Alvin Owusu (44:31.298)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christian Hill (44:37.056)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (44:38.278)
They knew. The ones that know, know. And that to me is what, you know, they can't appreciate all of them. They can't appreciate, you know, all the players that came before. Like, like we can't, we're, we're, we're forgetting names. The people that helped us along the way. But I think to my point, but those that know, know. And that was the influence. They saw that player playing that you, to me, and, and hats off to every player who has come along.

Christian Hill (44:49.537)
Right. Sure.

Christian Hill (44:57.537)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (45:07.432)
As a result of some of that same inspiration, all of us, Ashe, I played with the Arthur Ashe comp one and comp two back in the day. You know what I mean? I started tennis because Arthur Ashe, they got to the, that won the US Open. You know what I mean? In the seventh. So I look at that to say, I didn't even know why my dad got me involved, but he was inspired by Arthur Ashe. And so here I am years later running at NJTL out of Atlanta.

Christian Hill (45:14.051)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (45:22.638)
Good.

Torrey Hawkins (45:36.676)
that Arthur Ashe started as I'm doing the research on the NJTLs. I'm realizing how instrumental he was. And so I'm going back piecing together Horace Reed. met when Martin Blackman took over player development with USTA and he put a lot of the black coach together in the room and I'm Chip Hooper, one of my idols from back in the day. I'm at Chip's table. These are things that I laugh at now. That's right. And I'm like, Chip Hooper. I'm like, bro, remember you.

Christian Hill (45:44.71)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (46:00.046)
I was there with you. And that is.

Torrey Hawkins (46:07.267)
And those are the things that I'm saying that are just really, you you may not know the impact you're having until the person who you've had an impact on rises within the ranks. And I think that's the neat thing to me about impact and about motivation. You never know who you're impacting until that person's impacted to a large degree. you know, and to kind of, for me anyway, to kind of sum this part up is that, you know, my

my gauntlet to throw down is for the next generation to continue. They've done great things with the tour. Francis, you've done awesome. met you at a Clemson back when it was L3 or L2 whatever term it was back then. His girlfriend at time was playing at Clemson. And we were talking, we talked for a minute. And I remember talking to him, you and I Chris should have been at JTCC had things gone right. We were both promoting.

Christian Hill (46:41.292)
What?

Christian Hill (47:03.156)
Yeah, yeah, I was I was one step away because I was living I was living in DC right before you know because they went from the Washington Tennis Foundation Which was my first job and then they went to JTCC and on that note

Torrey Hawkins (47:06.298)
Thanks.

Torrey Hawkins (47:13.892)
Right. That's right.

Christian Hill (47:18.144)
You know, the most, two most beautiful things that happened to me in that time period with, with this, the, the time span we're talking about was being the director of Arthur Asher, you tennis and education, because that was my mentor in Philly. And when Chris qualified for his first grand slam, I, I, I left from being around him and I went outside and I cried because if you remember the first thing I said is I want to take a African-American player to a grand slam. And when that happened,

Torrey Hawkins (47:29.063)
Right. Yeah.

Christian Hill (47:47.586)
That was one of the most beautiful moments of my life that I shared with that young man, seeing him achieve his dream, giving back like you're speaking of and carrying on tradition. Because when I first started coaching Chris, what did I do, Tori? I came to Atlanta, I called you guys up. I said, I'm gonna need your help. It was me, you, Donald Young, Chris, remember? And my nephew and we hung out and.

Torrey Hawkins (47:58.531)
Yep. Yep.

Christian Hill (48:14.806)
And I said, I need you guys' and support to make this mission happen. You are the guys who I consider to be brothers, and we've made a pact right there to put our best foot forward. So I think the union that has been formed across the board has been beautiful. And to see these young guys coming up right now and doing their thing, it's the tradition and it's the legacy that we wanna have. So it's beautiful.

Torrey Hawkins (48:19.387)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:42.35)
And I, I heard, I heard Chris tell this story about, uh, probably, don't know if this is probably before he went to college, but when Donald was on tour, he was taking Chris around with him to be his hitting partner at different, uh, different events. Like how did, how did that come about? mean, guess geographically, I understand how that came about, but, uh, how, from a coach's standpoint, like what kind of impact did that leave on Chris? Uh, not only as a player, but like as a person.

Christian Hill (48:52.993)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (48:55.561)
Yep.

Christian Hill (48:56.3)
Yes.

Christian Hill (49:08.608)
Well, I mean, the first practice I ever had with Chris in Atlanta was with Donald Young. It was me, Chris and Donald Young at what your old place at Lifetime, think it was, or right club of the South, which is now Lifetime, correct? Okay. And for me, just being with those two young men at that practice and just kind of marveling over just how dynamic and how the game had evolved and

Torrey Hawkins (49:19.066)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (49:21.923)
Lifetime,

Torrey Hawkins (49:22.346)
Correct. Correct.

Christian Hill (49:38.592)
hearing Chris and Donald talk to each other about experiences that they had had on the road. But what I think it did for Chris is it prepared him. It was almost like a prerequisite, right? Course that he took before he went out there. once he was out there, yeah, he knew how to act, how to walk, which way to go, you know, the whole nine yards. So.

Torrey Hawkins (49:50.274)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (49:50.509)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (49:55.638)
Yeah, apprenticeship almost and a summer internship so to speak

Alvin Owusu (50:06.413)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (50:06.613)
By time Chris was out there, he was already a pro. He already knew everybody, everybody knew him. He knew how to handle himself. He was dynamic. He was professional. He was confident and it was a pleasure to just be around that. So I think Donald really prepared him for the opportunity of being on the tour. Not alone. He prepared him to see that level all the time. So the big thing that was impressive about me is seeing a guy with a one-hand backhand be able to handle a lefty serve and

Torrey Hawkins (50:13.982)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (50:28.895)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (50:34.397)
and handle some of the things that Donald was doing because my little scrubby backhand, that lefty serve and that lefty game would have kind of ate me up. But he was so used to that level because of being with Donald, that was really a blessing for Chris. And it was also just a wonderful, again, carrying on tradition from Donald to have him even be in that place.

Alvin Owusu (50:35.138)
You

Torrey Hawkins (50:44.767)
it.

Torrey Hawkins (50:49.003)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (50:56.519)
I'll add two little strong caveats. The former number one at Georgia Tech was a guy named Kevin King, who was lefty, who was a phenomenal player. He was at that practice. Kevin King, a solid lefty, great player. out to Kevin. saw his wife, Caroline Price, who's actually one of my members' daughters. Mark Price, who played for Tech back in the day. Mark Price's daughter, who was a part of the old school Lethal Weapon 3, Alvin, if you're keeping notes.

Christian Hill (51:02.085)
Yes, he was at that practice as well. Yeah. Yep.

Christian Hill (51:15.509)
Yep, yep, yep.

Yep.

Alvin Owusu (51:20.938)
Hey man, Mark Price pulled up to my house. My next door neighbor, was recruiting him at Whitfield Academy, a basketball player. So Mark Price accidentally pulled in my driveway once and I was like, no, not coach, wrong house.

Torrey Hawkins (51:27.699)
There you go.

Christian Hill (51:31.653)
Mm hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (51:31.807)
So Mark, I just saw Mark last weekend, Mark and Caroline, they've got a little girl. This is how small the world is, right? So you've got Mark, John, Sally, Brian Oliver back in that whole situation. Caroline, his daughter worked with Davilus for years, was an All-American at UNC, her obviously husband now, they've got, obviously he was assistant coach now at Georgia Tech.

Christian Hill (51:41.427)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:00.831)
So that's one side of that. The other side of that is I have to give a big shout out to Jermaine and Jermere because Jermere acted as a big brother to Chris for a lot of those years and took him on a lot of those trips. Obviously Jermaine himself with USTA, still doing a lot of things with player development and looking out for those players. to me, and that's really what you always wanted, right? You always wanted those players to continue to help the next one come up in a

Christian Hill (52:07.061)
Mm-hmm. It still does. Yeah.

Christian Hill (52:19.349)
Yep.

Christian Hill (52:23.732)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:29.821)
world I feel like in our world today so many of us have seen the we've seen the bad stories we hear the horror stories we've heard we we hear the the issues of you know this player and that player you know not making it and no one no one helped so many of these players know each other some of these players have helped the other one you know as much as I you know Robbie Poole helped Jermaine get that gig to replace him

Christian Hill (52:40.704)
Get that job, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:57.191)
Ryan get that job. He was going to go back to Mississippi with his assistant coach at Ole Miss where he played and he helped Jermaine get that job.

Christian Hill (53:03.987)
Well, Robbie also helped Jermere. Now you know that story, So Jermere came up to Philadelphia. He took a series five test with Vanguard and missed it by one point. And then he's like, okay, you know what? What am I to do now? So he got hired by a family to go to Puerto Rico to be the coach because this guy wanted to be an Ivy League player, wanted his son to be an Ivy League player, to hire Jermere.

Torrey Hawkins (53:09.471)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (53:14.589)
Right?

Christian Hill (53:29.962)
They go down to Puerto Rico, start training the hurricane hits. Boom, done. Robbie says, I'm leaving. Jermere, you take over with Serena. So Robbie helped both of them get the jobs. Okay. And the most beautiful thing, two things, right? Going back to positive, beautiful stories. One, Timothy just called me. He's at Chris's match right now. Right? Those two are.

Torrey Hawkins (53:33.124)
Good.

Torrey Hawkins (53:42.414)
Thanks.

Christian Hill (53:53.567)
are linked up and his young son, Timothy's young son is there watching you banks right now play his match because he's starting to play 10, four years old. Literally just called me. Two days ago, I called Jermaine because I'm going to Orlando Magic game with Isu and Isu was diversity inclusion for USTA and Jermaine's like, hey man, I'm putting together my bed for my new baby I'm about to have. So he's about to have a little, his second child is a little baby girl, right?

Torrey Hawkins (54:00.973)
No.

Torrey Hawkins (54:18.681)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Christian Hill (54:20.71)
Whenever those guys get off the phone with me, they say three words to me. And you know what those three words are. I love you. And that's more of a success, I think, for all of us when we have been through the ups and downs and we've been through the trials and tribulations. And then five years ago, I remember Jameer, we're at preseason. It's me, Chris, Jermaine, Jameer, Serena, Coco, Holgerun, Patrick Murata-Glue, and we're at

Torrey Hawkins (54:26.307)
Yeah, love you man.

Alvin Owusu (54:26.99)
I love you, yeah.

Christian Hill (54:50.672)
in Boca and Jermaine comes up to me and he says, remember I mentioned about the courts in the park with the weeds in it and the grass right there and nowhere. He says, man, how beautiful is this that we came from the park in Philadelphia and now we're at the Grand Slams and we're all together. That for me was, that's the best positive story with all the challenges involved. That to me is just, you know, it brings everything home.

Torrey Hawkins (54:58.553)
Right. Right.

Christian Hill (55:19.538)
You know what I mean? And that can be, you you can't make that up. And it all came to fruition in God's divine time.

Alvin Owusu (55:19.97)
You know.

Alvin Owusu (55:31.18)
You know, I think that's a, that's probably a really poignant place to stop for today. because I think we have, I think we've got plenty left in the tank. but I think we can, we can probably do this a few more times, but I think that's a really good place to stop for, for this particular, for this particular edition. So, we will leave the people and, we'll come back again at it another time. But Chris, I want to thank you for joining us.

Christian Hill (55:36.36)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (55:36.685)
Yep.

Christian Hill (55:40.797)
Yeah.

Christian Hill (55:55.624)
Thank you for having me guys. Tory, my big brother over there, I love you man. And Alvin, I love you too. Thank you for having me man, I appreciate it. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (55:59.473)
Absolutely brother. Brother from another mother, yes sir.

Alvin Owusu (56:05.472)
No, man, you, sir.

Torrey Hawkins (56:06.577)
I want to just say this one last piece, Alvin, before you sign off. You never know who's in front of you. And you never know the person in front of you and what they've seen and what they've been through before they got to you. And that is just the thought that on perspective for any young player coming up, any coach that's starting to coach now, maybe you as a player did not get as far as you would like.

but you still have years of impact on a player. You don't know what that young player in front of you may get to. Hope that you pray that you meet his expectation and inspire him to go on to do great things. It could be winning level six. It could be winning Kalamazoo one day. It could be on the Pro Tour one day. It doesn't matter. Any at all.

Christian Hill (56:54.718)
Or it could be the CEO of a company.

Torrey Hawkins (56:57.795)
Could be the CEO of the company that goes on to promote, but with the lessons you learn from the sport, right? But the bottom line is at that time, y'all cross paths. You don't know. What you do know is that kid came out to get coached and you came out to get somebody better. And you as the young player, maybe it's a parent listen to this podcast, keep your kids around positive people. You don't know what they've been through to get to where they are. You don't know where they're coming from.

Christian Hill (57:15.87)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (57:27.409)
And they may just be looking for a spark. They may be looking for a kid to pour their energy and their experiences into. And without that kid, how could they in a sense work out what they're trying to get to next? And who knows where your kid could go. And I look at a lot of the players that have, the parents that have blessed me with sharing their kids with me, you know, and we've raised a lot of kids. I would say co-raised, right? We've co-parented, we've co-raised.

Christian Hill (57:50.507)
Yeah, we raised a lot of Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (57:57.428)
but we've done it with the parents blessing and opportunity. Some of them have been able to financially give us the opportunity to do what we do. And some have been, you know, some have been more blessed than others, but some have blessed us more than others, right? And so it's one of those things where I say, you know, it's just a beautiful thing. And I have to give credit back to your point, Chris. My thought was I want to be pro at something. And I said, you know what, maybe I can be a pro coach one day. And so same thing, when it's Go One Kalamazoo and I'm there,

Christian Hill (58:00.838)
Yes.

Christian Hill (58:11.075)
Absolutely.

Christian Hill (58:15.453)
No.

Torrey Hawkins (58:27.23)
when he's playing Roddick and the fewest ladies playing the doll and the couple ladies playing Federer, right? One of my whole thoughts was to go pro at something and I was able to achieve that dream and to your point, you cry because 10 years before that you had no idea how you're gonna do it, right? You had no idea how do it. my goodness.

Christian Hill (58:41.949)
I remember this in the doll match. remember that. He was, thing I remember, I was going. Because he was doing this one pattern and he didn't know he was doing it. And every time I would, man, we tried to get him through. He almost had that match.

Torrey Hawkins (59:01.876)
He had him. had him. But more importantly, he was at the point he was at. He was in, and I would like to say he was in the conversation. And that to me is one of the biggest things. We now know Nadal to be Nadal, one of the best of all time. Right? We didn't know that in 2005. You know, we had no idea. know, Scho's gone on to coach other players himself, been to coach himself. And as you said, I'm learning things from Scho. Years later, him and Bobby, it's been a pleasure having them on the show because I'm like,

Christian Hill (59:06.011)
The match, yes.

Christian Hill (59:10.427)
Yes he was.

Christian Hill (59:15.595)
Yes, no, right Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (59:32.596)
That's a point. And I'm writing down notes of stuff that we share. So I think at all, who will Schoen and Bobby yet influenced in their next run, right? Brian Vaheily is now the head of the USGA. What moves will he now make that may impact tennis down the road now that he's on the other side of the court, boardroom, and that, right? So, and we'll see. But the point I'm making is that

Christian Hill (59:42.838)
Yes, yes.

Christian Hill (59:48.37)
Right.

Christian Hill (59:55.645)
Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (59:59.718)
It's just been a blessing to have been in the conversation and who knows where that will take us next. But more importantly, that to me, if Arthur were alive to this day, he would have appreciated the sacrifices, the things made, Atlanta, Philly, around the world. He would have been very touched by the legacy, pardon your old club's name, he would have been impressed with the legacy that he helped set down.

was continuing, regardless of the facility, the lecture was carrying on and we continue to, there's an old expression, each one teach one, We continue down to this day and as I said, the gauntlet I throw down is the next generation do more of the same because that's the only way it keeps going.

Christian Hill (01:00:32.357)
I call it carrying on tradition.

Christian Hill (01:00:39.111)
Yes, yes.

Christian Hill (01:00:46.267)
And we're still carrying it. Yeah, we're still carrying it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:51.121)
Alvin, thank you brother.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:51.438)
Alright, and with that, yeah, that's three. We're out.

Christian Hill (01:00:54.309)
Thank you guys. All right. All right, baby.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:54.724)
That's great. Thank you, Chris. We'll talk soon. Part two coming up next.