Company Overview
Company Overview:
The turnover of the average club player is usually 2 years!
Yonkers Tennis continually has over 5000 unique participants in our programs yearly, but our true pride and joy are the families and friends who have had and are continuing to build generational bonds with our facility.
Our story is about these friendships, many which are decades old and continuing to get stronger as each year passes. Longevity of relationship is what we excel at.
You can trust that we will do right by you, knowing we are here to facilitate and spread the joy of tennis.
History of the club:
As we get ready to reopen and start our 54th season it’s always important to look back and reflect where we came from to help us navigate the future. 54 years is a long time and to be honest | was 10 at the time the club opened so my memory is slightly tainted but I will do my best.
Yonkers Tennis Center was built in 1971 by Joe & Mario Curto, Joe Locasio and Vincent D’Angelo. All four were local businessmen and only Vincent knew what a tennis ball or court looked like. 1971 was called an “indoor tennis boom” in our area and multiple facilities went up at the same time. Nobody had any clue whether the model would last and can verify they cut every corner constructing the club not knowing how long they’d exist. Coach Pat, his Dad and brother were our first tennis pro’s and Pat remained until his passing. | know Pat is watching and would get annoyed if his name wasn’t mentioned. To those of you who didn’t meet Coach Pat ask, he was a legend in all that is right about our industry! Court # 4 is “Coach Pat Court”, respect it for what it represents.
Yonkers Tennis Center ran as a low cost, small staff operation for many years and in 1980 Joe & Mario bought out their partners. That left no owners with any knowledge of tennis but they knew a lot about running a business. Joe Curto Jr. was hired in 1983, right out of college, part time and worked the front desk, swept the courts and anything else nobody else wanted to do. He also knew nothing about tennis but had a shiny diploma from Syracuse University. In 1984, he was hired as the Club Manager at $15,000 per year and worked 7 days a week for many many years. His first day on the job the tennis courts were completely flooded and mud had dried everywhere on the courts (poor mans red clay). Welcome to the business world as they say!
In 1986, Joe Jr. and his two cousins (Joe & Mike, local attorneys) bought the business and property from their parents and have owned it ever since. Joe Jr. was the hands-on majority partner and basically performed all most every task including managing 350 seasonal court hrs single handedly without a computer (take that ML). A major turning point for the club’s future was when Simon Gale and Mitch Cravens were hired in 2003 and introduced a teaching model into Yonkers Tennis Center’s strategic plan. We’ve followed that format ever since. Thanx Guys!
Through the years many staff have come, left, returned and there’s even some we can’t seem to get rid of. For obvious reasons I’ll refrain from mentioning names. Currently besides Joe Jr. the longest serving staff member is KJ who currently is our Vice-President/ General Manager (she can get wound up, go with it she’s pretty good at this). There are rumours KJ was born in the rear conference room in 1977 but I can’t seem to find any paperwork written in English which would attest to that so we allow the “mystique “to capture imaginations.
Besides KJ many of our staff have served a long time (more than a decade) which says something about them and the club culture in general. Thank you to Richard, Mary Lou (X), Cathy, Martin, Mike H. Tendai, Rene & Robert.
When you get ready to open the doors on September 16, remember none of this is easy and what you put in is what you get back out of life. One of my favourite quotes is from the legendary Danny Meyer, “Business is like life, it’s all about how you make people feel! It’s that simple & it’s that hard! “
To our staff, enjoy the season, enjoy your teammates, have fun and be thankful you can laugh and get paid at the same time. Not a lot of people can say that in these times!
To all, be well and most importantly, thank you for selecting Yonkers Tennis Center! This has the potential to be your greatest year. Remember, if you see a turtle on top of a fence post he/she had plenty of help to get there!
With gratitude,
Joe Curto Jr.
9/16/24