By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
“We hope we never see you again.”
This was the familiar refrain said year by year in trophy ceremonies by tournament director Mike Rahaley to the singles winner of the U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit “Futures” tournament in Vero Beach, Florida. While one would first think this would be inhospitable thing to say, it was meant with the deepest affection. What Rahaley meant with these words is “We wish you the best of success in your tennis career and hope that you don’t have to come back here next year because that means that you are playing better and in bigger and more important tournaments in the tennis world.” The tournament that he founded was the lowest level of professional tennis, an entry-level event on what is now called the International Tennis Federation World Tennis Tour. If you came back to play the $10,000 event the next year, or in years in the future, that means your tennis career was not heading in the right direction. Rahaley only wanted the best for everyone he associated with in tennis, which is one of his characteristics that those who knew him remember after his passing on July 16, 2019.
A former teacher who turned to teaching tennis, Rahaley started this tournament in Vero Beach, Florida in 1995, and turned it into one of the longest running and most successful at this level of tennis. It literally was the envy of all other tournaments at this level in the world. While almost every one of these level tournaments are played in front of no fans other than a parent and maybe a coach, Rahaley turned his event in Vero Beach into the best of its level in the world with the most professional conditions and hundreds of fans attending daily. Not only were there hundreds of fans in attendance daily, but PAYING fans. Rahaley, with his deep love of tennis, charisma, charm and promotional abilities, was able to turn this small tennis event into a extravaganza and a happening in town.
In a way, Rahaley was every much the promoter that Jack Kramer, Bill Riordan, Butch Buchholz or Charles Pyle was in the history of tennis. Perhaps, he was even better because he was able to get people to come to pay to watch tennis with players who were ranked No. 500 in the world at best, and not superstars like Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, Roger Federer, Bill Tilden or Suzanne Lenglen.
Many future great players made their way through Vero Beach on Rahaley’s watch. In fact, the first ever professional tennis tournament that future Hall of Famer and U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick played in his career was at Rahaley’s event in Vero Beach in 1998. Rahaley’s first official event in 1995 featured many talented players, including future top 4 player Tim Henman of Great Britain, who reached the semifinals, as well as future Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson of Sweden who lost in the second round, and 2000 French Open runner-up Magnus Norman of Sweden, who also reached the second round that year. Another relative unknown in the field that year who lost in the second round was Severin Luthi of Switzerland, the man who went on to become Switzerland’s Davis Cup captain and the helping hand of Roger Federer through much of his success in the last decade.
It is my belief that if every town in the United States had someone like Rahaley in it promoting the game, then tennis would be the most popular sport in the country. Not only was he unabashed in his promotion of his small “Futures” tennis tournament and creating excitement like the tennis circus is coming to town, but also in his enthusiasm for getting people to play tennis. He literally created and built thriving tennis programs out of nothing. Rahaley literally grabbed people out of the parking lot and invited them on the court to try tennis and get them interested. “He just wanted to share his love of the game with anyone,” said Kristen Wilson, a former teaching pro with Rahaley in Michigan and Vero Beach.
In Vero Beach, it seems as though every teaching pro in town was at one point hired by Rahaley. He worked at several clubs through the years in Vero Beach – John’s Island, Grand Harbor, Indian Trails – and he would also teach at the Little Harbor Club in Harbor Springs, Michigan in the summers. “It’s amazing how many careers he started,” said Wilson. “And he continued to mentor a lot of people.”
One tennis career that he started in Vero Beach decades ago was that of an ambitious young teaching pro named Tom Fish, who moved from the cold of Minnesota to Vero Beach with his young family to work for Rahaley. Tom’s young son Mardy flourished in Florida, being able to play as much tennis as he liked in the warmer more tennis-friendly climate. Fish told Ray McNulty with the Vero Beach newspaper 32963 that if he wasn’t for Rahaley hiring him, it’s possible that Mardy, a future top 10 player, U.S. Davis Cup star and 2004 Olympic silver medalist, would have not turned into a professional tennis player.
In 2015, Rahaley found that running the event was too much for him and he wished for Vero Beach’s Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, the charitable foundation named after the 2004 Olympic silver medalist, to take over and continue to run the event. Luckily, the USTA agreed. I was grateful to be invited by Tom Fish to help run the tournament and suggested that a perpetual trophy be created to be named after Rahaley to honor each year’s singles champion. Thus, the “Mike Rahaley Cup” was invented and serves as reminder for all for what he did to create this gem of a small tournament in Vero Beach. However, the real legacy for Rahaley is all the people who enjoy playing or teaching tennis in Vero Beach, one of the most active tennis towns in the country, as well as in Harbor Springs, Michigan. Rahaley’s enthusiasm for teaching and promoting tennis was infectious and his influence and legacy is one that won’t be forgotten.
