For a short window between playing the few professional matches I competed in and going to college, I trained in Las Vegas. I would drive down from Utah and stay the week with a family that let my parents pay for a single room and then drive back up to Utah for the weekend to see my family. By this time, I had already had a heated discussion with my dad about him not attending my matches or practices. I had even asked him if he would stop traveling with me to tournaments after a six- week tour in Asia.

I remember that conversation well. We were in the airport heading home from the Philippines. We were standing in line to check our bags when I told him that I didn’t want him to come to tournaments with me anymore. He asked, “Well, who will go with you to your tournaments then?” and I blurted out an eager reply of “Anyone! I don’t care who! Just not you!” I remember seeing his face darken. I had hurt him, but I had reached my breaking point where I knew I would have to.

At that time, I couldn’t play a tennis match in front of him without starting to cry. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Then my hurt dad’s face had changed. He looked as if he had thought of something I hadn’t. “Well,” he said, “I’m paying for these tournaments, and the tennis lessons, and the equipment. I pay for the entry fees and airplane tickets. I pay for your food and your uniforms. And so I’m going with you whether you like it or not.” I threw my hands up in the air and said, “Fine! Go ahead. Go. I’ll stay home with mom. Have a blast!”

So just before my college career started, our relationship basically ended. Tennis was a hot topic between us. Any conversation regarding tennis could blow up in our faces at any moment, and yet those conversations still happened everyday. However, the family business began to collapse, so my dad was forced to stay at home in Utah and deal with that. The relief I felt from my parents’ business going under made me feel somewhat guilty, but his busier days struggling with the business had made practicing (and thus my life) more peaceful. Playing tennis in Vegas without my father there gave me a sense of freedom at my practices that I had never felt before.

I drove up and worked with some other college-bound players and trained with Coach Adam, as we called him. I was dedicated to tennis — as I had been all of my life. I mean, I wasn’t driving two hours and living away from my family on weekdays because I didn’t care about my tennis. A lot of my friends had stopped any kind of training as soon as they signed on to schools with a full scholarship. Not me though. I was still going hard after I signed my contract. However on the weekends, I slowly learned to take it easier.

It just so happened that at this time I met a boy that I became very fond of while at home on a weekend. I was leaving for college and he, being the Mormon that he was, was leaving for his mission to Wisconsin that next week. That gave us a span of three days to live it up. We went on walks and went out to eat in small cafes. We spent a lot of time together those three days. He had a lot of doubts about his life, and so did I. He was raised a certain way and that was all he knew…Just like me. He was my first connection to the outside world where tennis was just a sport and not a way of life. I never thought I would relate to someone who didn’t play tennis — who didn’t breath tennis — but he proved me wrong.

I said goodbye to him on our last walk on that Sunday. On Monday, I drove up to Vegas for my first practice of the week where Coach Adam was waiting for me on the court. He was sitting down on the bench near the water fountain waiting for me. When I walked onto the court with my racket bag and shoes in hand, he looked up from his phone, smiled, and shook his head. He laughed a little bit and then rubbed his face awkwardly.

“What’s up?” I remember asking.

“Oh, Jade… Your father just texted me.”

“Yeah?”

“Says you’ve been out hanging out with some boy when you could have been serving tennis balls out of the basket,” Coach Adam laughed.

“Are you serious?” My face burned up bright red. I had never talked to Coach Adam about boys, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it then.

“Yep. Got the text right here. Who is this boy, Jade?” My coach was smiling. I think he was happy to know I had a boy he could poke fun at me with.

“Just some guy. I won’t see him for two years. Oh my God. Did he really text you that?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why. What does he want me to do? Ground you?”

“I don’t know…Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“No worries. I’m your coach, not your dad.”

“This is so…I’m so…” I broke down and started crying. I was embarrassed and probably felt a little guilty too. After all, I had spent that entire weekend with a boy. I hadn’t even served a basket in the last three days. Coach Adam stopped laughing and cleared his throat, seeing that for a seventeen-year-old girl, this was not just a joke. He sat closer and put his arm around me.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. This is your life. If you’re seeing someone then you’re seeing someone. As a coach, I have been nothing but happy out here. I’ve never seen someone work so hard. Jade, if you were playing like shit, I would tell you. If there was a problem, we would have to address it. That’s where I would step in. You’re seventeen. Your dad’s got to realize there will be boys — lots of boys. He’s just being a protective ol’ dad. That’s all.”

And that’s how practice started, with a little embarrassment, a little shock, but also a lot of acceptance about spending time off the court and with a boy. I would have never expected to have a coach who understood that part of my life, but he did. My dad at the time, however, did not.

I still sometimes imagine my dad standing by the window, watching me drive away to go spend time with my new friend. I think of him flipping open his phone and sending Adam play-by-plays of how i’m not playing tennis or conditioning. I can’t believe it came to that, but it did. Looking back, I have no regrets about that weekend. My new friend and I wrote a 10–20 paged letter to each other every month while he was away those two years on his mission. I don’t play competitive tennis anymore, and he is no longer Mormon. How about that?

I was lucky to meet him when I did, because he introduced me to a new sense of freedom that I had never known before. He was from a completely different world. He didn’t know anything about tennis or the pressure it put on a seventeen-year-old girl, and I didn’t know anything about his religion or the pressure it put on a nineteen-year-old boy. In the end, I think we both acted as stepping stones to our own independence. I gained independence from my father’s expectations and tasted a world where tennis was not the center of all things, and my new friend had gained independence from his own family’s expectations as well.