Before the trophies overseas. Before the used car salesman act in a Slovenian dugout. There was an eighth grader who loved tennis almost as much as baseball.
By Merv Moore — Shop in Seagoville
“Having my name broadcast over the PA system as the Seagoville Open tennis champion as an eighth-grader was special to me.”
— Merv Moore, Shop in Seagoville
I have coached baseball on three continents. I have chased championships from Switzerland to Slovenia to Ukraine to Spain. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever quite matched the feeling of a tournament bracket taped to a wall behind Seagoville High School in May of 1980.
Seagoville was never a sports powerhouse. But it was a respected program, and it produced teams that dominated other Dallas ISD programs. The Sea Dragons swim team under Richard Magers was the crown jewel of DISD swimming. The football squads were above average. And the baseball team, well, our baseball program was elite.
A Bus Ride to Allen
I was part of the 1983 baseball squad that walked into Allen High School and left with the Eagles’ pride in our back pocket. We were 12-3, holding a one game lead over Allen (11-4) for second place in district, with one game to go.
We had lost a heartbreaker to top-ranked McKinney, 5-4. We had also dropped a wild one to Allen two weeks earlier, 14-12, at home. So when coach Joe Pearce told us before that Friday bus ride that our principal, John R. Ligon, had already arranged a winner-take-all game the next day, we did not feel good. We felt disrespected. And we were angry.
Allen played the part. They staged a full student assembly at the baseball field. Cheerleaders. Standing room only on a windy day. It was a great production.
Then we crushed them 14-2. When the school bell rang, the Allen student body abandoned their team and went home. It remains one of the sweetest wins of my life. But it was not my best.
Two Courts Behind the Stadium
Growing up next to the football stadium and the old Seagoville High School/Junior High School campus had its perks. We had outdoor basketball courts. We had two tennis courts. And I loved tennis, enough that I bought strawberries and whipped cream every June just to watch my hero, Bjorn Borg, play Wimbledon on television.
By the time I was an eighth grader, I considered myself the favorite in the Seagoville Tennis Open. That was a bold claim. I had to play against members of the actual high school tennis team, including their top player, Tommy Brown, a hard hitting product of coach Ron Burch’s program. Tommy was a helluva tennis player.
But he was not the athlete I was.
“I knew I had reached an elite level when the student beat his teacher. My buddy broke his own racket out of frustration that day.”
— Merv Moore, Shop in Seagoville
The Teacher Who Broke His Own Racket
My best friend, the late Stanley Szychulski, was my teacher on the tennis court. His dad, Stan, was one of the best tennis players I ever saw in person, and Stanley had absorbed every bit of it. I knew I had reached a different level the day I beat him. He was so upset that he broke his own racket that day.
Stanley’s parents divorced not long after, and he moved to Richardson for a couple of years. He eventually came back to Seagoville and became the Dragons starting quarterback. My only regret from that whole tournament is that Stanley and I never got the chance to meet in the final. That would have been a fight worth watching.
From Seagoville to Slovenia
People ask me about my coaching career and expect me to point to the national titles I won in Switzerland. The Therwil Flyers went undefeated on Swiss soil, and it felt good, mostly for my players, because honestly, it was too easy. Rebuilding the fifth-place Zurich Challengers into a dominating champion in just two seasons was fun, too.
The closest anything has ever come to matching that 1980 tennis trophy was Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1994. The Swiss National Baseball Team was one of the worst squads in Europe when I took the job. I actually researched the rule book for the European Baseball Championship to see if a 14 year-old could legally play alongside grown men. My club president was stunned I even wanted a junior player on the national team roster. But, Dr. Lothar Seinige backed his head coach anyway.
I went to Slovenia with three pitchers and no real idea what to expect. That lowly Swiss national team opened the tournament with three straight wins, including a 4-2 upset of the tournament champion, fresh off a tour of Japan. I became a used car salesman in that game. For the first and only time in my coaching career, I called every single pitch from the dugout.
Allain Kurz was just 12 years-old when I started working with him in Therwil. Catcher Stefan Suter was also a Therwil Flyer. Together, we pulled off one of the biggest heists in European baseball history.
And still, none of it compares to a tennis trophy in Seagoville, Texas.
The PA System
In those days, the junior high building sat just 20 yards from the high school building. When they announced my name over the PA system as the Seagoville Tennis Open champion, it landed different than any championship that came later. It was mine, and it was home.
Baseball was always my first love, so I only played in one Dallas ISD tennis tournament during high school. Coach Angela Crabtree, a top-notch girls basketball coach who also ran the tennis program, let me skip school one week to compete. I even won a bronze medal with Darren Roberts as my doubles partner.
That was sweet too.
“Nothing can compare to winning the 1980 Seagoville Open. Not Switzerland. Not Slovenia. Home always hits different.”
— Merv Moore, Shop in Seagoville
Every coaching stop I have had since, from Brunei to Bhutan to Nepal, traces back to two tennis courts behind a small town Texas high school. That is the part of the story people never ask about. Maybe they should.
