Tammy









Tammy a little older.

Tammy age 7

Another pretty good player

Driving up Collins Avenue on Miami Beach there was this kid on a small bike weaving in and out of traffic.   It was 10 P.M.and traffic was not light.
About 2 or 3 weeks later the kid cycles up and starts talking to one of our tennis kids.  They were outside the fence that surrounds the park.  I come out and to say something to our kid and I hear Tammy say, 'Tennis is easy." 
I challenge her to come in and try.   I give her a racket, we walk on a court and I hit a ball to her.  She hits it high and wide and then says, "Wait a minute.  How does it go?"  She listened and from there she learned very fast and made the team. 

 In her second year Tammy, now 8 years old, saw Sabatini on TV and said, Howard I want to hit 1 hand backhand.   In just one day we changed her backhand.  But, she was so good she just would not practice.  She would play a lot, mostly against boys, and she was very teachable, but she never practiced. 
Once, during  a 13 month period she and her mother moved 7 times.  Then she got in with a couple of older girls.  I told her to ask the girls if they wanted to learn to play.  They said yes, they came to the park and I began to teach them.  They were 2 and 3 years older and I thought that when they saw they couldn’t beat her, it would help end the relationship. They couldn't and it did.. 
One day her mother came to the park when she was playing in a doubles match. While they were playing Juan (2) hit a bad shot and uttered a string of profanities. Her mother's hair stood up.  "Did you hear that?" 
"What?" 
"What that boy said?"   I said no, I never listen to the kids when they are playing.  She said, "You tell Tammy to get out of there." 
I explained to her that during a match the boys tend to say something like that at contentious moments  and if I took her out of the game for that reason, they just wouldn't play with her anymore.  She looked at me.  I said, "Mira, Mrs. Encina, what movie did you take Tammy to see yesterday?  . . . .



What is under the uniforms of

Officers Vanessa & Tammy

The USTA monthly magazine featured a center spread about how this future star learned to play tennis, without cost, at a Miami Beach public park.  As a junior she went on to win 5 national tennis titles and become #1 in the State of Florida.  With the help of tennis scholarships she went to college and graduated from the U. of Tennessee. 
Although she was born in Mt. Sinai Hospital on Miami Beach, she was on many foreign magazine covers and stories about her were in several Chilean and other South American magazines (her mother and father were from Chile). 

While in

California visiting her sister, her sister's husband, who was a police officer. offered to take Tammy in his police vehicle on one his tours of duty.  She was fascinated and today she is a police officer. She loves her job. 

When my grandson David saw this picture of two police officers he asked," What city? I'm having criminal thoughts."
 
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