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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Still Rallying: Willow Glen resident Hank Sluga, 90, has been playing tennis since 1932. Sluga plays at Willow Glen's Bramhall Park every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
Tennis is secret to youth of a 90-year-old WG resident
By Amy Jenkins
Hank Sluga can remember when neighbors were angry because a pink building was built for swimming pool dressing rooms at Bramhall Park in 1950. The building, at the Willow Glen park where he plays tennis every Tuesday and Thursday morning with friends from the Willows Senior Center, is now a bathroom, and the swimming pool was never put in.
Sluga, who celebrated his 90th birthday on Oct. 7, has been playing tennis since 1932. Tennis is one thing that keeps him young, he says.
Sluga's interest in tennis peaked when his family built tennis courts on their farm in Ohio when he was 21. When he was really young and went to school in a one-room school house in Ohio, kids made up their own games, and the one thing he has always had, and that helps him play tennis today, is good stamina, he says.
Sports have been important to Sluga throughout his lifetime. In high school he played basketball, ran track and was a center on the basketball team. Now he is an intermediate tennis player but doesn't play competitively--he gets more exercise rallying then playing doubles or singles, he says. He also plays golf but is better at tennis, he says.
In 1941, Sluga moved from Ohio to San Jose and became an engineer at Westinghouse in Sunnyvale. He has lived in the same house in Willow Glen, with his wife of 55 years, since 1952. Since they never had children of their own, they have cared for their nieces and nephews.
Sluga is the oldest in a family of seven boys and one girl. Curiously, many of Sluga's siblings celebrate birthdays in the month of October as well. His sister's birthday is Oct. 25 and his brothers' birthdays are Oct. 8, 9, and 11.
Family members came from all over the country--including, Tampa, Fla., Austin, Texas, and Omaha, Neb.--to celebrate his birthday with him at the Saratoga Country Club. Thirty-two friends and family members were expected to attend the party and dinner in Sluga's honor.
"My wife's family from San Jose will be able to meet a lot of my relatives at my party because they have never met," he said before the event.
Sluga enjoys spending time at the Willows Senior Center, he says. On his way home from playing tennis, he gets a cup of coffee and talks with the office staff, he says. The senior center also has a chess club, organizes walks and has a monthly dinner to celebrate birthdays, which Sluga attends on a regular basis.
Aside from playing tennis, Sluga also watches it on television.
"I am happy professional women's tennis has become as popular as men's tennis," he says. "Women get decent scholarships for college if they are good at tennis. It also requires more skill because women volley longer. With men it's a big serve, a return, then it's over. There is more strategy in women's tennis."
A few weeks ago, Sluga was the Willow Glen banner carrier at the San Jose Senior games, where he represented the senior center during the opening ceremonies. During the senior games, seniors competed in athletic events ranging from horseshoes to tennis and table tennis.
"I didn't compete because I didn't want to break my neck," Sluga says, laughing.
Tennis is a sport Sluga encourages young people to learn and he hopes one day courts will be built farther away from traffic intersections where car fumes are harmful to children, he says.
"I tell youngsters to take a tennis class if the school offers it, even if they don't like it, because they can play it their whole lives and don't need a team to play on," he says.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
