David McNamara has been awarded with a Highly Commended Service Award, which recognises outstanding service to the sport of tennis in Victoria.<\/p>\n
David was acknowledged in front of a full house at AAMI Park during the the Victorian Community Tennis Forum #15.<\/p>\n
The theme of the night was exploring the relationship between Club and Coach – an extremely fitting setting as David has long been associated with both coaching and club related roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously this was organised through Oakleigh Tennis Club,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich I really do appreciate. It has come as a complete surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t understand why I had to come tonight,\u201d he chuckled.<\/p>\n
David has been coaching and performing different roles at a number of clubs for almost 50 years.
\nHis roles have varied throughout his time, including being a Head Coach, Junior Convenor and Vice President. He has run open days, working bees, school & holiday clinics, club tournaments, weekend competitions as well as weekly group and private coaching lessons. Clearly, there is nothing David hasn\u2019t done!<\/p>\n
However, for the past couple of decades, David has strongly been affiliated with the Oakleigh Tennis Club.<\/p>\n
Back in 1993, the club was in dire straits and the 114 year history was in danger of ending.<\/p>\n
Enter David.<\/p>\n
He took on the task of rebuilding Oakleigh Tennis Club at a time when there was no coach, no members playing competition and no active juniors. Within a few short years, David brought life and excitement back to the club.<\/p>\n
Junior tennis was on the rise, men & women\u2019s Pennant teams were created, mid-week ladies coaching classes formed as well as coaching for adults and juniors.<\/p>\n
Oakleigh Tennis Club soon became a powerhouse within juniors in particular, of whom many went on to play tennis at national & international level.<\/p>\n
This was no doubt due to David\u2019s passion for tennis and the positive and inclusive environment he created for all.<\/p>\n
\u201cOakleigh Tennis Club over the last 25 years has been a big part of me and I really appreciate Donald Smith and Peter Splatt for putting me up for this award and thank you all very much,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n
Congratulations David and thank you for your contribution to Tennis in Victoria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Congratulations David McNamara of Oakleigh Tennis Club for receiving a Highly Commended Service Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6228,"featured_media":20728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,26],"class_list":["post-20727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-recognition","tag-tsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}