Passion for the Game of Tennis Turns into a Career

Photo submitted by Ashley Freeman

Finding passion in a career path makes a job more rewarding and for local Oxford woman, Ashley Freeman has found her niche in teaching kids the game of tennis.

Freeman fell in love with the game of tennis from an early age.
“I grew up playing tennis my whole life,” Freeman said. “My Dad was a coach. He just retired as the winningest coach at Alcorn State for the men and women’s tennis teams. He was my coach and I have been playing tennis my whole life. I went on to play at Mississippi State.”
After finishing her degree at Mississippi State, she moved to Oxford and got a job in sales, but it did not work out the way she planned, so she decided that she was going to do what she loved.
“In 2009 Debbie Swindoll approached me about taking over little kids tennis through the park commission,” Freeman said. “This opportunity fell in my lap with the park commission and Debbie was gracious enough to offer the position to me.”
Freeman works with kids from the ages of three to eight-year-olds including running camps and teaching them the game of tennis in a fun environment.
“We focus on teaching fundamental and developmental skills, hand eye coordination, speed and agility, but in an effort to teach them all of that we instill a good foundation,” Freeman said. “We implement all that through games. So they basically don’t even realize that they are learning the fundamentals of tennis. They just think they are having fun on the court. It is really fun and they are learning to play tennis with the basics and fundamentals we basically lay the foundation for these kids through a lot of fun and high energy games.”
The camps run similar to the spring semester how kids would come one day a week. “I have camps four days out of the week, but parents can choose one day a week and the camp runs for an hour after they get out of school.”

Adam Brown is the sports editor of HottyToddy.com. He can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.