Bud Schroeder: Work Hard, Play Hard!
Bud Schroeder, owner of Schroeder’s Tennis Center in Tipp City, is the winner of many tennis awards, such as USPTA (United States Professional Tennis Association) Hall of Fame, Pro of the Year, Coach of the Year, and lots more. But he says, “I started playing tennis by accident.”
Schroeder was 12 years old and walking to a park outside of Baltimore, Maryland, where he was born and grew up. He remembers, “I saw this guy hitting a ball against a wall, and I wondered, ‘What was that guy doing?’ From then on, all I did was play tennis.”
He explains that he liked tennis so much because he didn’t have to wait around, like in baseball, for example, where you waited until, maybe, someone would hit the ball to you, and then you sat on the bench and waited until your turn to bat, took a few swings, and usually just sat back down, and waited.
When Bud was only sixteen, he was asked if he wanted to be a tennis instructor, and he agreed because then he got to be on the court even more, every day. And the guy said, “We’re going to pay you four bucks an hour.” Bud replied, “Really, I get paid for playing tennis?” So, they sent him to an instructor’s class, and he began teaching and playing tennis from dawn to dusk, besides working and delivering the paper. He says, “I left the house at 9 a.m. and my mom didn’t see me until 9 p.m. I couldn’t get enough of it, so that’s how I got started and teaching”.
After high school, Bud attended a college in Baltimore and eventually earned two years’ worth of credits after dropping out and reenrolling. In between, he spent more than a year just stringing tennis racquets. Then a friend invited him to come and be an instructor in St. Augustine, Florida, where he attended Flagler College and earned a degree in Finance. Bud says, “I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven! Now I’m playing tennis every day, outside in the sun, instead of freezing my rear-end in Baltimore and shoveling snow off the courts in the spring.” Bud also met his future wife in St. Augustine, eventually married her, and they have two kids, Jillian and Dakota.
After teaching for a while at Dayton Center Courts, Bud decided to build his own tennis club, and he chose Tipp City for its location because it was centrally located. Sidney, Piqua, and Troy to the north, Dayton to the south, Greenville to the west, and Springfield to the east. But it was a long haul.
All the banks turned him down until he eventually visited Huntington Bank, which offered him a deal if he could raise the collateral. Bud said it was a tough sell and took a long time, and his initial efforts failed, but he eventually convinced some investors to take the chance, and they did. They told him, “We’re not investing in the club, we’re investing in you. You run the club, we’ll stay out of the way.” Bud says, “I was so lucky to have those folks to get me started, but I still don’t know how I did it, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. I taught tennis all day long at Dayton Center Courts and then visited folks at night to convince them to invest.” And now it’s been 25 years.
Bud explains that the tennis club started with five indoor courts, then he added some more courts under a gigantic tent. Eventually, he got rid of the tent courts and replaced them with two permanent indoor courts for a total of seven, plus four outdoor courts. And he says the club has evolved into a family-oriented club, where mom and dad play, so the kids play. He notes, “I really enjoy being on the court with people. I try to figure out how to make people better at tennis, and to make kids learn how to win, how to lose, and how to work with people. I teach them, but they teach me. I learn from them. And the great thing about tennis is it’s a lifetime sport.”
Bud says, “I was really lucky that day I walked up to the high school and saw that guy hitting the ball at the wall. He changed my whole life! But to me, it’s always been about hard work, on the tennis court and my approach to life. Work hard and do the best you can!”