Tennis Teacher Logs 30 Years On Park Courts

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John Park monitors a return by his student Ian Linville at
the Kaimuki Park tennis courts. Photo from Deborah
Sharkey.

More than 60 years ago, an encouraging tennis instructor taught John Park the intricacies of the sport - lessons he has been passing on to children and adults for three decades.

“I love the game, but I was just a mediocre player,” admitted Park, a 1939 McKinley graduate and retired public school history teacher.

“I’m more of a teacher than a player. I wasn’t big enough or strong enough to be on the high school team.”

On the Kaimuki Park courts at 10th and Waialae avenues on a recent drizzly afternoon, the 80-something instructor covers serves, backhands and volleys with young Ian Linville of Liholiho Elementary.

“Go! Go! That’s a boy,” Park said as Linville hits one to the baseline. Looking on is Linville’s mom, Deborah Sharkey, and visiting grandmother Pat Linville. Sharkey’s son has been taking lessons for more than a month, and she calls Park “sharp as a tack.”

“He knows how to command an audience,” Sharkey said.“He might be all of 100 pounds, but he’ll tell all of us when it’s time to pick up balls - which is good, because little boys need to have a person in their lives who can get them to listen.”

John Park

Lessons last 45 minutes to one hour “all depending on the weather,” said Park, who charges “a minimal fee” and estimates having had anywhere from 300 to 500 students in his 30 years of teaching tennis.

The World War II draftee, who never saw action because the war ended, lives in Palolo and is married to Rose. Some of their three children and five grandchildren have passed through his classes.

Today his students range in age from 5 to 70, and have skills ranging from beginning to advanced.“Some are very coordinated, some are not coordinated, so I try to get them to be the best they can possibly play,“said Park,who also swims two or three times a week at Palolo pool. “You see them progressing, beginning to be able to hit the ball over the net and to enjoy themselves as they play.”

As for his own memorable teacher, John Puuloa, Park happened upon him some six decades ago at Dole Park in Punchbowl, encouraging “boys and girls to play tennis and have fun.”

“That is one way I was introduced (to tennis) by a public parks instructor that went to different parks and brought along rackets and balls,” Park recalled. “He would teach all the intricacies of all the strokes.”

The afternoon lesson over, Park drives away in a faded red 1969 VW bug, which he’s driven for 37 years. The young-at-heart Park said his teacher taught him encouragement. “To love the game and do our best,” Park said, adding that he’ll continue teaching tennis “as long as the good Lord keeps me healthy.”