Taffy Lewis was fortunate enough to grow up in one of the two places in the country where tennis was popular—Florida and Southern California. Her father started her in tennis at age seven when he was teaching a beginner class at their church’s annual family camp near Big Bear, California. Knowing how heavy wooden racquets were back then, he taught the children a backhand that was a modified version of the two-handed backhand that would become popular fifteen years later. To this day, Taffy teaches the same one-handed backhand that her dad taught her, as well as the full two-handed backhand that Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors made famous in the ‘70s.
Growing up with no sports available for girls in public schools, she attended Saturday morning clinics, had private lessons from a different pro each summer, and entered local tournaments that gave her annual rankings in Southern California. Attending the University of Kentucky, there still were no sports for girls, but after college, Taffy taught summer tennis classes in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before starting her career as a flight attendant for American Airlines.
Through the years Taffy enjoyed teaching tennis around flying in her domicile bases of Buffalo, New York, Chicago, and San Diego. One of her fondest memories was of her American team of six “stewardesses” winning first place all four years among the sixteen airlines from around the world participating in the International Stewardess Tournament. Contributing to the team victories, Taffy and her partner won the doubles event one year, and she won the singles event another year.
When flying out of Chicago, besides teaching part time, she won the Park District City Championship two separate years, which allowed her to represent Chicago in the National Public Parks Championships each year. Later on, in “senior” tournaments Taffy impressively held a ranking of #3 in San Diego and #9 in the U.S.
After an early retirement from the airlines, Taffy enjoyed teaching tennis classes for fifteen years at the San Dieguito Adult School, as well as teaching private lessons and being on senior teams that represented Southern California in various U.S.T.A. national championships.
Tennis took a back seat when she felt a need to help her family—first, to manage the care of her divorced brother, who had suffered a severe stroke near his apartment 80 miles from Taffy. Three years later she gladly chose to help her parents who lived 110 miles away during their last fifteen years.
Despite not knowing anyone there, Taffy had been eyeing St. George as a future home for various reasons, such as its stress-free traffic. After settling her parents’ estate in San Diego, she moved to the senior community of Sun River because it had 14 pickleball courts and 3 tennis courts. Naturally, Taffy was drawn to helping fellow residents with their tennis and pickleball, but when summer came, instead of celebrating her hair not frizzing, she found the dry heat was much worse than San Diego’s ocean breezes.
After her second summer she began looking for another home within 30 minutes of Sun River, yet high enough in elevation to be ten degrees cooler in summer. She found a lovely property in Dammeron Valley on five, flat acres, and one morning while in Escrow, Taffy woke thinking about her long-time dream of not only teaching tennis on her own court, but also of helping girls who reminded her of herself growing up--trapped in boredom, depressed, and fearful of girls who picked on her at school. With her Master’s degree in Counseling from San Diego State University, Taffy had loved her Career Planning classes and dreamed of not only bolstering girls’ self-esteem but also of encouraging their hopes and dreams to become active goals.
Taffy loves using her past, be it good or bad, and she wakes every day excited to see whom she can inspire. With gratitude to the Lord for the gifts He has given her—teaching tennis and encouraging people—and with gratitude to her parents for enabling her the means to buy the large property, she is now giving free, private lessons on her own tennis court and pickleball court to girls who are struggling socially and in need of boosting their self-confidence by discovering their God-given talents, even if they don’t include tennis or pickleball.
She knows that parents, guardians, grandparents and others who know such a girl will want to help by contacting Taffy through text or calling 858 722-7258, or by email: taffy@sbcglobal.net