For McGaffigan family, tennis isn't academic

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By Craig DeVrieze | Friday, July 04, 2008 |

Barb McGaffigan doesn’t know what she might have done had one of her four tennis-playing daughters announced at an early age that they dreamed of a professional playing career.

When Madison Keys declared that dream at age 7, then proved to her Rock Island parents she was serious over the next three years, Rick and Christine Keys decided to enroll her in the prestigious Evert Tennis Academy in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where the family already had a second home.

Rick Keys said that’s the only sure route to a pro career. What’s more, he said, it is a route that must be embarked upon by age 10 or else.

“For girls, it is pretty universal,” he said. “If she is going to have a chance, you have to make that move at 10.”

All of the McGaffigan girls — Jenny, Katie, Laura and Chrissie — are accomplished enough players to have earned college scholarships, but none ever expressed an interest in enrolling in a tennis academy.

“I don’t know what we would have done if they had ever begged to go,” their mother said. “It never came up, so we never really thought about it.”

Although Barb and her husband, Bill, exposed their girls to tennis at early ages and regularly took them to national and regional junior tournaments, they were content to let them all play at Bettendorf High School, where between them, the girls collected 12 state championship medals.

“I would say we didn’t really have a grand plan when they were young,’’ Barb McGaffigan said. “We just sort of took it season by season. We never really considered (an academy) because we had the four girls, and we weren’t going to split them up.”

She said such a move would have been made only as a complete family.

“And we didn’t really want to do that,” she said. “We like it here, and we think the Quad-Cities is a great place to raise the kids.”

Besides, for all the girls’ success on the courts, the McGaffigans did not raise them as tennis players.

“We tried to expose them to as many things as we could when they we kids,” their mother said.

It started with swimming, then gymnastics, followed by tee-ball and soccer. That’s not to mention drama classes and musical instruments.

The girls welcomed the varied menu.

“We just all had fun with everything,” said Laura, who just completed her college career at Indiana University. “I think it was just a coincidence we all ended up loving tennis. We all played volleyball, too. We just tried everything out, and we had the most fun doing those two sports.”

Actually, they didn’t try everything. Not initially.

Chrissie, a Bettendorf senior-to-be, got her first taste of golf when she went to the driving range with her father a year ago.

Although she will play tennis at the University of Notre Dame after she graduates from Bettendorf next year, Chrissie went out for golf instead of tennis this year.

“I just thought it was an absolute blast,” she said. “So, I was like ‘Why not try something new?’ ”

Laura, who recently launched a career in marketing in Sacramento, Calif., said she is satisfied that tennis provided a ticket to a college education.

Like her oldest sisters, she will continue to use the game as a recreational option, and with no regrets.

“I still play tennis just for fun,” she said. “I think it is a lifelong sport.”

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com.