Jonathan Barth This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. The Post and Courier, Charleston SC | Charleston.net | Stories

   www.postandcourier.com/assets/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/1/2007   Last Visited: 2/23/2007

   Now his family - Barth; his wife, Colleen; sons Jonathan and Sandon; daughter-in-law Meredith; and mother, Pat - are being recognized as the Ralph W. Westcott U.S. Tennis Association Family of the Year, a national recognition.
   ...
   In 1975, son Jonathan was born, and the couple realized a desire to settle down.
   ...
   Roy and Colleen raised two tennis-playing sons, Jonathan, 31, and Sandon, 29.
   ...
   "I played soccer till I was 15, then I had to choose," Jonathan Barth says. "My parents never forced us to play tennis. They'd support us in whatever we did. My mom was the typical mom, volunteering at whatever sport the kids wanted to do."
   
   Barth says it was sometimes difficult to step back.
   
   "I felt like they liked the game more the older they got," he says. "The best thing I did was to back away when they wanted to do other things. My parents never pressured me or made me feel bad, and as tough as it may have been, that's what I did, too."
   
   Barth figured he shouldn't pressure his sons because they got enough of that elsewhere.
   
   "There was always sort of this innate pressure from other people," he says. "People would ask, 'Do you want to be like your dad?' "
   
   Jonathan has worked with his dad at Kiawah since graduating from the College of Charleston in 1998. He met his wife, Meredith, on the courts one summer when her family was vacationing at Kiawah. She was Southern Conference champion for four years while playing for Furman University.
   
   Jonathan competes in father-son and husband-wife tournaments, and Meredith also plays in father-daughter tournaments with her dad. Jonathan and Meredith are expecting their first child in June.
   
   "They're going to face the same challenge that we did when their child gets old enough to play," Barth says.
   
   Barth says he thought Sandon was done with the game when he graduated from Bishop England and went to Clemson University.
   
   "He walked on and made the team," Barth says. "I was the last to know."
   
   During graduate school, Sandon was an assistant coach at the College of Charleston, and he also has been a hitting partner for professional women players during the Family Circle Cup. Now living in New Haven, Conn., he works for Zoll Medical Corp. selling heart defibrillators.
   
   "He still works out a little bit," Barth says.
   
   Barth's involvement in the game has gone beyond the courts.
   
   Since 1984, he has been tournament director of the Kiawah Junior Clay Court Championship; and since 1988, the Southern Senior Closed Clay Court Championship.
   
   The tournaments are a family affair. Colleen runs the tournament desk with Meredith as her assistant; Jonathan is the assistant tournament director.
   
   Barth also has served on local, statewide and national committees, including the Davis Cup Committee. He has been inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame and the Southern Tennis Hall of Fame, and he plays "social" tennis every weekend.
   
   Last fall, the Barths started the Sea Island/Kiawah Island Junior Tennis Program to expose the sport to children who otherwise would not have that opportunity.
   
   "After all these years, I still reap the benefits of tennis," he says.