When Dave Healey was thrown out of his local American Legion baseball team, his sporting life took a turn.
It wasn’t anything shocking, but the rules at the time stipulated that players would be between the ages of 15 and 18. Healey, who was just 14 years old at the time, was starting at second base for his hometown of Minnesota.
“They approached me and told me, ‘You can’t play any longer. You’re not old enough.’ It was a long time ago,” the Pine Ridge resident recalled.
Healey was fortunate that a tennis-playing friend asked him to accompany him on the court.
“So I picked up a racket and played tennis with him — and at the end of the year, I defeated him for the club tennis championship,” Healey chuckled. “And I just kept moving forward.”
Indeed, Healey was a three-time state champion, earned a pioneering scholarship to the University of Minnesota and rose to vice president of the United States Tennis Association before carving out a profitable business career.
Healey, who formed two executive hiring practices that were purchased by larger companies, said, “I think maybe half of the clients I had were people I met through tennis. So I thought I’d give anything back in tennis.”
Healey served on the USTA board of directors for a little more than a decade, during which time he was a central figure in the annual preparation of the US Open and served on committees alongside legends like Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King.
The layout of Arthur Ashe Stadium, which opened in 1997 and remains the world’s largest tennis-specific showplace, was indeed his greatest accomplishment while on the board.
Healey, who traveled thousands of miles to gather the best ideas from basketball stadiums and other venues already in use, said, “I wasn’t there for the end of it, but I was there during the model (process).”
More than 23,000 people can be accommodated in the stadium. This includes 93 luxury suites, which Healey considered to be an overabundance.
“I was totally opposed,” he recalled. “I said it was too many. You’re going to get people to pay $100,00 for these things? I’m a Midwestern guy, they’re going to pay $100,000? And our East Coast guys were telling me it’s good.”
The suites, it turns out, were fully sold out in a single day.
“And they had another 100 people on the waiting list, so I had to eat a lot of crow on that one,” Healey laughed.
When it comes to putting a name on the stadium, though, the board put financial goals aside. Despite the fact that selling the rights to a private company could have netted the USTA $200 million, it was decided to name it after Ashe, who won 76 career titles and was a civil rights pioneer until he died in 1993.
Healey said, “We should have made a bundle. But we said no; let’s give it a name. We did not receive any funds, and I’m proud of it today.”
Healey’s active participation with the USTA also addressed the issue of male and female prize money inequality. The U.S. Open was the first Grand Slam tournament to eliminate the pay inequality, more than a decade before the other Grand Slam tournaments did so.
Healey is credited with helping to create tennis leagues in The Villages, which enable amateur players to compete on teams with players of similar skill.
He said, “They have them all over the world now. Wow, that was a big success.”
Not that everything went according to plan. Venus and Serena Williams’ father once sued Healey for their dismissal from the US Junior Wightman Cup squad.
The Williams sisters never participated in USTA junior events, so they did not win any qualifying points.
Healey said, “Our legal team said it would go away, and it did. However, it was a fascinating addition.”
Healey accomplished much of this when driving around the country assisting top companies in finding their next chief executives. He reports that he has led 100 searches over the years, not including smaller positions such as assisting in the hunt for new commissioners for the NFL and Major League Baseball.
“I wasn’t the main guy,” he said, “but because of my long (sports) career, they always welcomed me to be on the squad.”
When his first wife, Sally, died of a heart attack in 1992, Healey was on the verge of becoming USTA president. With two daughters at home, he resigned from the association and focused his tennis efforts on the local level.
Healey became active with the Minnesota Baseline Club and rose through the ranks to become president of the alumni association, which was raising funds for an indoor tennis complex at his alma mater.
Healey was the school’s first student to earn a full scholarship outside of football, basketball or hockey when he played for the Gophers, bypassing proclamations from Miami and California. The Baseline Club now offers four and a half dozen tennis scholarships.
And what about those courts, where Healey began playing after being told he couldn’t play baseball? His name is now on the tennis courts at the Rochester Tennis Club.
“I go back to the beginning, which was living in Minnesota and meeting the right people,” Healey said. “Who knows what would happen if tennis weren’t present? I was very lucky.”
– Attributed Source, The Villages Daily Sun