On Wednesday afternoon Bill Sweet stood on the new outdoor tennis courts at the Boys & Girls Club of Southwestern Oregon and insisted the facility wouldn’t exist without the work of tennis director Ed Thompson.

On Tuesday, Thompson had sworn the facility wouldn’t exist without Sweet.

The United States Tennis Association will have the last word in the friendly argument, though, when it awards Sweet, 88, the prestigious 5 Years Distinguished Service Award on Saturday for his role in giving tennis a home on the South Coast.

According to a letter to Sweet from the USTA Pacific Northwest Awards Committee, the award recognizes outreach that “spans a range of community tennis program areas as well as creates a measurable and sustainable impact on the health of tennis in your community.”

But Sweet isn’t someone who wants accolades or attention.

“I don’t want any publicity for myself,” Sweet said on Wednesday. “I just want to promote tennis for the health of the community.”

People in the local tennis community have no such qualms about heaping praise on Sweet, though. Thompson himself nominated Sweet for the award, given once a year to one person in the Pacific Northwest. By a unanimous vote the committee agreed he deserved it, based on his work in bringing the four outdoor courts to the William J. Sweet Memorial Tennis Center — named in memory of Bill Sweet’s father and built principally with the help of the Sweet family — at the Boys & Girls Club. The outdoor courts are in addition to the five indoor courts at the tennis center.

“Bill’s been the principal person to see tennis grow in this area,” said Thompson. “Bill doesn’t care about people knowing what he has done. But it was very, very important to me and I think to others in the tennis community to see that Bill is thanked. This community probably doesn’t know, they probably think it just happened through the regular growth of this program. But no, it was because of Bill Sweet, who worked on this project and stayed with this project. It took about two years to see this to fruition.”

The outdoor courts, a $360,000 project funded by a $50,000 USTA grant and a massive community fundraising effort spearheaded by Sweet, give the tennis center the full package of options, important since many tournaments are held on outdoor courts.

The indoor courts have long been a boon to youth tennis in the area: Both the Marshfield and North Bend boys and girls tennis teams practice there on rainy days, for example, and having indoor courts means home matches don’t have to be postponed because of rain.

“Some years you can have weeks and weeks of rain in the spring. It makes a big difference to be able to practice. I mean how good can you be if you can’t practice? It’s a big benefit for the teams in the area,”  said Marshfield boys tennis coach Paula Massie. “And here, with the Boys & Girls Club allowing us to have home matches there, it means we can at least not have any of our home matches canceled (because of rain).”

Local high school teams also will put the outdoor courts to use as well, working them into their regular practice schedule.

“To say we’re very appreciative of having that facility is an understatement,” said Massie.

Getting young people involved in tennis has always been the point for Sweet, himself a lifelong player who still competes in USTA events and attributes much of his lasting health and happiness to the sport.

“(The tennis facility) means that young people have the opportunity to play tennis, at all ages,” said Sweet. “Tennis is a lifetime sport. I think it helps people to stay healthful.” 

The brand-new, vibrant green and blue courts also mean that the Boys & Girls Club now has the premiere facility on the Oregon Coast; one would have to travel to Eugene to find something comparable.

As a result, Thompson anticipates the Boys & Girls Club will now be hosting far more tournaments, which attract athletes and spectators — and their money. Case in point: Next August, the USTA will hold its juniors sectional tournament at the Coos Bay facility, which will attract athletes and spectators from five states and British Colombia over the course of two weekends.

“There’s nothing on the (Oregon) coast that even compares to this facility. Now, USTA will bring some tournaments here,” said Thompson. “This will be a major, major boon for the community.”