The Good Old Days 
To register to play USTA tennis, a Captain had to fill out a sheet with everyone's name..address...date of birth..USTA number, expiration date of USTA card and give to the MTA secretary:
1) the completed sheet
2) copy of everyone's USTA card, both sides of card 3) USTA team fee which was usually each individual players check, some bounced! 4) MTA fee which was usually each individual players check, ($15.00 a year) some bounced! 5) USTA member fee if needed.
Many times info was not complete, checks were missing, so the Captain had to go home and return when all the information was corrrect.
If you had 12 on a team, most of the time each Captain bought in 48 checks,(4 per player because they were going to 4 places) 12 copies of USTA cards, a team sheet with all the information and multiply that times teams....
Nell put all this information in her system, turned it over to the coordinator. the draw was done and mailed to the Captains.
The first Memphis Coordinators were Cookie Cooke , Mike Brannon, Paul Fultz and now Donna Hopgood
When the matches were played they had a deadline to get the score sheets to the MTA office to be recorded that week. If the info was not in the MTA office by the required date, it was not posted on the wall until the next week.
A person volunteered to keep records for each level. The volunteers went to the MTA office on a selected day each week and filled out a tally sheet, which they pinned on the wall, showing how each team did and what position they were in and the Captains came and looked at the sheets to find the info on their league. This was the only way to see the weekly results. If Nell was in the office she would let you see the score cards from the matches and this was the only way to see who played who.
For a couple of years the players had to be put on the sheet from #1 to # 18 in strength with a number beside their name so if
#1 and #8 =9 played together and #2 and #7 =9 played together #3 and #6 =9 played together
#1 and #8 = 9 had to play #1 doubles as #1 was at the top....
#2 and #7 = 9 had to play #2 doubles #3 and #6 =9 had to play #3 doubles
For those of us who went thru this process and watch it progress to what we have today, we wonder how we survived before email, AOL, text, twitter, Tennis Link! -- Bev Miller
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