Coco Gauff | Page 2 | Your Delray Boca

Lt. Bobby Keating retired after a long and distinguished career at the Delray PD.

Things we liked August

Seeing Delray’s Coco Gauff in the pages of Sports Illustrated which celebrated her becoming the youngest number one junior in the world at age 14.
The article also noted Coco’s desire to follow in Serena Williams’s footsteps and noted that both played at Delray’s Pompey Park.

Speaking of tennis..Delray Open champ Frances Tiafoe was also featured in SI as one of four future greats who may take the mantle from Federer, Nadal and company. Good to see. Tiafoe is coming back to Delray in 2019. The tournament is becoming known as the birth place of future stars.

The penne ala vodka at Domus in Boca Raton.

Happy hour at Che’

An amazing dinner at Apeiro with good friends at the Delray Marketplace.

A great article on Fifth Avenue Grill by one of my favorite writers Diane Feen in one my favorite paper the Delray Newspaper.

Catching up with my friend Yulia @ The Corner Porch.

Checking out the sea turtle hatchlings at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.

Seeing the magnificent documentary Three Identical Strangers at The Living Room Theatre.

Seeing Celsius on the shelf at Fresh Market.

Great to see Ethel Isaacs Williams | Senior Vice President, Development & Public Affairs, Kaufman Lynn Construction, in Delray Beach chosen for Leadership Florida Class 37. As a proud member of Class 24, I can speak with confidence that Ethel is in for a great experience. Congratulations.

Meeting Alex Redfearn the bright new owner of CityWalk. That was a project I was thrilled to support back in the day. It transformed a key corner in Pineapple Grove and gave us Brule’ one of my favorite spots. Alex will do great things.

Thanks to Francis and his wonderful staff at La Cigale for hosting my birthday dinner. Thanks to Kim Thomas for sharing her special birthday with me and for including me in her formal party at the wonderful Pinball Museum.

What can we say about Jimmy Christe? Just a wonderful guy, who served his nation as a Navy diver (underwater demolition expert) and quietly served his city as one half of a fundraising team with our friend Chuck Halberg. The duo rode thousands of miles together on motorcycles raising money for local charities. We lost Jimmy (far too soon) in August. But we will never lose his memory. Rest easy my friend.
We also mourn the losses of Kevin McCarty, Alan Armour and Col. Bill Condry.
Kevin served on our CRA and chaired the South Florida Water Management District board among other civic endeavors .
Alan chaired Old School Square and was instrumental in securing the funding for the pavilion we all enjoy.
Colonel Condry was a dear man. After serving his country he served his city supervising Pompey Park, mentoring key city staff and always providing stellar leadership through the years.

Congratulations on a job well done to Lt. Bobby Keating who retired after 24 years of service to our police department. Just a great officer. He will be missed.

Congrats to Jeff Goldman on his new position as Assistant City Manager after a successful stint as Delray police chief.
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Jeff since he was a very young police officer where he was generous enough to allow me to ride along when he was on the tact team which was tasked with cleaning up street level drug sales which were rampant in those days. Men and women like Jeff and Lt. Keating did much to enable Delray’s success. They deserve our thanks and gratitude.

Congratulations also to the great Patty Reed for her many years of service to our Chamber of Commerce. Patty always made you feel special and was such an integral part to making the Delray Chamber a warm and inviting organization.

Happy birthday to Pam Halberg. Another local star and lovely person. Chuck is a lucky man. And he knows it, which means he’s also a smart man.

Happy 90th birthday to Virginia Schmidt, mother of Mayor David Schmidt. We were honored to be on hand to celebrate the milestone at the Elks Club.

Last but most certainly not least, my wife Diane celebrated a birthday in August. She makes every day feel like my birthday.

A rivalry for the ages.

We saw a terrific movie last week: Borg vs. McEnroe which is On Demand.

The movie—which did little box office—has been called the first great tennis movie.

Truth is, there is a very little competition. I’m not sure there’s even a good tennis movie never mind a great one.

But Borg vs. McEnroe is really good.

The Swedish actor who plays Bjorn Borg looks eerily like him and while it takes a while to buy Shia Labeouf as Johnny Mac you quickly lose yourself in the story of Borg’s quest to win a fifth straight Wimbledon title.

He was all of 24 in 1980 but already burned out from having turned pro at 15. Bjorn’s son Leo, himself a top junior player, plays the young version of his dad. He’s terrific.

You quickly see the toll the sport has played on Bjorn’s emotional state. He’s depressed, exhausted and on the precipice of a big fall. He would leave the game at 26.

John McEnroe is the young, arrogant lion eager to topple Borg. He’s fire to Borg’s ice, although we learn that Bjorn is a lot more like McEnroe than we thought. Yes, he has a volcanic temper but he’s bottled it up and is paying a high price.

I’m writing about this wonderful era of tennis a day after the French Open finals only because there are many local ties to the legends of the game.

Bjorn Borg has played at the Delray Beach Tennis Stadium on a long defunct tour known as the Nuveen Champions. Jimmy Connors has played there as well both on the Nuveen and at the Chris Evert Pro Celebrity Classic. Guillermo Vilas, Andres Gomez, Ivan Lendl, Mat Wilander, Andy Roddick, Johan Kriek, Jim Courier, Aaron Krickstein, Serena and Venus Williams, Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi, Kei Nishikori, Juan Martin Del Potro, Jennifer Capriati, Jimmy Arias, Mardy Fish, Lindsay Davenport have all played in Delray.

And of course, John McEnroe too.

We are many things, but we are also a tennis town.

Boca has a rich heritage as well with classic matches between legends of the game at Boca West, the Boca Resort and Club and the Polo Club.

Way back in the 80s and 90s, Delray hosted the junior version of the Davis Cup at the old Laver’s Resort. The greats of the game came through here as kids staying with local families. The Sunshine and Connolly Continental Cup were great events. Those of us who love the game would watch the young players and wonder which ones would be on Centre Court at Wimbledon in a few years. It turns out it was quite a few.

Over the years, we attracted tennis players as residents, academies (Rick Macci and others) and other junior, senior, Fed Cup and Davis Cup events. The Slims and of course our ATP event.

During the French Open, it was fun to follow our “Delray players” (those who play our event every year) as they made their way through the draw.

It was really thrilling to see local junior Cori “Coco” Gauff—remember that name—win the junior title.

Coco is the granddaughter of Yvonne and Red Odom. We wrote about her grandma a few weeks ago.

Yes, Delray has a tennis heritage.

The greats of the game have played here and now perhaps the future.

Keep your eyes on Coco and check out Borg vs. McEnroe to relive tennis’ golden age.

Things We Loved In August: From Birthdays to Penne Pasta

We Are A Tennis Town